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Palestinians fear impact of security accord
AVI MACHLIS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
AL-BURJ, The West Bank - From this hilltop village southwest of Hebron, Majida Talahmeh closely followed Israeli and Palestinian negotiators last week as they put the finishing touches on the Wye River Memorandum in the United States.
Like many Palestinians, Talahmeh, 27, is worried about how a new agreement on security cooperation would affect them. Her family feels that it has already paid a heavy price for Israeli security demands, even though before the latest accord was signed Oct. 23 in Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu often complained that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat maintained no security cooperation with Israel.
More than two years ago, Israel ordered the Palestinians to arrest Talahmeh's husband, Saleh, a 32-year-old computer engineer. They gave no reason, but the Palestinians swiftly obliged. Saleh Talahmeh was never allowed to see a lawyer or put on trial. He remains in prison today - in a Jericho facility once run by the Israeli army.
Majida Talahmeh, a mother of four dressed in a traditional white head scarf, admits her husband is a sympathizer of Hamas, the Islamic movement whose military wing has killed scores of Israelis in recent years in an effort to destroy the peace process. But she claims he was never involved in attacks on Israelis, and she cannot understand how his imprisonment improves Israeli security.
"Israel didn't allow Arafat to enter Palestine until he promised to satisfy all their demands," she says, echoing a popular Palestinian gripe about the peace process. A provision of the Wye agreement calling on Israel to release 750 imprisoned Palestinians offers her little hope. "Arafat might then agree to arrest those who were released," she says cynically.
Some experts predict future tough action by the Palestinian Authority could backfire by fueling frustration with Arafat and boosting support for Hamas, the very group Israel hopes to see undermined by the new accord. Immediately after the Wye agreement was signed, Palestinian police launched a series of measures against Islamic groups, though not all appeared to directly improve Israeli security.
And in an ominous sign of possible Palestinian infighting to come, Palestinian police raided an office of Fatah, Arafat's own political movement, in a search for documents and illegal weapons. The raid sparked a clash Sunday, Oct. 25, between Palestinian security forces and Fatah activists in which one Palestinian teen-ager died after being shot twice in the head. Fatah leaders are now demanding that those responsible for the shooting be executed.
Many Palestinians see the new crackdown as a continuation of Arafat's thuggish policies since his arrival in the Palestinian areas in 1994.
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