Jibril Rajoub is back
By Danny Rubinstein
Haaretz, January 5, 2004
A placard across the road at the entrance to Ramallah and Al-Bireh says: "Smile, you've entered the city of Al-Bireh." Indeed, were it not for the hardships at the Qalandiyah roadblock, and were it not for the headlines and photographs in the newspapers about the incessant bloodshed and destruction, one could well smile there. The streets in the new neighborhoods of these cities are wide, clean, and lined with hundreds of modern buildings, some of them large office buildings, hotels and apartment buildings surrounded by gardens.
The office of Jibril Rajoub, the Palestinian Authority's national security advisor, is situated in his former private home, which was hit by an Israeli tank shell. After a long absence, in which Rajoub underwent two operations to remove tumors, he returned to assume a central role beside Arafat. He sits in on all the important meetings, and judging by the way he was treated at the Fatah rally in A-Ram on Saturday, the senior Palestinian officials respect him deeply, and probably fear him as well.
As head of the preventive security forces and as the West Bank strong man, Rajoub is known for keeping his men away from terrorist activity. Despite that, during Operation Defensive Shield about two years ago, the IDF demolished his headquarters in Bitouniya in West Ramallah and captured the Hamas activists who were detained there. Hamas, who regarded Rajoub as a bitter rival, accused him of turning the activists in to Israel.
Now he says: "Mofaz and his men behaved disgracefully when they tried to get rid of me. I stood at the head of a strong and disciplined force, which believed in coexistence and acted strictly in keeping with the Palestinians' undertaking to the process of reconciliation between the two nations."
Rajoub believes the Israeli security establishment, at Mofaz's orders, acted as it did and tried to get him killed for one reason - so it could say there is no Palestinian partner. "I did not give in and I won't give in, and even now I'm optimistic and believe there is no choice but to reach a two-state solution," he says.
A few days ago, Arafat sent Rajoub to Egypt for talks on resuming the hudna, and met Osama Al Baz, Mubarak's adviser, in Ramallah. The Egyptian leadership has a key role in the continuation of the political process since it is the only one that meets and maintains contacts with all the Palestinian groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and left-wing fronts, as well as with Israel and the United States, and of course with the Arab states and Europe. Egypt's success, according to Rajoub, depends solely on the Israeli government. If the latter is prepared to advance carrying out the road map under international supervision, it would be possible to reach a settlement. To the argument that Ahmed Qureia so far is not even willing to meet Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Rajoub replies, "There is no point in a meeting that will end in nothing. We don't want another failure."
The political standstill led to Sharon's announcement of his plan for unilateral disengagement and completion of the separation fence. Rajoub says: "Israel has the right to build fences and walls only on its own land. Prime Minister Sharon can do whatever he wants by force - build fences and settlements, bomb, destroy and try to dictate borders. But he cannot beat us by force, and cannot give Israel security by force. He will not find a single Palestinian to cooperate with that plan, therefore it will fail."
Asked what choice Israel has, as long as the Palestinians don't restrain or dismantle Hamas, Rajoub says: "Hamas and Jihad will be part of the Palestinian political system, just as the extremists in Israel are part of the Israeli political system. Look at what the settlers are doing, and what Avigdor Lieberman and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef say about the Arabs. Only by presenting a political solution enabling a Palestinian state will it be possible to restrain the extremists."
