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Palestine Papers: Britain's MI6 Drew Up Plan for Crackdown on Hamas

(Guardian-UK) Ian Black and Seumas Milne - British intelligence helped draw up a secret plan in 2004 for a wide-ranging crackdown on Hamas which became a security blueprint for the Palestinian Authority, leaked documents reveal. The bulk of the British plan has since been carried out by the West Bank-based PA security apparatus which is increasingly criticized for authoritarian rule and human rights abuses, including detention without trial and torture. The PLO's chief spokesman, Saeb Erekat, is recorded as telling senior U.S. official David Hale in 2009: "We have even killed our own people to maintain order and the rule of law." In a meeting with Palestinian officials in 2009, U.S. security coordinator Gen. Keith Dayton is recorded praising the PA's security: "The intelligence guys are good. The Israelis like them. But they are causing some problems for international donors because they are torturing people."
2011-01-26 08:54:44
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