Human rights dilemmas in using informers to combat terrorism: The Israeli-Palestinian case

Terrorism and Political Violence

Volumn 17, Issue 1-2, 2005, Pages 229-243

  Cohen, Hillel ^a   Dudai, Ron ^b,c  

^a HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM   (Israel)

^b School of Oriental and Asian Studies   (United Kingdom)

^c UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 32144453540     PISSN: 09546553     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09546550490520709     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. See House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Report of the Joint Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (2003). The report stated that: 'Prior to September 11, 2001, the Intelligence Community did not effectively develop and use human sources to penetrate the Al-Qaeda inner circle. This lack of reliable and knowledgeable human sources significantly limited the Community's ability to acquire intelligence that could be acted upon before the September 11 attacks' (p.93).
2. As such, they are distinguished from 'undercover' law enforcement agents.
3. Quoted in Gary T. Marx, 'Thoughts on a Neglected Category of Social Movement Participants: The Agent Provocateur and the Informant', American Journal of Sociology 80/2 (September, 1974) p.402.
4. Steven Greer, Supergrasses: A Study in Anti-Terrorist Law Enforcement in Northern Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1995) pp. 1-26.
5. For other theoretical definitions see Justice, Madeleine Colvin, Under Surveillance: Covert Policing and Human Rights Standards (London: 1998) p.41;
6. and Daniel Nsereko, 'Police Informers and Agents Provocateurs: Accomplices or Handmaidens of the Law?', Criminal Law Forum 9 (1999) p.151.
7. For example, the new Israeli General Security Service (Shabak) Act 2002 does not refer to informers and the legal questions related to their recruitment and handling at all. The internal regulations are classified.
8. Abraham McLaughlin, 'A Matter of Ethics for the Cloak and Dagger Set', Christian Science Monitor 5 Oct. 2001.
9. Shlomo Gazit, The Stick and the Carrot: The Israeli Administration in Judea and Samaria (Tel Aviv: Zonora-Bitan, 1985) pp.282-84.
10. David Ronen, The Year of the Shabak: Deployment in Judea and Samaria - The First Year (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Press, 1989);
11. Yaakov Pery, Strike First (Tel Aviv: 1999).
12. The informers were the cornerstones of the Israeli control system in the territories, but there were other types of collaboration, such as land selling, which enabled Jewish settlement (and spatial control); political collaboration whose goal was to weaken the mainstream national movement; and distributing pro-Israeli propaganda; for the origins of these categories in the 1917-48 period see Hillel Cohen, An Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaborators in the Service of Zionism (Jerusalem: Ivrit, 2004) [in Hebrew].
13. Salim Tamari, 'In League with Zion: Israel's Search for a Native Pillar', in N. Aruri (ed), Occupation: Israel over Palestine (London: Zed Books, 1984) pp.377-90.
14. Salim Tamari, 'Eyeless in Judea: Israel's Strategy of Collaborators and Forgeries', Middle East Report 164/165 (May-August 1990) pp.39-45.
15. For a detailed analysis of the emergence of Hamas see Ali Jirbawi, The Intifada and Political Leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Beirut: al-Tali'ah 1989) pp. 102-30.
16. See, for example, Edward Said, ' The End of Oslo', The Nation 30 Oct. 2000.
17. For ethical questions in using informers in a counter-crime context, see Paul Cooper and Jon Murphy, 'Ethical Approaches for Police Officers When Working with Informants in the Development of Criminal Intelligence in the United Kingdom', Journal of Social Policy 26/1 (January 1997) pp. 1-20;
18. Colin Dunnighan and Clive Norris, The Detective, the Snout, and the Audit Commission: The Real Costs in Using Informants', The Howard Journal 38/1 (February 1999) pp.67-86.
19. As is well known, the Israeli Shabak used such an agent in the radical right wing in Israel (named Avishay Raviv) who was later prosecuted for not informing the Shabak of the plans to assassinate Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin. On the question in other contexts see Greer (note 4) and Nsereko (note 4).
20. See Greer (note 4); P. Taylor, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fein (London: Bloomsbury 1998) pp.254-65.
21. Pery (note 8) p.259.
22. Yizhar Be'er and Saleh Abdel-Jawad, Collaborators in the Occupied Territories: Human Rights Abuses and Violations (B'Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Jerusalem, 1994) pp.35-6.
23. Yizhar Be'er and Saleh Abdel-Jawad, Collaborators in the Occupied Territories: Human Rights Abuses and Violations, Ibid. (1994) pp.35-6.
24. and see there for other examples of recruitment using this practice. See also Gershom Gorenberg, 'The Collaborator', New York Times 18 Aug. 2002;
25. and Yehezkel Lein, Forbidden Roads: The Discriminatory West Bank Road Regime (Jerusalem: B'Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 2004) p.33.
26. This information comes from firsthand knowledge. A family member of N.'s asked Hillel Cohen to help N., and was subsequently put in touch with a human rights organisation that successfully handled the issue. Another case of making medical treatment conditional on collaboration is mentioned in Be'er and Abdel Jawad (note 18).
27. For example, see the claims by Saleh Abdul Jawad, a prominent Palestinian scholar on informers; see Catherine Taylor, 'How Israel Builds Its Fifth Column', Christian Science Monitor 22 May 2002.
28. Megido Military Court, Files AMM 793/98 and 392/98, Ahed Abu Sbeih v. The IDF Commander in the West Bank.
29. A number of released detainees told one of the authors that they were not interrogated during their detention but were made the offer to become collaborators.
30. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, 1949.
31. http://www.icrc.org
32. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 8 (2)(b)(xv), 1998. For commentary see Auto Triffterer, Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: Observers Notes, Article by Article (Baden Baden: Nomos Verlges 1999) pp.235-7.
33. Israel's position has been widely contested by other governments and experts. See, generally, B'Tselem, Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories as a Violation of Human Rights, Legal and Conceptual Aspects (Jerusalem: Yuval Ginbar, 1997) pp.4-9.
34. It should be noted that offering rewards-or bribes-in exchange for information (such as the price on the heads of Udai and Qussai Hussein that apparently led to information about their whereabouts) could be a legitimate exercise.
35. Al-Quds 18 July 1995;
36. based on an article published earlier that month in Al-Sharq alAwsat.
37. In his memoirs, Pery, the former head of the Shabak, recounts the case of a high school student he recruited who was later murdered by Palestinians, see Pery (note 8) p. 52. It is worth noting that many high school students are active in violent political activity, hence the desire of the Shabak to recruit informers in schools.
38. Triffterer (note 26) p.261.
39. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 8 (2)(b)(xxvi), 1998. A similar prohibition appears in The First Optional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, (1977) Article 77. While Israel has not ratified the ICC statute nor the protocol, this prohibition has reached the status of international customary law, and is therefore binding on all states.
40. Triffterer (note 26) p.262.
41. Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, 2000.
42. For the use of minors in counter-crime activities, see Justice (note 4) pp.42-3.
43. See the July 2002 report of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security 'Counterterrorism Intelligence Capabilities and Performance Prior to 9-11' (Washington, DC 2002) p.99.
44. B'Tselem, (note 17) p.37-9.
45. See information by B'Tselem, at http://www.btselem.org/english/ Collaboration.Suspects/index.asp
46. Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 1984. See also Steven Ratner and Jason Abrams, Accountability for Human Rights Atrocities in International Law: Beyond the Nuremberg Legacy (Oxford: OUP 2001) pp. 117-9.
47. Ilias Bantekas, 'The Contemporary Law of Superior Responsibility', American Journal of International Law 93/3 (July 1999) pp.573-95.
48. Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Privacy and Human Rights Survey Report, http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/phr2002
49. Haaretz 8 Dec. 2000;
50. Al-Ayam 14 Jan. 2001.
51. 'Alan Bani Odeh was among the first sentenced to death and executed, see the Palestinian daily Al-Ayam 14 Jan. 2001.
52. Dozens of suspected collaborators were killed by militants with no judicial process during the intifada. See Associated Press (AP) report, 'Suspected collaborator executed in public square', http://www.smh.com.au/ articles/2003/05/19/1053196527247.html.
53. The same article reports on an execution that took place in a public square in Nablus and on the responses of the members of the public. On treatment of collaborators by the Palestinian Authority before the Al-Aqsa intifada see The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, Human Rights and Legal Position of Palestinian 'Collaborators' (Jerusalem:2001), http://www.phrmg.org/ monitor2001/jul2001.htm.
54. Regarding their treatment during the intifada see Human Rights Watch, Justice Undermined: Balancing Security and Human Rights in the Palestinian Justice System (Washington DC: 2001) pp.22-5, 37.
55. Dozens of collaborators applied to the Israeli Supreme Court of Justice asking to receive compensation for their services, mainly Israeli identity cards. See, for example, the petition of Unnamed and Others v. The Prime Minister and Others, 1972/97; Abraghit v. The Government of Israel 9007/96.
56. Baruch Kara, 'Jailed for Seven Years in an Enemy Country; The State: They Are Only Collaborators, Ha'aretz 27 Dec. 2001.
57. Moshe Reinfeld, 'The Court: No Compensation for Collaborators whose Family Member was Murdered as Suspected Collaborator', Ha'aretz 9 June 1998.
58. This still relates only to the tactical sphere, without touching on the more strategic solution, political settlement, as the best way to reduce terror.
59. For studies on the influence of life under surveillance on the citizens of the USSR see Merle Feinsod, 'Controls and Tensions in the Soviet Union', The American Political Science Review 44/2 (June 1950) pp.266-82;
60. Paul Hollander, 'Research on Marxist Societies: The Relationship between Theory and Practice', Annual Review of Sociology 8 (1982) pp.319-51;
61. Donna Bahry and Brian Silver, 'Intimidation and the Symbolic Uses of Terror in the USSR', The American Political Science Review 81/4 (December 1987) pp. 1065-98;
62. Louise Shelley, Policing Soviet Society: The Evolution of State Control (London: Routledge, 1996).
63. Pery (note 8) p.254.
64. See Hillel Cohen, 'The Palestinian "Treason Discourse" during the Oslo Period (1993-2000) and the Failure of the Palestinian-Israeli Security Coordination', (forthcoming).
65. For example, see Human Rights Watch, In the Name of Counter-Terrorism: Human Rights Abuses Worldwide, http://www.hrw.org/un/chr59/counter-terrorism- bck.htm;
66. Liberty, Anti-Terrorism Legislation in the United Kingdom (London: 2002).