Appeal Is Made to Bush To Save Arab Accused of Helping Israel

Famed Refusenik Issues a Call To Save an Arab
By Eli Lake Staff Reporter of the New York Sun, May 5, 2008
www2.nysun.com/article/75781

WASHINGTON - A Palestinian Authority police officer accused of helping
Israel with counterterrorism is facing death at the hands of a firing line
unless a last-minute appeal to President Bush can save him.

The cause of the police officer, Imad Sa'ad, is being championed by a woman
who became famous as a political prisoner in the Soviet Union before she
moved to Israel in 1987, Ida Nudel. It comes as Secretary of State Rice this
weekend arrived in Israel for another round of diplomacy aimed at creating
an independent Palestinian Arab state before the end of the Bush presidency.

The case raises questions about the intentions of Prime Minister Abbas's
Fatah government in the West Bank. Mr. Sa'ad, a former member of the
Palestinian Authority's national security forces, is accused of providing
the Israel Defense Forces with the whereabouts of four accused Palestinian
terrorists Mr. Abbas's regime was unwilling to hand over to the Israelis. In
a court in Hebron he was convicted of being a collaborator. But cooperation
between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on counterterrorism is a
precondition under agreements for the relinquishment of land for a
Palestinian Arab state. What's more, the sentence against Mr. Sa'ad was
meted out by a judge from Fatah, which is Mr. Abbas's Palestinian faction
and the one that Ms. Rice hopes her diplomacy will strengthen against Hamas,
the Iranian-backed terrorists who now control Gaza.

"Sa'ad's crime was simply reporting to Israeli authorities on the
whereabouts of four fugitive Palestinian gunmen that the PA was unwilling to
arrest," the director of the Israel Law Center, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner,
writes in a letter that will be sent to Mr. Bush today. "Fortunately, the
security services were able to utilize the information and take out the
terrorists before they could unleash any further attacks on Israeli
civilians. This operation saved the lives of scores of Israelis and other
innocent victims. It is no different than the recent preventive American
army attack on Al Qaeda terrorists in Somalia. However, for assisting in
this operation, Sa'ad was arrested and sentenced to death by a Palestinian
firing squad."

Ms. Darshan-Leitner asks for President Bush to suspend $200 million in
security assistance promised to Mr. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority
until Mr. Sa'ad's sentence is overturned. She has also sent out similar
appeals to the European Union and the Vatican.

"President Bush, these so called 'collaborators' are Israel's front line in
the war on Palestinian terror," she wrote. "They have assisted the Israel
Defense Forces in thwarting thousands of suicide bombings and have saved
many thousands of innocent lives. They must not be abandoned by democratic
nations, such as the United States, which are combating terrorism
worldwide."

The fate of Palestinian Arabs who have cooperated with Israel has been a
thorny issue in the last 15 years of negotiations that began with the Oslo
agreements in 1993. Israeli authorities have at times had to evacuate their
former sources and have also pledged at one point openly in the Oslo years
to refrain from recruiting new sources in the West Bank and Gaza.
Nonetheless, the conviction and at times execution of these so-called
collaborators by Palestinian Arab courts has been a semi-regular occurrence
for Israel's peace partner, particularly after negotiations fell apart in
September 2000 and Yasser Arafat called for a second Palestinian uprising.

Ms. Nudel has devoted much energy to saving Palestinian Arab so-called
collaborators from execution. Ms. Darshan-Leitner, who is working with Ms.
Nudel on this case, said that often the trials of the so-called
collaborators are brief and the suspects are not allowed to be represented
by an attorney. Another problem has been that those suspected of
collaboration are often targeted by Palestinian terrorists, and thus far the
Palestinian Authority has done next to nothing to investigate their murders,
according to Ms. Darshan-Leitner.

At times, however, the advocacy of Ms. Nudel and the Israel Law Center has
succeeded in obtaining the stay of scheduled executions.

Secretary Rice in Ramallah yesterday praised Mr. Abbas, and particularly his
leadership of the security services. "It takes some time to deal with the
effects of the Intifada, but a lot of it has to do with responsible actions
by the Palestinian government and the Palestinian Authority which are really
now in place," she said. "And because of that, I think you are going to see
improvements on the West Bank."

In an interview, Ms. Darshan-Leitner said that she first appealed to Prime
Minister Olmert to bring up the status of her client in the current
negotiations. On April 29, she urged him in a letter to do everything he
could to secure the release of Mr. Sa'ad. The letter included the demand, on
behalf of Ms. Nudel, "that Israel employ its considerable military
capability to launch a rescue operation to extract the prisoner from his
cell."