by Fritz Galt
“I don’t know why he’s blaming al-Qaeda. The Palestinians have been tailing me for years.”
“I’ll let you in on a little secret. Dean’s mission to Hebron was to deal specifically with the al-Qaeda threat. If José is right and al-Qaeda was behind the bombing, how did al-Qaeda know about Rachel? Where was the leak?”
Barry looked down at the river as if from the safety of a citadel. “Were the bombers sending me a message or were they after Rachel?”
That was the question in a nutshell. It was a question that could only be answered once they found out who planted the bomb. “We’ll have to wait and see what the bomb squad comes up with.”
“I was with the cops all night as they protected Rachel. They say bombings like these are notoriously hard to investigate. I’ll check with them and tell you if they learn anything.”
“Good. And I’ll have a little chat with José.”
Barry turned to her with a relieved expression. “Does this mean I’m off the hook?”
“As far as Rachel’s case, we don’t know the leaker yet.” She reached for her notepad. “But I’ll take your name off the list.”
Chapter 21
The military convoy rolled south through Bethlehem.
Green hills and a wall defined the city. Twenty-five feet tall, the Israeli security wall loomed on the horizon, but didn’t threaten the population. Dean had no sense of Israeli occupation, except their column of heavily armed vehicles thundering down the street.
At one point, the wall veered in toward the city and followed a road to a landmark that was out of sight to Palestinians.
“What’s in there?” he asked Ari.
“That’s a tomb that the Jews approach by bulletproof bus,” came Ari’s deep voice from the depths of the troop carrier.
“It must be extremely important that you carved out a huge chunk of the West Bank just to claim it.”
“It’s important to people of the Jewish faith.”
Dean racked his brain to remember the name of the place. “Which tomb is it?”
Ari stared at him evenly. “It’s Rachel’s tomb.”
The name triggered Dean’s memory of the numbing news Ari had told him upon his arrival in Israel. Rachel Levy, the linguist, was the victim of a car bomb attack, and her life hung in the balance. Israelis went out of their way to protect their Rachel. He would, too.
Much of the rest of Bethlehem was a rolling landscape of whitewashed buildings with the occasional minaret and Christian steeple pointing upward. Terraced hillsides supported orchards and grape vines, reflecting some of the earliest forms of agriculture.
The afternoon was hot and a cosmopolitan crowd congregated in the shade of trees or kept to their air-conditioned buildings. The convoy occasionally passed a bar serving alcohol. Baseball caps seemed to outnumber black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh headgear.
The road continued through the land known as Judea. Though they passed troops manning checkpoints, they never stopped. They had license to roam freely anywhere in the countryside.
Entering Hebron was another story. It was a major city, the largest in the West Bank. Israeli guardhouses along the road grew more numerous. They passed lines of cars at manned checkpoints. The convoy rumbled on.
“There will be no need to enter the Palestinian sector of the city,” Ari assured him.
Dean didn’t know how to take it. He didn’t want protection. He wanted to arrive in Hebron as an impartial party.
Soon it became apparent to Dean that the occupation of Hebron was not in spirit only. The Israel Defense Forces had a visible presence at street checkpoints all around the area they occupied. The graffiti on shop walls and house gates also marked Israeli territory. The vehemence of the sexual slurs and exhortations to gas the Arabs jarred him.
He noticed Ari looking only straight ahead.
The truck pulled up a steep rise lined with Star of David flags. “We have arrived,” Ari said.
The compound where they stopped came alive at the sight of the convoy. Preoccupied-looking women with stern frowns and men with full, black beards and skullcaps brought out baskets and boxes. The men and women grabbed the food and household products and hauled them to their homes on the crowded hilltop.
Dean was surprised that the voices he heard had no Hebrew inflection. Rather, the accent was distinctly New York.
“Settlers,” Ari said, and shrugged. “Not very polite.”
Soldiers crowded in next. Young men and women with combat fatigues looked worn and prematurely old. How could maintaining control over a civilian population be so draining?
Ari had grown grimmer during the course of the journey. In Hebron, he was positively morose.
“Why so quiet?” Dean asked.
Ari’s eyes were hard. Hard in a way Dean had never seen them before. They were the eyes of a commander whose mission was not going well. “You must remember that Hebron was ruled by the Arabs for two decades before the Six Day War evicted Jordan from this land. Jews moved back in and lived reasonably well with the Arabs. Commerce flowed freely between the two communities. There were no roadblocks, no Jew-only streets.”
“Then the Palestinians gained some autonomy.”
“Right. When the Camp David Accords gave some autonomy to the Palestinians, the Jews felt threatened. We’re dealing with an insurgency now.”
“But it’s the Israelis who are occupying Palestinian land.”
“We’re here to protect the settlers,” Ari said, “but we haven’t perfected our methods yet. It’s a work in progress.”
Dean glanced around. There were pillboxes everywhere, but no wall separating populations. In fact, there was a Palestinian street crew clearing away the litter and empty boxes. “What protection can you offer?”
Ari opened a heavily guarded and securely locked door. Inside, tables were crowded with computers and closed circuit televisions. Female soldiers walked among the tables and worked cameras remotely by joystick with their eyes on the screens. One simply sat before a monitor and read The Jerusalem Post, the government-slanted, eighty-year-old newspaper formerly known as The Palestine Post. The room was a high-tech operation designed to catch any sudden attack on their outpost, but with enough detail to see into people’s everyday lives.
“Welcome to our war-room,” Ari said. “We have cameras pointed all over the city.” Then he lowered his voice. “Turns out we end up catching more violence by Jews breaking into Palestinian homes and throwing rocks at Palestinian schoolchildren than the reverse. Every Shabbat, when visitors arrive from Jerusalem, we’ve got our hands full keeping the Jews from spray-painting epithets on Arab walls and ransacking their stores. We end up protecting the Arabs before they get seriously angry and retaliate.”
“Still doesn’t sound like you’re operating a counterinsurgency.”
“Follow me.”
They left the room and guards locked the door behind them. They entered the office of the battalion commander responsible for the area of what was called Hebron 2.
Ari and the commander traded a few words. Then the officer saluted and left his headquarters free for Ari and Dean to use.
Ari sat behind the desk and crossed his legs. “As far as the counterinsurgency goes, we’re operating under sociological assumptions. We believe that proactive patrols inside Palestinian areas will keep the people off balance and prevent them from supporting terrorists.”
Ari made the word “proactive” sound a bit menacing. “Exactly how do you keep Palestinians on their heels?”
“We have tried lots of methods. We practice false arrests, just like in army school. We issue our men a target’s name, and they go out, find him, arrest him as if he’s a wanted man, drive him around, and then finally drop him off.”
Dean had heard such stories.
“Then there are the mapping missions, where we wake up families after midnight and search their homes.”
“Just to let them know who’s in charge?”
�
��Exactly.” Ari went on. “Then there are the lengthy ID checks, where we force people to squat and wait for hours. The list of methods goes on.”
It was surprising that a sophisticated military used such outdated and barbaric counterinsurgency tactics. “Isn’t it about time for your army to join the Twenty-first Century?”
Ari nodded. “Like I said, it’s a work in progress.”
A large map of the West Bank and one of Hebron hung on the wall behind the desk.
As Dean knew from experience, but saw in person during that visit, all of the West Bank was divided into areas of control. Reviewing the history helped him focus on the situation on the ground in Hebron.
Following the Oslo Agreement in 1993, Israel maintained full control of the land, water, air and borders of the West Bank. But they withdrew their military from several patches of the West Bank. A small portion of the land, primarily Jericho in the far northeast and rural areas around Hebron, were designated as A, under Palestinian military and administrative control. Israel maintained military and administrative control over the more heavily Jewish areas called Area C. That area included Jewish settlements, buffer zones, strategic areas and connecting highways such as the one they had used to enter town. As shown on the map, Area C dominated more than fifty percent of the West Bank.
He saw scattered dots where vastly separated towns were labeled neither A or C. “How are the B areas doing?”
Ari shook his head in despair. “Our great experiment.”
It was an experiment in joint control. The Palestinian Authority ran the local governments while Israel maintained military control. According to the map, roughly a quarter of the West Bank, mostly towns around large population centers, fell under that category.
“In reality,” Ari said, “B areas are more of a soft wall to contain and keep an eye on the Palestinians.”
The Hebron map showed entirely different area designations. The situation in the city had been particularly sticky four years after the Oslo Agreement and 1997. That had led to a settler opening fire in the Mosque of Abraham at the Tomb of the Patriarchs where Dean was headed the next day.
The settler used an assault rifle, killing twenty-nine worshipers and injuring more than a hundred others. The Palestinians demanded more control over their own security in the city, which led to the Hebron Agreement. The U.S., Israel and Arafat signed a protocol turning security over to the Palestinians with a temporary international presence led by Norway to oversee the peace.
But Israel’s military never totally withdrew. Dean sat surrounded by ammunition magazines, a war-room filled with military officers and barracks filled with new recruits.
“Where do matters stand now?” he asked.
“Our military controls Hebron 2 on this end of the city and Palestinians are allowed armed police checkpoints around what we call H-1.”
Dean shrugged off the troubling implications of such an arrangement and tried to focus on his own mission. That would require some background information on the Palestinian parts of the city. “What can you tell me about how I should approach Abraham’s Tomb?”
Ari spun his chair around and looked at the Hebron map. “You must keep the larger picture in mind. There may be 800 Jews living in these enclaves, but there are over 160,000 Arabs living in this city. It’s a real city with a casbah, markets, mosques, malls, a university, industry, everything. We try to make our presence felt as often and as much as possible. But the tension is especially high where Jews and Palestinians rub up against each other. For the most part, this is a Palestinian city. All the utilities, police and trash collection are under the Palestinian Municipality. So you’ll find yourself quickly immersed in Palestinian society.”
Dean was familiar with Ramallah and the structure of the Palestinian Authority. The central government’s control over the cities was weak at best and if goods and services didn’t flow to the people, the government lost all legitimacy. “I take it the Palestinian Authority is something less than an organizing force in Hebron.”
“Exactly. Here the PA relies on hamulahs for support.”
Dean was aware that Hebron was a city of four or five hamulahs, clans whose leadership passed from father to son. Everybody knew who was in his or her clan. People relied on the head of their clan to resolve disputes within and between clans.
Ari went on to describe the handful of hamulahs that dominated the city and controlled its affairs.
Dean knew the relative lawlessness that implied. “Do they still get into fights?”
“God yes. You want to be as far away as possible when two clans clash. Hundreds of people get involved with street fighting. It’s an excellent opportunity for our troops to create mischief, but it’s best to leave the people alone to resolve the disputes. Whenever there is peace, even an uneasy truce between clans, there is some order to the city.”
“What do you know about Abdul Aziz’s hamulah?”
Ari gave him a steady look. Sitting at that desk, he had the bearing of a high-ranking officer. “Is that why you’re here?”
Dean nodded, but offered no more information.
“Abdul Aziz is a trouble-maker,” Ari warned. “You won’t make peace with him.”
“Which clan is his?”
“It’s the Farak clan. You don’t want to mess with them.”
“Tell me about them.”
Ari rubbed his jaw. “Where do I start? They make up more than half of the city’s population. Does that tell you what you need to know?”
Dean was impressed. “Continue.”
“They waver between Hamas and Fatah, playing one off the other. They flirted with recognizing the Hamas government in Gaza.” He stared at Dean to see if he understood the implications.
Dean did. Gaza was a tiny, twenty-five-mile strip of land on the Mediterranean on the other side of Israel’s Negev Desert. Hebron was the closest city to it, and a natural ally in many respects. In fact, connecting Hebron with Gaza City by highway was already on the table at the peace talks.
Ari went on. “Farak is known for choosing violence over peace. And it has bought them the lion’s share of wealth and influence in this city. I’m warning you to tread carefully, my friend.”
Dean got the picture. It was worse than he had imagined. Abdul Aziz belonged to a major power not only in Hebron, but in the territories. “I understand that he isn’t the leader of the clan.”
“Correct. He’s too young. But guess who is the leader?”
Dean had no idea.
“The foreign minister. Omar al-Farak.” He stared at Dean to make sure the name sank in.
“Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority,” Dean mused.
“And,” Ari sat forward, “running for president in the summer elections.”
Okay. The clan connection threw Abdul Aziz into a whole new light. In addition to his role in the Palestinian resistance movement, Aziz had access to enormous political power. “But doesn’t Omar al-Farak have ultimate control over his clan? Can’t he overrule Aziz?”
“That’s an assumption I’m not willing to test.”
Dean closed his eyes. That was the assumption he would test the very next day.
Chapter 22
After her talk with Barry, Carla’s image of who was behind the car bombing came into sharper focus. But the picture was still full of holes.
Who was behind the attack, Palestinians or al-Qaeda?
If al-Qaeda was trying to kill Rachel because of her connection with Dean, who had tipped them off that they were working together?
To fill in some of the gaps, she showed up promptly at one p.m. at the office of José Gomez. She had done some efficiency observations in his department the previous year and knew the relationships and workflow well.
José supervised operations within the Near East and North Africa region. That meant he sent case officers to the field and monitored their activities by reading their reports and debriefing them. Information they gleaned about terror suspects
went immediately to the National Counterterrorism Center just down Dolley Madison Boulevard. Actionable intelligence went to the Special Operations Group downstairs. He was only one gear in the vast machinery of intelligence gathering, but a crucial cog with plenty of room for discretion and interpretation of policy.
Just entering the office gave her pause. So Dean worked there. Was he really the kind of spook who got his hands dirty dealing with terrorists? He looked more like the embassy reception type, working his contacts in a more diplomatic manner.
José Gomez was prepared for her arrival. “I figured somebody would try to nose around our department sooner or later.”
“Mind if I take a seat?” she asked.
He was in no mood for niceties and didn’t respond.
She took the chair directly in front of his desk.
“Why did you tell Ron McAdam that you thought the car bomb was planted by al-Qaeda?”
He shrugged. “It was a natural assumption.”
“Were you surprised to hear that it was planted by Palestinians?”
“Just because Palestinians claimed responsibility doesn’t mean they did it.”
“If it was al-Qaeda, how did they know that Rachel Levy was working with Dean?”
That question caught him by surprise. “How would they know that? I didn’t even know that.”
“Do you see why I’m asking you?” she said. “You pointed to al-Qaeda and very few people knew Rachel’s connection to Dean and thus with al-Qaeda.”
He cleared his desk with gentle hands that were accustomed to pushing paper. “Let me show you something.”
He stood and led her into the hallway and a door with a cipher lock. He keyed in a code and the door clicked open. “This way, please.”
Carla stepped inside. There was a large plasma screen on each of the four walls. Each screen depicted a different region of the world: Asia, Africa, North and South America, and Europe and the Near East. A technician sat at a console in the center of the room.
