From: hernlem@chess.ncsu.EDU (Brad Hernlem)
Subject: Death Squads in Occupied Territories
Reply-To: hernlem@chess.ncsu.EDU (Brad Hernlem)
Organization: North Carolina State University
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 17:43:15 GMT


The following is an editorial from the Arab News (March 29, 1992):

Faisal Husseini, one of the main advisers to the Palestinian delegation
to the Middle East peace talks, claims that 18 Palestinians have been
summarily executed in the occupied territories in the past three months
by the police and by Shin Bet, the Israeli security organization. Six of
them were executed in the last week. Moreover, according to Husseini,
these are not random killings. The murdered Palestinians were
deliberately targeted. They were young intifada activists on an Israeli
hit list. Most, he says, were shot "trying to escape", others were taken
by the Israelis and then shot secretly.

Such claims are not new. Nor is it difficult to believe them -- the
Israeli military makes little attempt to disguise its hate of
Palestinians. Israeli propaganda has constantly portrayed them as
subhuman. They are denied almost all their human rights. It is a short
step from there to treat them as subhuman and deny them the final human
right -- life itself. Moreover, the experience of military oppresion
worldwide this century is firmly linked to death squads. Nazi Germany,
Stalinist Russia, and fascist Italy and Spain had their death squads.
More recently, during the dictatorships of the 1970s Chile and Argentina
experienced them.  They have plagued El Salvador and are known to be
active in Brazil, murdering the street children of Sao Paulo. The
question is not so much "Do they exist in the occupied territories?" as
"Why shouldn't they exist there?"

The problem with death squads is that it is extremely difficult to prove
their existence. There is widespread circumstantial evidence that
killings are happening on the streets of Brazil, but it is next to
impossible to prove, especially when the death squads come from within
the establishment, even though that establishment firmly and actively
opposes such killings, as the Brazilian government most certainly does.
But when the establishment itself actively pursues a policy of
physically eliminating its opponents, as the Israeli government is
doing, it is to all intents and purposes impossible to find any proof.
The politicians, the police, the army and Shin Bet close ranks to make
sure that the evidence is not available.

But that does not mean that an attempt should not be made to find out
what is going on. Serious allegations have been made -- and there is
strong circumstantial evidence to support them. Too many young
Palestinians have been arrested and within hours their families are told
that they are dead.

The United Nations already believes that the Israelis used death squads
against their opponents in Lebanon in the early 1980s. They are the only
competent body which can investigate these particular claims -- and
should do so.  The Israelis, of course, are hardly likely to cooperate
in any such investigation, but the mere threat of one may go some way in
stopping the murderous activities of the squads.

As for the counterallegations that those who have been murdered were
themselves killers, responsible for the deaths of the 462 Palestinians
shot for alleged collaboration with the Israelis, it is tantamount to an
admission that the squads exist. But that is not the important point.
The fact is that these intifada activists were alive when they were
captured. If there have been summary executions, as it appears almost
certain, it proves the lie that Israeli society is one based on justice
and human rights.

That needs to be demonstrated in the court of world opinion.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast