Haaretz Correspondent
September 28, 2004
In the Mideast hierarchy
of hatred, the collaborator occupies a place of particular, perhaps
ultimate, dishonor.
In a region where ancient tribal ties have
flourished amid satellite television and the World Wide Web, the
commandment of denying one's enemy aid and comfort bears primal
weight.
Collaborating with Israel has often been called the most
serious crime a Palestinian can commit, especially in the considerable
number of cases in which a militant commander has been assassinated after
his betrayal by a family member blackmailed or bought by Israeli
intelligence agents.
Thus it is, that the sentence for many a
Palestinian suspected of collaboration has been public humiliation
followed by public execution, formally and personally approved by Yasser
Arafat.
And thus it was this week, that when Iz a Din al-Sheikh
Khalil's white SUV exploded into flame and smoke a few meters from his
Damascus home, killing the senior Hamas official, the suspicions of one of
Khalil's colleagues turned to treachery.
Israel, widely suspected
of responsibility, has neither officially admitted the act nor made
strenuous efforts at denial.
Two days before the Sunday blast, the
London-based Al-Hayat daily reported that an Arab state had supplied
Israel with highly detailed intelligence on Hamas leaders living in
Damascus, Beirut, Tehran and Khartoum.
According to the paper, the
intelligence service of the unnamed Arab country passed on the information
response to a request by Mossad chief Meir Dagan. Dagan's appeal came in
the wake of a Hamas suicide bus bombing that left 16 dead in Be'er Sheva
last month.
The intelligence reportedly included personal data -
down to supper preferences - covering a number of the officials at the top
of Israel's most-wanted lists, headed by the ranking "diaspora" Hamas
figure Khaled Mashal, his deputy Moussa Abu Marzouk, and others.
"We were not convinced initially," said Osama Hamdan, Hamas chief
in Lebanon, of the accuracy of the Al Hayat account. If true, he said,
"This would be treason for an Arab security apparatus to be involved in
this."
However, he continued, the Sunday assassination had
prompted Hamas to view the report in a new light.
"Now, because of
what happened yesterday or through other information, there are
indications that this may be case," Hamdan said.
Give and take
between Israel and Arab intelligence
Haaretz commentator Yossi
Melman, an authority on international intelligence, dismisses the Al-Hayat
report as likely false. But he notes that cooperation between Israeli
secret services and its Arab opposite numbers does exist.
"It is
reasonable to believe that there is certain cooperation between Israel and
some Arab intelligence bodies, above all Jordan, which is not a secret,
Egypt to a very limited degree, Morocco and Tunisia to a small extent, and
the United Arab Emirates," Melman says.
The contacts between
Israeli and Arab intelligence agencies are largely based on encounters at
the "diplomatic-intelligence level," Melman says. "Once you have these
sorts of relations, they are based on give-and-take, one back scratching
the other."
As for what Israel can offer the Arab countries, Melman
notes that in the past, the Jewish state helped Arab regimes with
intelligence on planned assassination attempts against their rulers,
dissidents, and terrorist plots
"Israel, for example, several times
warned King Hussein of attempts on his life. In 1961, Israel provided
[French leader Charles] de Gaulle of a plot on his life by the OSS, the
French 'mitnahalim' [settlers] in Algeria."
The Al-Hayat report
appears to be another matter, he concludes. "I don't buy the story. I see
it as part of psychological warfare, that someone planted the story in
order to create havoc, and a 'divide and rule' atmosphere."
Asked
if the information detailed in the report might have been planted by
Israel, Melman replies, "Could be."