One must assume this defect was brought to the knowledge of the politicians who had decided to arm the Palestinians with these rifles but they decided "Never mind; it will be O.K." Colonel Gal Hirsch, commander of the Binyamin brigade, recently roared with laughter when he was asked about ballistic examination of the Palestinian bullets which were fired at Israeli forces in the recent turmoil. He explained that one cannot carry out this kind of examination for thousands of bullets. On the other hand the Kalachnikov used to shoot at the bus on French Hill in Jerusalem was identified with absolute certainty: it appears on the official list of weapons with which Israel armed the forces of the Palestinian Authority.

Three months after the Palestinian Authority entered Gaza in 1994, the PA police force turned its arms on the Israel Defense Forces for the first time. The battle took place at the Erez crossing, lasted for some hours, and resulted in the death of an Israeli soldier. The government explained that the Palestinian police had not yet become accustomed to the new rules and the Israeli public promptly forgot this serious event. Indeed, the Palestinian police never adjusted to the rules which Israel assigned them, despite which Israel steadily increased the weapons in their hands.

The Palestinians have increased their weaponry through two major channels: direct supply by Israel and smuggling. The Palestinians issued requests, five or six times a year, for more ammunition stores. All these requests -- every single one of them -- received a positive response. As of 1996, the Palestinians had stockpiled a million and a half rifle bullets, out of which one million were 7.26 millimeter caliber (for Kalachnikovs) and 400,000 were 9 millimeter caliber appropriate for pistols and Uzi submachine guns and 100,000 bullets of 5.26 millimeter for the M-16 and the Galil assault rifles. Like the rifles, the bullets were not directly supplied from the stores of the Israel Defense Forces but were acquired by the Palestinians by purchase abroad and were acquired with Israeli consent and supervision. Only after two and a half years, with the change to a Likud-led government, was this flood stopped by the officer in charge, who observed: "The quantities are completely irrational and the principle on my watch is 'The less they have, the healthier it is.'"

As for the PA's second method of arming itself, the information system of the Israel Defense Forces followed the endless smuggling of weapons into the autonomy area. They got in by land, sea, and air. As a result, the Palestinian police was strengthened militarily, and was transformed from a police force to a regular guerilla army. Israeli military intelligence officers saw this and commented on it but none pounded the table....

The Israeli underworld served as another source of weapons for the Palestinians. Israeli criminals sold their Arab partners significant numbers of Uzi and Galil submachine guns. This is probably the reason why these weapons are found so abundantly on the shoulders of Palestinian warriors. Other types of prohibited weapons were the Karl Gustav and the M-1, which is a sharpshooter's gun. How many weapons have the Palestinians assembled in the past seven years? The Israeli army knows how many MIGs Syria has, but research for this article has shown that military intelligence has not the faintest idea how many Kalachnikovs are in the hands of Yasser Arafat. "Tens of thousands more than were agreed upon" said an IDF spokesman. "How many tens of thousands?" "I don't know. Maybe thirty thousand. Maybe more." The main indication for these enormous numbers of weapons is that in the "autonomous areas" one can obtain weapons of all kinds for ridiculously low prices. The fact the prices are so low means the market is flooded.

The Palestinian police force was transformed into an army.

What is clear to all is that the Palestinians have increased the variety of their weapons. Recently Bamachane, the official army publication, reported that the PA has tanks and anti-aircraft missiles which are a serious danger to Israel's helicopters. The PA also has anti-tank weapons and mines, hand grenades, and explosives of different types.

In the fall of 1995, at the height of the smuggling era, the Palestinians obtained still more help from an unexpected source -- Israel. The Israeli leadership knew well from intelligence reports that the Palestinians were arming themselves from their own resources. In spite of this Israel gave them a gift -- 8,000 new weapons. And there was an additional Israeli gift -- a tripling of the size of the Palestinian "police" to 30,000 men, all of this to accompany the signing of Oslo II. According to this agreement, 4,000 new "policemen" would be allowed in the cities of Judea and Samaria armed with Kalachnikovs and M-16s (duly marked by Israel of course). Four thousand additional policemen received Beretta pistols and to this were added 120 machine guns. Even so, it reached the point where there were 15,000 more policemen than officially permitted weapons in the hands of the Palestinian Authority. There was no escaping the conclusion that Rabin, Peres & Co. were aware of the fact this large force was not going to carry out its undertakings with nightsticks.

One of the army officers who was opposed to what was going on at the time, but is not yet completely free to speak, said that the government's closing of its eyes to the extent of Palestinian armament is symptom-

February 2001               - 5 -               Outpost