Hermit: Sometimes, only the Author can explain it. This is one of those times. The last section is particularly poignant.
Collaborators in the Occupied Territories: Human Rights Abuses and Violations: An Interview with Dr. Saleh Adbul Jawad
Source: Birzeit University (http://www.birzeit.edu/crdps/inter.html)
Collaborators in The Occupied Territories: Human Rights Abuses and Violations was one of the first and most extensive documents to deal comprehensively with the complex and multifaceted issues of collaboration in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. While it was published by B'TSELEM, Dr. Saleh Abdel Jawad, the Director of the Center for Research & Documentation of Palestinian Society, along with Yizhar Be'er were its main researchers and writers. While its publication coincided with Oslo, it was impossible to predict how the phenomenon of collaboration would fare in the post-Oslo period. The following interview with Dr. Saleh Abdel Jawad clarifies this issue as well as provides insight into Dr. Jawad's more personal feelings towards his role in the unprecedented research of a very controversial and sensitive subject.
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[*]How did you become involved in researching such a controversial issue and when and how were you approached by B'TSELEM to become one of their main researchers? Finally, were you at all reluctant to accept such a position?
I was interested in this question just as many other Palestinians are and always have been. Since 1963 the whole phenomenon of collaboration became a very prominent and impressive one within our society and it was then that I took an active role in inquiring about the subject. My interest was of course hightened by my frequent personal exposure to the issue of collaboration and its insidious effect on our society. I started collecting occasional data on the issue in the early 80's and then more seriously after the Intifadah erupted. It was then that I really started thinking of doing a book on the subject. I naturally approached various Palestinian individuals and centers with the idea, but many were either intimidated or reluctant to sponsor work on such a subject. I approached Feisal Husseini at the Arab Studies Association, yet received no response. Later I approached Ibrahim Qurien from the Palestinian Press Center, and he was very reluctant. Finally I approached al-Haq--more than once, with two proposal
s--but they too were extremely reluctant to be involved with such research.
After all this B'TSELEM heard that I was working on the subject and approached me to be only a counselor for the project. They already had an Israeli scholar working with them. Yet, this scholar was missing three crucial elements in his overall analysis of the issue and those were: the violation of the human rights by the collaborators themselves, how the Occupation perpetuated this phenomenon, and finally how the entire system of Israeli Occupation was designed to create and recruit never ending legions of various types of collaborators. These were three absolutely critical elements in this subject that I insisted be a part of the study if I were going to be on the project. The Israeli scholar accepted the first condition but refused to entertain the last two and for these as well as other reasons, he finally left the project. It was then that I became the main researcher for the subject. In 1993 after becoming director of the Center, I became extremely busy with other projects, so Yizhar Be'er entered the
project as a second researcher.
What was your final objective with this project and how did you as a Palestinian Political Scientist who has lived amongst this phenomenon approach the subject differently than Israeli researchers at B'TSELEM?
I wanted to understand this insidious phenomenon that during the Intifadah alone claimed more than 900 lives, by understanding the socio-political and economic reasons that have always fueled this. The killing of collaborators or being a collaborator were two ugly aspects of the Palestinian society, our evil face if you will, that was used by Israeli propaganda to present us as savages butchering one another whenever we have the chance. It was important that a Palestinian scholar demystify this issue and give a comprehensive analysis of the subject and I'm sure that those who read this report will walk away with a better appreciation and understanding of the complexity and sensitivity of the issue.
[*]Why do you think that other Palestinian individuals and centers rejected the idea?
Like I said it is obviously a very sensitive issue and unfortunately many of them didn't understand how the killing of collaborators created an air of ubiquitous fear and Orwellian intimidation amongst our people. In fact, it was these factors that perpetuated such a pervasive silence on the subject. Many of the people who were killing collaborators could be seen as "serial killers," in the sense that they would kill multiple times and that they were often responsible for creating a climate of fear and terror within the Palestinian society. The irony was that in many cases those most zealous inflicters of punishment against collaborators were collaborators themselves.
The phenomenon of collaboration seems to be one solely indicative of the Intifadah and that time period, what would you say of collaboration in the Post-Oslo period, and what of its enormous influence that still resonates in Palestinian society?
The phenomenon continues, but after the establishment of the National Authority, many of the well known collaborators fled to live with the Israelis. The Palestinian Authority is also obliged by agreement not to arrest, harm or interrogate any suspected collaborator. Despite this fact, two people were killed near Hebron recently for suspected collaboration by members of a Fatah cell that was obviously operating on its own commands. The fact is, the stigma and aftermath of collaboration will be with us for a very long time.
[*]Right-wing Zionist propaganda has for years portrayed Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular as an inherently violent and bloodthirsty people, and after reading some portions of this publication--particularly Punishment of Collaborators--one begins to wonder if this is true. How would you respond to a statement that says your work as a Palestinian scholar helped to legitimize a right-wing Zionist myth?
First of all, it is absolutely imperative that anyone reading this work does so in context. Since the beginning of this program I stressed with B'TSELEM that this report not be presented as a random list of human right abuses of Palestinians against collaborators, but that the whole phenomenon of collaboration and how its is perpetuated, maintained and exploited be thoroughly examined. Secondly as far as the accusations of being inherently violent, once again people need to understand the context in which such violence occurred. Occupation is a violent state of being, and the Israelis became masters of employing and creating tactics that would stir civil strife, cause hatred and animosity, and occasionally erupt in violence.
Collaborators are perceived by the people as the worst and most dangerous type of enemy, and in many case the people's loathing for them was completely understandable. Yet throughout the Intifadah, the Israeli authorities attempted to blur the lines between who was a collaborator and who was a patriot, who was truly religious and who was merely presenting himself as a religious Muslim in order to extract information from other activists. The goal was to instill a sense of pervasive doubt and confusion amongst the people, and in this environment, many innocent people were either killed or tortured as suspected collaborators. In fact, in many cases some of the more ghastly deaths and acts of torture were done by collaborators themselves posing as nationalists attempting to extract confessions from other collaborators.
Lastly my reasons for working on this publication were to demystify, examine and try to understand a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that attempted to unearth the very foundation of Palestinian society. Now if someone tries to use this as a basis for perpetuating Israeli myths about the inherent nature of Palestinian violence, or to hypothesize about any other convoluted point, there's not much I can do. Yet, I should add that this Zionist concept of Palestinians being inherently violent is part and parcel of the colonial legacy of Zionism, which like many other colonial idealogies presented all non-Europeans as inherently primitive, violent, backwards and all the rest. The fact is that every revolutionary or political movement throughout history has had a very violent record of dealing with this issue. Even the Jews during their "War of Independence" massacred numbers of other Jews for being suspected of somehow working with British forces. The French Revolution gave way to the Reign of Terror that viol
ently claimed thousands of lives, yet no one talks or talked about the inherent violence of Frenchmen or Jews.
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=26004>
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