Analyse: plan voor aanslag op Olmert overviel PA

"Draaideur-criminelen" is ook in Nederland een ingeburgerde term voor mensen met een abonnement op de penitentiaire voorzieningen.

De Palestijnse Autoriteit laat verdachten van aanslagen op Israëlische doelen vaak weer zo snel vrij, dat je je afvraagt of er tussendoor wel een rechtszaak is geweest. Bij de verdachten van de geplande aanslag op Olmert was die er inderdaad niet. Ze waren per vergissing vrijgelaten, of er zou onvoldoende bewijs zijn geweest.

Je in algemene bewoordingen uiten over iemand om zeep helpen, moet ook beslist kunnen. Zo in de trant van: "Zullen we die Gordon niet beter een nekschot geven?"

Zolang ik dat schrijf zal er niets aan de hand zijn (hoop ik...), maar als de Idolskandidaten zoiets onderling gaan bediscussiëren, moet de politie misschien toch een paar taps plaatsen: die hebben een motief, en wellicht krijgen ze ook een gelegenheid... 

 

 

Wouter

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Last update - 12:43 22/10/2007   


ANALYSIS: Olmert assassination plot leaves PA caught unaware

By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/915360.html


Nobody comes out of this story looking good - not the Palestinian Authority, members of whose security forces planned to assassinate Prime Minister Ehud Olmert; not Israel, which decided Sunday to air a four-month-old affair, perhaps to score points ahead of Olmert's European tour and the Annapolis conference; not Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin, who appears to have given the cabinet a partially erroneous report. Not even the assassins themselves, who were hoping somehow to pierce the prime minister's armored car using 7.62-caliber bullets.

The plan to assassinate Olmert during a visit to Jericho last June (which was ultimately canceled) brought back to the Israeli-Palestinian discourse a forgotten term from Arafat's era: "revolving door." Israel used the term frequently in the days when it still nurtured some hope of security coordination with the Palestinians, at the time of the bus bombings in the mid-1990s, and during the first 18 months of the second intifada.

Later, when hope faded, nobody expected anything from the Palestinians in this regard. Now, when the Americans are painting PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as a partner Israel can rely on, Israel is returning to the old arguments, all of which figure in the assassination affair - involvement of Fatah men and security services in terrorism, "revolving door" and failure to bring terrorists to justice.


The PA had three of the cell's members in detention up to September 25, then released them. Why? Here the Palestinians offer contradictory versions. Palestinian intelligence claims they were released mistakenly by an unauthorized officer, and rearrested as soon as the mistake was discovered.

But officers in the Jericho region and political officials in the PA say the three were released for lack of evidence and had denied the allegations against them. Palestinian intelligence claims the trio confessed to talking "in a general manner" about targeting Olmert. None of this prevented Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad from saying Sunday, after his meeting with Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik, that the three had been released.

Fayad, who is not in charge of the security forces, apparently was not in the know at all. Why then did he speak? A senior Palestinian officer puts it down to a well-known custom among PA leaders: If you're asked a question and don't know the answer, always reply confidently. More importantly: Never say "I don't know."

The assassination itself was evidently nipped in the bud. Olmert's June visit never took place, for unrelated reasons. By the time he visited Jericho in August, the five cell members were jailed, three in the PA and two in Israel. And while the security service men had professional knowledge of the travel route and security arrangements, they did not have a plan that would put Olmert in real jeopardy (as Public Security Minister Avi Dichter conceded Sunday).

When Dichter headed the Shin Bet, he was fond of an anecdote that demonstrated the revolving-door policy: British intelligence agent Alistair Crooke was invited by the PA to Bethlehem in the fall of 2001 to debunk Israeli allegations about murderers being released. Crooke visited a Tanzim terrorist, Ataf Abiat, at the Bethlehem offices of the security services. But after his visit Crooke lurked at an observation point - and within a short while saw Abiat coming out of "detention" and continuing on his way (the wanted gunman was liquidated by the Shin Bet a few days later).

Did the PA play the "Crooke trick" on Haaretz staff on Sunday? Only a few minutes elapsed between the request to see the detainees and the jail visit - and numerous Palestinian sources confirm that two cell members were rearrested last Friday. Yet Sunday evening Israeli defense officials could not say whether and when the two had been rearrested.