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October 6, 2000/7 Tishri 5761, Vol. 53, No.2
Deteriorating trust possibly destroyed in riots
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
In less than a week, whatever was left of the mutual trust between Israelis and Palestinians appeared to come tumbling down.
Except for the loss of life, this loss of trust is among the greatest casualties of the past week of bloody rioting.
And when a Palestinian police officer opened fire on his Israeli colleagues in a joint border patrol last week, one of the most important symbols of that trust was also shattered.
The Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported that Sept. 29, a few hours before the deadly riots began, a Palestinian Authority police officer shot and killed Israeli border guard Yossi Tabjeh, 27.
As a result, the joint Palestinian-Israeli patrols no longer function.
And when senior Israeli and Palestinian commanders met in the Gaza Strip Oct. 3 to try to work out a cease-fire agreement, they had reached a certain understanding, but continued to regard each other with suspicion.
Only a few hours after the two sides shook hands, the Palestinians accused the Israelis of not keeping their word and retracted their promises to end the trouble.
In Israel proper, Arab policemen serving in northern Israeli police units surprised their Jewish partners, saying they could not confront Arab demonstrators and preferred to stay in their bases while the violence was going on.
"Fifty years of trust went down the drain in two days of violence," said Erez Kreisler, the mayor of the council of the Misgav region, which borders a number of Arab villages in northern Israel.
Although hundreds of Arab youths took to the streets in the worst violence since 1948, hundreds of thousands remained at home, waiting for the trouble to end.
As for the Palestinian Authority and its police forces, this was not the first time the trust was shattered.
It began with disturbances at an archaeological tunnel in Jerusalem in 1996, when Palestinian police officers opened fire on Israeli officers.
But the incident with the joint patrols is sure to do serious damage, raising serious questions whether Israeli and Palestinians can share security arrangements in the future.
Lt. Roi Nahmias, who served in Hebron, one of the most fragile points in the 10 regions where joint Palestinian and Israeli patrols operate, said the Palestinians don't like the image of Israeli police jeeps deep inside Palestinian territory.
The problem of trust extends to the political arena - and knowing who's calling the shots for the Palestinians, say some Israeli officials.
"We have a strong problem of trust," said Meretz Knesset member Avshalom Vilan, "partly because the Palestinians do not talk in one voice."
That was evident in this week's riots.
They were instigated, to a large extent, by the Tanzim, a local body of Fatah, which is the military wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The Tanzim represent the younger guard of the Fatah. Its members aspire to operate independently, but in practice would not dare to act contrary to the specific instructions of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.
Thus, the Israelis found themselves in a complex situation: They were facing Arafat, whom they did not trust, and they were facing the Tanzim, whom Arafat could not trust.
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