Correction of official translation: Commitment Document Signed by Security
Prisoners
Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA 15 May 2012

Paragraph 2 of the translation of the Commitment Document Signed by Security
Prisoners communicated by the Israel Security Agency (see below), reads:

"Security activity in this regard includes recruiting people for terrorist
missions, guidance, coordination, assistance and any other act that entails
the realization of practical support for terrorist activity against the
State of Israel."

If indeed the terms "terrorism" and "terrorist activity" actually appeared
in the original Arabic document this would have constituted a huge failure
on the part of the Israeli authorities since the Palestinian position is
that they never engage in "terror" - only "liberation".

This is why the Oslo documents, starting with the Rabin-Arafat exchange of
letters and onwards, relate to "violence" and similar terms - not "terror".

IMRA contacted Dr. Michael Widlanski to ask him to review the original
Arabic text.

The following is his response:

"The document does not mention the word "terror" or "terrorism" in the
original Arabic document, and it is supposed to govern "security activity in
Israeli prisons."

It treats the prisoners with great respect, speaking in terms of military
and security matters.

It also makes no mention of the Palestinians as "convicts" but rather as
"security prisoners," and so in paragraph two, the agreement between Israel
and Palestinian security prisoners it says:

"For purposes of what is meant here by 'security activities' is the
militarization of these elements (Arabic: anaasir—meaning elements, factors
or members) for security tasks, for setting up confronting or advancing or
escalating or beginning any other act or promoting any other act or
supporting any security activity that targets the State of Israel."

====
Dr. Michael Widlanski, an expert on Arab politics and communications, is the
author of Battle for Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat just
published by Threshold/Simon and Schuster. He is a former reporter,
correspondent and editor respectively at The New York Times, Cox Newspapers,
and The Jerusalem Post, and he served Strategic Affairs Advisor in Israel's
Ministry of Public Security and as an advisor to Israeli negotiating teams
in 1991-92 at the Madrid Summit and thereafter. He was a research fellow at
The Shalem Center and taught at Hebrew University for nearly two decades.

==========================================================
Commitment Document Signed by Security Prisoners
(Communicated by the Israel Security Agency)
[for copy of the Arabic original document:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.360876133960700.73532.186568661391449&type=1
]

Pursuant to the end of the hunger strike by security prisoners yesterday
(Monday), 15.5.12
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2012/End_hunger_strike_security_prisoners_14-May-2012.htm
following is translation of the commitment document signed by the prisoners
(see the foregoing link). The original Arabic is attached.

###

Commitment document

1. We, the undersigned ("name", "identity number" and "place of
imprisonment"), who are serving as representatives of all security prisoners
in Israeli prisons hereby promise, on behalf of all security prisoners in
Israel and pursuant to the commitment given by the commanders of the
organizations, not to carry out any security activity inside Israeli
prisons.

2. Security activity in this regard includes recruiting people for terrorist
missions, guidance, coordination, assistance and any other act that entails
the realization of practical support for terrorist activity against the
State of Israel.

3. Upholding this commitment is a condition for the easements that the State
of Israel will implement on the following issues:

* Holding security prisoners in separation;

* Family visits for prisoners from the Gaza Strip and the [West] Bank;

* The conditions under which security prisoners are being held – After the
end of the strike, the committee on improving the aforesaid conditions will
begin its deliberations.

4. Terrorist activity carried out inside prisons or the resumption of the
strike by prisoners held in Israeli prisons will lead to the revocation of
Israel's commitment regarding the aforesaid easements.