Palestinians sign peace pledge in exchange for jobs

RAMALLAH -- Hundreds of Palestinian gunmen wanted by Israel have pledged in writing in recent weeks to refrain from violence in exchange for a job either in the Palestinian security forces or in one of the Palestinian Authority's government ministries, according to Palestinian officials.

They said the program, initiated by President Mahmoud Abbas, is aimed at bolstering a two-month-old truce with Israel and re-integrating into society men who spent much of the past four years engineering suicide bombings or other attacks against Israelis and living on the run.

More than 90 percent of the fugitives have come forward to sign the pledge, but Israel refuses to drop the men from its wanted list until Palestinian officials collect their guns -- a provision not included in the program.

Western officials involved in overseeing Palestinian finances, meanwhile, say that by adding hundreds more people to its already bloated public sector, the Palestinian Authority risks further driving up its budget deficit, which has jumped by nearly 40 percent in the past year.

Abed Al-Fattah Hamayel, a member of the Palestinian parliament who overseas the program, said about 400 fugitives signed the pledge in the past month from a list of 495 the Palestinian Authority received from Israel.

''Those people fought for their country. They are freedom fighters," Hamayel said in his Ramallah office this week. ''But now we've begun a new phase that does not require their kind of action, so they have to stick to the political agenda."

Hamayel said finding some of the wanted men was the hardest part of the job. Most, he said, were members of the militia aligned with Abbas's Fatah movement, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade. But the list also includes fugitives from other militant groups, including Hamas.

He said that in addition to signing the pledge, the men filled out a questionnaire and would be given a public sector rank based on their education and experience. Gunmen who served long prison terms in Israel, for example, would receive a higher rank and a higher-paying job. Every year a fugitive spent in hiding would count as two years of on-the-job experience, Hamayel said.

The three-sentence pledge includes a commitment to ''submit to all the decisions coming out of the political echelon," the Palestinian National Authority, and the security services.

It says: ''I further vow not to do anything that will break the law, and I will be obliged by all rules and agreements that are signed by the Palestinian Authority with any domestic body or foreign government or party."

Hamayel said some of the fugitives who signed in Tulkarem and Jericho, the two West Bank cities Israel transferred to Palestinian security control last month, were already working. He said only the Hamas gunmen turned down the job offers.

Hamas forms the main opposition to Fatah. Many Hamas members view the Palestinian Authority as corrupt and its government ministries as employment services for Fatah party members.

Hamas decided recently to participate in parliamentary elections scheduled for July, and analysts expect it to fare well against Fatah. Some analysts said the jobs program was one of several measures Abbas has taken recently to shore up support for Fatah ahead of the vote.

Hamayel said the wanted men are not being asked to give up their guns for now, but are expected to refrain from using them and to keep them out of sight.

Abbas has resisted calls by Israel and the United States to disarm militias in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, despite the fact that collecting their weapons is one of the demands put to Palestinians in the international peace plan known as the ''road map".

Instead, he has opted for a quiet dialogue with the groups, hoping to keep them wedded to a cease-fire with Israel without using his security agencies to enforce it.

Israel believes the approach will backfire.

''It's all make-believe," said Raanan Gissin, media adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. The wanted men ''are not handing over their weapons. They're not being restricted to their own cities. They may have renounced terrorism, but they don't intend to stop the violence."

Gissin said fugitives in Tulkarem and Jericho went back to brandishing their guns in public as soon as Israel withdrew its forces from the towns last month. Israel will not pursue the gunmen if they refrained from violence, he said, but will keep them on its wanted list until they are disarmed.

One such fugitive, Anas Salahat, said in an interview in Ramallah that he did not feel safe from Israeli soldiers despite signing the pledge.

Salahat, a 25-year-old from the West Bank town of Nablus, said he has been on Israel's wanted list since 2001. He would not disclose the details of his activities. Salahat described two close calls, one in which soldiers nearly caught him in the home of a relative and another involving an Israeli helicopter strike that killed two fellow gunmen in a car he had been in moments earlier.

''For me the situation has not changed," he said.

An art and design student at An-Najah National University in Nablus before the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000, Salahat asked for a job in one of the government ministries, not the security forces.

But Salahat said he would not surrender his guns, an M-16 assault rifle and a pistol, as long as Israel continues occupying the West Bank.

''When the occupation ends, I will probably hand in my weapons on my own because I won't need them."