RAMALLAH: A former Palestinian intelligence chief and the head of the WestBank bar association are suing the Palestinian self-rule government after apurported whistleblower alleged the two were targeted, along with manyother allies and rivals of President Mahmoud Abbas, in a large-scaleCIA-backed wiretapping operation.
Allegations of continued intelligence-sharing with the United States couldprove embarrassing for Abbas who has been on a political collision coursewith Washington since President Donald Trump’s recognition in December ofcontested city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The claims are contained in a 37-page anonymous document that was beenshared widely among Palestinians, mostly on WhatsApp. The document allegesthat three of the Palestinian security services set up a joint electronicsurveillance unit in mid-2014 and monitored the phone calls of thousands ofPalestinians, from senior figures in militant groups to judges, lawyers,civic leaders and political allies of Abbas.
The author describes himself as a former member of the surveillance unitwho quit “this dirty job” several months ago because of his growingopposition to Palestinian government practices, includingintelligence-sharing with the United States. He wrote that Trump’s policyshift on Jerusalem provided another impetus to go public.
Bar association head Jawad Obeidat told The Associated Press on Monday thattranscripts of his phone conversations, as published in the document, wereaccurate.
“I made these phone calls and this is evidence that the leaked report istrue,” said Obeidat, who spearheaded recent protests by lawyers after oneof them was arrested from a court room during a legal case against thegovernment.
“This is a blatant violation of human rights,” he said.
Tawfiq Tirawi, an outspoken Abbas critic and West Bank intelligence chieffrom 1994 to 2008, said he checked with his contacts and believes thedocument is authentic.
The CIA declined comment.
In mid-January, when the document first surfaced, Palestinian securityservices said in a joint statement that it was part of a “plot” seeking toharm the political and security establishments.
Adnan Damiri, the spokesman of the security services, dismissed thedocument Monday as “nonsense.”
The allegations come at a low point in Palestinian relations with theUnited States, following Trump’s policy pivot on Jerusalem, whoseIsraeli-annexed eastern sector the Palestinians seek as a future capital.
Abbas said at the time that he was suspending contacts with U.S. officialsdealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The U.S. shift on Jerusalemangered many Palestinians, and in this context, allegations of continuedintelligence-sharing with the U.S. could pose a domestic political problemfor Abbas.
The 82-year-old has also faced pushback from critics who say his rule hasbecome increasingly authoritarian.
Elected in 2005, Abbas has ruled by decree since 2007, when the Islamicmilitant Hamas overran Gaza, leaving him with autonomous enclaves in theIsraeli-occupied West Bank. The territorial split and deep animositybetween the Abbas- and Hamas-led camps paralyzed political institutions,including parliament, and prevented new elections.
Last week, Tirawi and Obeidat filed a complaint over the allegedwire-tapping against the Palestinian self-rule government, calling for acriminal investigation. The lawsuit asked that those who ordered themonitoring of their phones be punished and demanded an end to allwiretapping as a violation of privacy.
Attorney General Ahmed Barrak confirmed that he received the complaint, butdeclined further comment.
Separately, the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq demanded aninvestigation of the extent of the wiretapping and an explanation from thegovernment. The head of Al-Haq, Shahwan Jabareen, said he has not receiveda response from the attorney general or the office of Prime Minister RamiHamdallah.
Jabareen said an investigation must determine if the wiretapping wentbeyond monitoring militants who pose an immediate security threat. If thebar association was targeted, he said, the government might also be spyingon other civil society organizations and ordinary people.
“We are not against security, but it has to be legal,” he said.
The document alleged that thousands of phones are being monitored withoutlegal authorization, including those of leaders and senior operatives inHamas, the militant group Islamic Jihad and other factions.
Others being monitored include members of Abbas’ inner circle, such as theNo. 2 in his Fatah movement and members of the decision-making body of thePalestine Liberation Organization, the document said. Abbas rivals are alsoon the list, including the family of imprisoned uprising leader MarwanBarghouti and supporters of Abbas’ former top aide-turned-nemesis, theexiled Mohammed Dahlan, according to the document.
It said that in 2013, the then-head of the Palestinian Preventive SecurityService asked the CIA for help with wiretapping and that the CIA agreed, inexchange for oversight.
The document said the equipment was provided by ISS World, a company basedin Virginia.
Jerry Lucas, the president of the ISS World parent company, TeleStrategies,declined comment when contacted by email Monday by The Associated Press.
The document said members of the Palestinian surveillance unit were trainedon the new equipment on the sidelines of an ISS World conference in Dubai.
The document included a copy of an invitation letter purportedly issued byTeleStrategies to two senior Palestinian security officers to attend an”ISS World Middle East Intelligence Support Systems Conference” at theDubai Marriott from March 3-5, 2014.
The date and venue of the conference in the invitation match those on theISS website.
Palestinian security officials acknowledged in the past, in privateconservations, that they were engaged in domestic phone monitoring andother types of surveillance, going back to the 1990s.
However, the latest allegations, if confirmed, suggest spying has becomemore sophisticated and broader in scope. – Agencies