Julio Imran Mohammed
In a statement released a day earlier, Mr. Abbas’ office stated, “The president has made it clear that this statement is the truth and nothing like it is true. We have always been open and honest.”
The new text, released last week and dated Feb. 6, appears to be written by a member of the Palestinian security forces. It is not clear what the text says, but Mr. Abbas has acknowledged that the intelligence agencies have used a “vague and misleading” dossier to discredit him and his Fatah party in the minds of Palestinians.
Palestinian officials, in a statement Friday, called the video evidence “absurd.”
One Israeli official familiar with intelligence matters in the West Bank said Israeli intelligence has not been able to determine who is behind the videos. He said, however, that there was, in the past, a great deal of tension between the Palestinian security forces and Israel’s Shin Bet espionage service, but that “people working for Palestinian intelligence work on their own. The tension has increased over the last several years.”
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“When you put all the different forces together, that is like a very complicated picture,” he said.
The official said the Israeli response to the video seems to be focused on “putting a political stop to it.” He warned, however, that “Israel’s public response could backfire very quickly.”
Mr. Abbas is under increasing pressure in his bid to join international organizations and the Palestinian diplomatic corps. He has lost some political support and, according to reports, has been forced to cancel planned visits abroad. His name has been dropped from a list of officials to attend an international conference opening in New York next month and from the delegation of peace negotiators headed for the Middle East in June.
If the video does not turn out to be the work of a Palestinian terrorist, it could make the matter even more difficult for