The Palestinian: videos

Weapons and chargers in the car:


Where hides ETA in Venezuela?

Inside the mosque in Caracas

Arms training camps in Venezuela

Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement Chapter Venezuela. Antonio Salas infiltrated.

Spanish reporter infiltrates sex trafficking rings

 

EFE NEWS SERVICE. A Spanish journalist delved into the world of prostitution and sexual trafficking of women and girls until he reached a deal to buy six Mexican minors for some $31,000 each, as long as they were virgins.

"El ano que trafique con mujeres" (The Year I Trafficked in Women), which just hit bookstores in Spain, is the work by Antonio Salas, the journalist's pseudonym, who infiltrated the world of prostitution for a year.

The book begins with a visit by Salas to the head of ANELA, Spain's national association of brothels, who is chairman of the Espana 2000 extreme right-wing party and owns "bordellos where 95 percent" of the prostitutes are immigrants.

In one of the book's chapters, Salas depicts how he became friends with a young Nigerian woman and her pimp, a former boxer from the same country, to whom he paid $17,000 for the girl, the mother of a 4-year-old son.

According to Salas, "elite businessmen, politicians, actors and athletes are willing to spend between 600 and 42,000 euros ($740-$52,000) for a bit of pleasure with a cover girl," a known model, singer or television host.

At the book launching, which Salas did not attend so he could maintain his anonymity, Spanish immigration police chief Carlos Botran said prostitution is inextricably linked to illegal immigration.

He said that in 2003, authorities busted 192 prostitution rings, yielding 761 arrests.

Salas jumped into the fray last year, generating controversy when he published a book after infiltrating the Spanish neo-Nazi movement.

 

http://www.libertadlatina.org/Lat_Mexico_Spain_Reporter_Infiltrates_Traffickers_03-11-2004.htm

 

 

Hammerskin condemns neo-Nazi group, through the testimony of Antonio Salas and "Diary of a skin"

The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeals filed by the 15 members of neo-Nazi group Hammerskin against a judgment of the Provincial Court of Madrid in 2009.

The Spanish Hammerskin had been sentenced to between one and a half and two and a half years in prison. The High Court had also outlawed the group for "promoting hatred and violence".

The judgment of the Supreme-which has had access to Europa Press, denies that there was violation of constitutional rights of members.

 

With regard to all considerations of the judgment, please consult the summary of agency included in the legal Web iustel.com.

The Madrid Provincial Court issued a ruling in 2009 pioneering in our country in which, for the first time, was sentenced a neo-Nazi group for conspiracy.

 

"This court understands sufficiently established the existence of the organization Hammerskin-Spain, consisting of a plurality of persons, among whom are the defendants, who are structured hierarchically organized and permanently since 2000," the resolution said. In addition, its members punished for illegal possession of weapons.

During the trial, the defendants refused to belong to the band and said that the abundant neo-Nazi material seized in their homes had to do with his fondness for military affairs since World War II.

In their homes, the Civil Guard found videos of Hitler and Mussolini, as well as a lot of shirts with neo-Nazi emblems and the shield of the Hammerskin-Spain.

 

The testimony of journalist Antonio Salas, author of Diary of a Skin (Today's), has been instrumental in the conviction, as acknowledged by the same court.

Recall that the name Antonio Salas is a pseudonym used by the reporter to avoid reprisals. The book has been a success with 350,000 copies sold, according to me from the publisher confirmed a few minutes ago.

 

Salas infiltrated the group to reveal the secrets of one of the most important bands of neo-Nazis in Spain. During his appearance, he identified several of the defendants as members of Hammerskin-Spain.

 

Hammerskin international organization is composed of 17 chapters or regional associations: 6 United States and one in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, Italy, France, Hungary, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Spain, where the name used Hammerskin Celtiberian.

 

Meanwhile, Salas prepares a novel, Operation Princess in which dump of what he discovered in his research but not yet used in their trials.

 

   José Luis Ibáñez Ridao

Book, Video Show Hizballah Training Near Caracas

 by IPTNews  

Evidence of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez's Islamist terror connections continues to mount, writes veteran journalist Douglas Farah. He describes a new book, El Palestino, authored by Spanish journalist Antonio Salas, which says there are six terrorist training camps around Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. Groups training at the camps include the Colombian FARC, the Spanish Basque ETA organization, and Hizballah.

In the book (currently available in Spanish), Salas says he posed as a Venezuelan Palestinian interested in jihad and was able to travel around the world. His employer, the Spanish television network Antena 3, has released some of the hidden-camera video he took while working undercover with the terrorists.

For years, there have been reports about the existence of these camps, but Salas apparently is the first person to provide video and firsthand experience training in them. According to Antena 3, Salas joined a Venezuelan "faction" of Hizballah, where he met members of other terrorist organizations like Hamas and the FARC.

"This is in keeping with Chavez's broader goals of creating an alliance of state and non-state actors to wage assymetrical warfare against the United States," Farah wrote. "Both Chavez, with the FARC, and Iran, have the same goal in this endeavor. Each of the proxies has relevant experience and resources the other does not, and both have a history of adaption and co-learning from other terrorist groups, regardless of political/theological differences."

As living conditions in Venezuela continue to deteriorate, he added, Chavez may well seek to foment crises and support armed revolution in Latin America:

"With the highest homicide rate in the hemisphere, water and electrical rationing, inflation running at more than 30 percent and his popularity in a steady decline, he is likely to be desperate for anything that can give him a boost. Iran, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador have enormous stakes in Chavez's survival, no matter what the cost. So one can expect the region to be roiled by something he cooks up to fabricate a crisis."

 http://www.investigativeproject.org/1973/book-video-show-hizballah-training-near-caracas

New book examines Spainís football fascists

A new book has painted a chilling picture of Spain's neo-fascists and their link to some of Europe's biggest football clubs like Real Madrid.

On the run after a year spent undercover in Spain's skinhead community, Antonio Salas's best-selling book "Diary of a Skin" is the first insider account of Spain's skinhead movement, a prickly issue in Western Europe's youngest democracy which still remembers the 1939-1975 right-wing dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

The book, based on an undercover television documentary, has prompted investigations by Spain's public prosecutor into links between Real Madrid's notorious Ultras Sur radical fans and the local branch of the international neo-Nazi group Hammerskins

"The Ultras Sur are only the tip of the iceberg. All the clubs have neo-nazi fans," said Salas. A Real Madrid spokesman said the club had no comment.

Salas, an investigative journalist who has filmed undercover documentaries on outlawed Basque guerrillas ETA and criminal gangs smuggling illegal immigrants to Spain, entered the neo-nazi clan via its principal meeting point - the Internet.

"The Internet has changed the international neo-nazi movement. It's been crucial in unifying small groups," he said.

Becoming a regular of neo-nazi Internet chat rooms, Salas adopted the nickname Tiger88 after the Third Reich's Tiger heavy tank which terrorised Allied troops on the Western Front. The number 88 is a neo-nazi code for 'Hail Hitler' -- the repetition of the eighth letter of the alphabet, "H
So began an investigation which led Salas to meet influential neo-fascist ideologues in Spain, a branch of the Ku Klux Klan in the rural northwest region of Galicia, and to participate in street-battles alongside the Ultras Sur.

 

The birth of Spain's skinhead movement can be traced to the mid-1980s when the ultra right-wing "skins" appeared on the terraces of Barcelona's Espanyol football club and Real Madrid, emulating the British hooligan groups of the early 1970s.

Salas argues that a recent boom in immigration, due to historical ties with South America and proximity with North Africa, has stoked racist sentiment in Spain -- for long one of the European countries with the lowest levels of migrants.

"Spain has the same problem as France, Germany or England: growing pockets of crime associated with illegal immigration. This has enormously encouraged the presence of skinheads and neo-nazis in countries like England and Germany, and now it is doing the same in Spain," said Salas.

In 2001, the government counted 1.1 million legal immigrants in Spain, more than three times the number of 1991. There are hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.

To deter illegal immigration, the centre-right government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has tightened borders, made visa requirements more stringent, and made it easier to deport immigrants convicted of petty crimes.

Senior figures, such as Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, have explicitly blamed immigrants for a rise in crime. Recent polls have showed three-quarters of Spaniards share this belief and around half want a government, which will fight immigration.

"There has been an increase in sympathy, with the xenophobic extreme-right more than with the neo-nazis themselves, and with the political and cultural movements which radically attack immigration," said Salas, who predicts several far-right parties would play the immigration card at regional elections in May.

While football provides the most public face of skinhead activism, Salas describes an underworld of far-right concerts and rallies across Spain and lays bare a network of bookshops and bars dedicated to neo-nazi propaganda.

"It is normal to associate skinheads with football hooligans for the simple reason that in a first division football stadium there are more television cameras than at a skinhead concert or a meeting of (political party) National Democracy," he said.

In recent months, the appearance of swastika flags and banners bearing the black eagle of Franco's fascist emblem among the ranks of the Ultras Sur has stirred controversy over Real Madrid's alleged relations with its radical fans.

This has been stoked by pictures of leading Real Madrid stars such as Raul and Luis Figo holding the Ultras' flag of a double-headed axe.

After befriending leading members of the Ultras Sur, Salas alleges he can prove Europe's most successful football club has provided neo-fascist fans with scores of tickets to its ground and turned a blind eye to their violent, racist behaviour -- and even laid on a storeroom for their banners at the stadium.

He alleges the collusion of club officials and at least one police officer, who he says told the Ultras of his investigation, forcing him to flee for his life.

"The public prosecutor's office in Madrid has begun an investigation into neo-nazi movements which may be linked to Real Madrid football club," said a spokesman for the office.

The allegations come at a time when soccer's governing body UEFA has launched a campaign, including threatened sanctions on clubs and supporters, to fight racism at European grounds.

"We should avoid the use of violence, but this is a very small group of people," said Jose Luis Vicente, a senior member of Real Madrid's fan club. "The Ultras Sur is essential to provide motivation for the team on the pitch."

A section on the Ultras Sur official web page entitled "Lies" attacked "news about our group which are only based on lies and trickery" with "the sole aim of disparaging us".

Many of the young skinheads Salas met during his odyssey around Spain do not fit the stereotypical image of a deprived urban background. Some are well-educated youths from a middle-class family, which supported Franco's rule.

"I do not want to be alarmist, because I think the influence of Francoism is constantly diminishing," said Salas. "The majority of skinheads don't enter the movement because of their parents, but obviously children of a fascist have more chance of becoming neo-fascists than those of a democrat."
A lack of strong family bonds or a feeling of alienation is often the determining factors driving youths to seek camaraderie in the skinhead community. More than 90 percent of skinheads who form a stable sexual relationship retire from the movement.

"I compare them to a group of orphans who are looking for a father, always talking about who will be the next fuehrer," Salas said. "There is real affection between the comrades, I don't know if love is too strong a word, but certainly brotherhood."

Salas admits to forming friendships with two skinheads, and revelling in the sense of power from their gang-mentality, although he denies ever supporting their ideology.

"I received an e-mail from one of these guys after the book was published telling me it had made him reconsider," Salas said. "That was just one of the e-mails from nazis who have left the movement after reading the book, and that is what I find comforting. That is more important than it being a success."

 

http://www.kickitout.org/news.php/news_id/1895

 

Antonio Salas in Prezi

Antonio Salas goes undercover with the Jihadists

The reporter who was circumcised to keep his cover

Written by Marlon Dolcy, Leonilde Marques (Translator)

Antonio Salas has worked across the world, investigating Neo-Nazi football hooliganism, exposing pre-teen prostitution in Madrid and even running Carlos the Jackal's website for him. He has gone so deep with his undercover work for El Palestino - his latest book on Islamic terrorism, for which he infiltrated jihadist cells - that he underwent emergency circumcision to avoid detection at a public bath, and converted to Islam after completing the research. Marlon spoke to him about his work.

 

In Diary of a Skin you infiltrated the Neo-Nazi ultras of Real Madrid FC. Apart from the associated fascism and violence of the Franco supported club, did you ever feel a sense of camaraderie (often glamorized in soccer hooliganism)?

I remember the feeling of power that was to walk the streets of Madrid with my fellow skinheads; people who passed us looked away, turned away before us, and even changed road sides. We were the owners of the streets. In the stadium is different. Football clubs like Real Madrid, support their radical groups because they are the loudest and the ones that most encourage the team from the stands (I lost my voice in a Real Madrid’s match). They also spend the most money in merchandising, and many of them are members of the club, therefore they can vote in elections over the team management. So the directors don’t mind if  they leave the stadium to beat up blacks, gays, immigrants and rival team’ supporters...

I can hardly imagine what it must have been like to be in some of the situations you found yourself in. In your undercover reports, did you suffer from constant paranoia that you would be found out?

It’s inevitable. All undercover people (police, spies and journalists) suffer the paranoia of being discovered. When you are carrying a hidden camera, that fear multiplies, because if you are in a Nazi concert, a roadside brothel, or a terrorist training camp… if someone was to suspect me, and discover the camera, there would be no excuse. However that paranoia multiplies again later whenever I publish a book and the insults arrive, the threats and persecution from those who are affected by my research.
 

Were there ever times where you genuinely thought or could sense that your life was in grave danger?

I remember the first time because I still carry around my neck the 9mm bullet that nearly blew up my knee during a meeting with a dealer, when I was infiltrating a sex trafficking gang. But during my last investigation there were many: my first meeting with Hezbollah in Beirut, crossing the border of Israel with secret recording equipment, during my training with weapons in Venezuela... too many. Though one of the moments in which I felt the most vulnerable was during the Hammerskin (a violent white power group) trial. I was a protected witness for the District Attorney’s Office, when we discovered that the Nazis hired a hitman to stop me from testifying. In that case my safety was in the hands of the Civil Guard. Fortunately everything went well.

How extreme is sex trafficking in Europe?

Diabolical! Although the infiltration of international terrorism was more complicated, more expensive and dangerous, the infiltration of gangs trafficking women and girls was the hardest that I ever done emotionally and psychologically. I got to negotiate the purchase of women from only $17 in Europe, and even bought virgin girls, 10 and 12, while dining at a restaurant in Madrid. My hidden camera recordings helped dismantle some of these gangs. But when you stop one, 10 appear in its place, because there’s a big demand for the sex trade in Europe...

Did you ever sympathise (in some way or form) with some of the people who you were ultimately deceiving?

Although it sounds strange, I try never to lie, or at least I keep lying to a minimum. A good undercover person must find in their own personality things in common with the group that is going to infiltrate, and build their new identity based on these real things, lying to a minimum. More than sympathising, I actually developed good relationships with Nazis, smugglers and revolutionists. In fact I still keep in touch with some of them because they have realised that my intentions were honest, and their beliefs wrong. Others, of course, (especially those who in prison) don’t want anything to do with me. 

 

You ran a website for Carlos the Jackal? What was your impression of the renowned Venezualan terrorist?

He’s an amazing man. Very cultured (spoke five languages) and with a vast personal experience. He has been a legendary figure of the twentieth century, and kept personal relationships with heads of state. By being his webmaster and promoter of the Committee for his repatriation, I had the opportunity to record dozens and dozens of phone conversations with him for months, and I was always surprised by his views about politics, religion, etc. For me, as a journalist, it has been fascinating to talk for months with the world’s most famous terrorist until the appearance of Bin Laden. Unknowingly he became my passport to other terrorist groups around the world.

Like Carlos you converted to Islam while producing your book El Palestino, and have remained true to this faith since. What is it about Islam that appeals to you?

I did not know anything about Islam before starting this investigation. I believed all the clichés and prejudices that are published daily in the West. But as I got deeper into Islam and integrated myself in their mosques, I discovered that all these prejudices are false, and part of hidden agendas. Identifying Islam with terrorism, just because blaspheming fools kill with the Koran in their hands, is as unfair as to identify Christianity with terrorism, because members of the IRA, the KKK, and white militias, kill, rape or rob in the name of the Bible.

You detail how you got circumcised and wrote the whole of the Koran in Arabic to prepare for your role as 'Mohammed Abdullah' (your identity in El Palestino) which is really extreme. Could you document how else did you go about constructing fictional identities for your investigative reports?

Each undercover project is different, but the process is basically the same. Before putting on the hidden camera and conducting field work, you must study in depth the theory and familiarize yourself with the group that you're going to infiltrate. Read and study hard. Only then can you create a credible identity that goes beyond all suspicion. It doesn’t matter if you have to shave your head, get circumcised or learn another language or another religion. You cannot make mistakes. If they suspect you are an insider and blow up your cover, you won’t get another chance.

Do you feel that investigative journalism is declining in the media, and shifting more to focus on entertainment and sports?

I don’t think so. I understand that for a TV station or newspaper, it is very hard to fund a six-year investigation. The entertainment stories, sports or political chronicles are easier and cheaper. But I think that the sales figures for my books, and audience rates for my documentaries demonstrate that investigative journalism can offer a competitive product to any media. And the proof is that there are amazing investigative journalists around the world making documentaries, reports and bestselling books. Our work is very similar to that of the police and spies, only their reports are intended for secret files for the Ministry of Defence or Internal Affairs, whilst ours are for the public. And the public wants to know what really happens in the world. Wikileaks was not the result of bad luck.

Find out more about Antonio at his website www.antoniosalas.org

http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/radar/antonio-salas-goes-undercover-with-the-jihadists 

Antonio Salas: Sentenced to death by thugs of 'world's greatest soccer club'

• Giles Tremlett in Madrid
• The Guardian                       

Our meeting was arranged by a third party and I will never know his real name. Antonio Salas, as he called himself, certainly did not look like a skinhead member of Real Madrid's "official" group of violent neo-Nazi supporters, the feared Ultrasur. But then Antonio, an investigative reporter, had recently changed his disguise so the group's members could not track him down and fulfil their pledge to kill him.

 

We met in a central Madrid cafe, Antonio fiddling nervously with a cigarette and sitting with his back to the wall. Antonio spent last year infiltrating the most radical section of the Ultrasur. He came out to accuse the self-proclaimed "world's greatest club", nine times champion of Europe, of harbouring and, in effect, promoting neo-Nazi, racist violence. Antonio claims to have revealed just how close - despite club denials - are the ties binding the thugs and officials in a club whose latest purchases include stars like Ronaldo, Zidane and Figo and which boasts lucrative sponsorship deals with Adidas and Siemens.

 

Enter through gate 42 at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, turn right down the first corridor and you will find a grey metal door. That door is the gateway to what Antonio calls Ultrasur's "private office". It is where the group keeps its pamphlets, drums, megaphones and flags bearing General Franco's shield or other neo-Nazi symbols.

 

Antonio had made his first contact with the Ultrasur at El Refugio, a bar beside the stadium where the hard core gather after matches to organise "cacerias", or hunts, of blacks, prostitutes, tramps, gays and supporters of other clubs. There he was greeted by chants of "six million jews to the gas chambers."

 

Ultrasur leaders, handed free passes by the club, have long police records. The organisation's number two, a middle-class lawyer called Alvaro Cadenas, was last week jailed for four years for stabbing a policeman. The leader, Jose Luis Ochaita, was banned from entering football grounds for three years in 1998 after allegedly waving a knife at a player from a rival club.

 

The night before Antonio and I met, I had stood outside El Refugio, amid the broken glass from what the skins call "a shower of stars", otherwise known as pelting the police with beer bottles. Half a dozen people had been hurt. But all that had happened before the game. Real Madrid had won, beating Milan 3-1, and the thugs were in good humour.

 

Thanks partly to Antonio and the book he has written about them, the Ultrasur have added journalists to their list of enemies. I did not stick around to see if they were planning cacerias. Offered an opportunity to rebut Antonio's allegations yesterday, the club declined. The public prosecutor has now opened his own investigation.

 

Antonio warned me not to think Real Madrid was the only club protecting the violent. "Every club in Spain does the same," he said.

 

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/mar/22/spain.football?INTCMP=SRCH

 

A journalist infiltrated into the most dangerous organizations in the world.

THE ALARM RINGS ON THE MOBILE PHONE. The coffee percolator was prepared the night before. I hate losing even a single second of time. Black coffee. A big one. A first look at the online editions of the daily press. In México there's controversy over the presidential elections, which I suspect will in no way change their situation. Europe drowns in its economic crisis and Palestine continues agonizing, like Afghanistan and Iraq. So many useless deaths... The headlines are now concentrating on Syria. Now they are warning about the chemical weapons that Bashar Al-Assad, the new Saddam, is supposed to have, as they did with Iraq... And I cannot avoid looking out of the corner of my eye at the tapestries that I bought in Damascus and feel a deep sense of sadness on remembering that people who treated me with so much kindness and hospitality, and who are now consumed in a civil war fomented by the West... After the coffee, the ablutions (wudu), and I prepare for the first prayers of the morning: Al Farj. It's my favourite prayer session. I like to start the day dedicating a few minutes to putting my soul at peace with God. Who knows...? If today were to be my last day, I want to go in peace. I pull out of my trunk the small carpet that I brought from Mecca and I orient it in the direction of Kaaba... Bismillah ar-rahmaan ar-raheem...

I need to get on with the new book, but I find it difficult to resume all the information I've obtained in the last two and a half years of research. I am literally buried in books, reports, summaries... This time the goal of my investigation work is very sensitive and complex. Even more so than with the skins, the white slave trade and international terrorism. What's more, the recent decision of the Constitutional Court, prohibiting the use of hidden cameras in investigative journalism in Spain, has created a new risk in my job. The powers that be don?t usually like journalists and what they have proposed is complicating our work. I glimpse at one of the recordings I have made, a few days ago in the premises of one of the organizations where I have sneaked in, and I start to transcribe the audio. The good thing about investigative journalism with a hidden camera is that you don?t need to invent anything.  You only have to transcribe what's been taped. Although to obtain these recordings you have to go through so much fear, anxiety and loneliness.

I've only written 300 pages of the new book and the data is drowning me. I have to find the way to tell all that I am learning without saturating the reader... Also, on this occasion, I keep pulling together information, following people, and going to all sorts of meetings while I am editing the book. Something that I had never done before. The normal thing is to finish the infiltration and then write. But I want to take advantage of getting the latest information possible right up to the last minute. Perhaps that's the reason, or perhaps it's because they have stamped me too hard with my new personality. I confess that this investigation has led me to discover a new vibrant world that I knew nothing about. I realise that the "stamping", the illness of the infiltrator, is the biggest risk that a journalist or under cover agent has to face. When the personality that you play ends up taking you over. But even so, fuck it; I really like my new identity...

This morning I'll substitute the gym with the shooting gallery. One of the elements of my new identity, inside organized crime, is that I am supposed to be a good shot. This time I am uncovering much more shit than I imagined. And neither politicians, nor businessmen nor police are free of corruption... During my time as a skinhead I shaved my head, wore Doc Martens and a bomber jacket covered with Nazi emblems. During my life as Muhammad Abdallah I darkened up my skin, I grew a beard for six years, and I was never separated from my tasbih and my Arab cap for salat. Now my new look is so different that at times I don't even recognize myself...

The heart starts speeding up again each time I put on the hidden camera. It doesn't matter how many times one has done it before. I walk slowly, looking behind, concentrating on faces, registration plates, clothes, in case any of them could be a threat. Always looking out of the corner of the eye at one's back... Psychologically, it wears one out living this way, but it's the price that has to be paid for carrying out this sort of journalism. I suppose that only those threatened by ETA, the IRA or FARC, or any type of organized crime, know of this sensation. Every time I get into a lift, that a door opens, that I turn a corner, I am expecting the worst... But I know that while I maintain concentration, and a prudent level of fear, I won't make any errors. The proof is that despite all the insults, the threats and the hate that I receive each day I am still here.

Tomorrow, like every day, I will get up early again. I have to get ready. This year the holy month of Ramadan falls right in the middle of summer, and it's going to be especially hard... Allahu Akbar.

 

http://servidor.nexora.es/babylonmagazine/articulos/artantonio_salas_diario_de_un_infiltrado.php?articulo=B

 

A SKINHEAD´S DIARY: The Film

2004. Jacobo Rispa (director)

A Skinhead’s Diary begins when Antonio Salas, a journalist specialised in candid camera investigations, loses his friend Victor, his South American colleague an brother of his girlfriend, when he’s killed by a group of skinheads.

 

It’s then that he decides to infiltrate himself in Neonazi groups in Marid in order to find out who killed his friend. He also counts on the help of David, a policeman who time before had been infiltrated in those Neonazi groups and hadn`t been able to reach the bottom of things. 

 

 

A Filmanova production in co- production with Telecinco and with the support of Media + Programme.

 

In front of the camera

Tristán Ulloa, Macarena Gómez, Juana Acosta, Jose Carreño, Adrián Viador, Artur Trillo, Pau Cólera, Luís Zahera, Antonio Mourelos, Carmen Abizanda.

Behind the camera

Director: Jacobo Rispa. Screenwriters: Antonio Onetti and Ramón Campos. Based on a book by Antonio Salas. Executive Producers: Antón Reixa, Diego Mas Trelles.

 

 

Spanish Tráiler:

 

THE PALESTINIAN: Press Conference

 

May 2010. Today's The publisher presents "Palestinian". Its author, Spanish journalist Antonio Salas, is a protected witness in the prosecution of Madrid. Lives threatened. No one knows your real identity. It does not promote their books. Do not go to book fairs. Granted very few interviews. Always under heavy security.
This presentation was via the Internet. From somewhere unknown in Spain. The presentation was issued on line for the best newspapers, radio and television stations in the country: El Mundo, El País, Antena 3, Periodista Digital, Onda Cero, etc., linked the press conference live from their websites.
This press conference was followed, on line, from almost 20 countries worldwide...

CONDUCTOR: Hello to everyone. Today is a very special day for Temas de Hoy, the publishers that I represent. Eight years ago, just after I joined this firm, I started conversations with Antonio Salas, a journalist who infiltrated the neo-Nazi movement and wanted to publish a book about his investigations. The book, published in 2003, was deeply controversial and caused a wide reaction. Subsequent investigations and denunciations led to consequences still ongoing. Less than a year ago, Antonio Salas participated as a protected witness in the trial against Hammerskin celebrated in the Provincial Court of Madrid, which led to an exemplary ruling at the European level, since for the first time members of a neo-Nazi group were convicted as members of an illicit association.

After that, in 2004, we published “The year I trafficked in women”. This book, which was also deeply controversial, investigated women trafficking networks in Spain. Also in Mexico, the government was forced to investigate networks that trafficked young girls from Chiapas. Shortly after that, as a consequence of the Madrid bombings of the 11^th of March, Antonio Salas decided to infiltrate Islamic terrorism. For the last six years, he has been living as Mohammed Abdallah, The Palestinian. We have here the personal photo album in which Antonio Salas elaborated his life. Antonio is here with us behind this curtain, because for security reasons his identity needs to be preserved. Antonio, what can you tell me about this album?

 

ANTONIO SALAS: This album has been the passport for my travels into a number of countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Latin America. I tried to reconstruct the supposed biography of Muhammad Abdala from his birth to the present day. I knew that in many countries, especially when living among armed groups, my things would be searched, I would be monitored and controlled, and wanted that album to be found among my possessions. In the album I included real photos of my childhood, with my real parents and grandparents, supposedly of Palestinian origins, alongside photos of my cover story, my alibi. I needed some justification if I wanted to become a jihad, a martyr, a mujahidden, a warrior of Islam. Therefore I thought of making some photos, with the collaboration of a friend, one of the escorts that I had meet while working on “The year I trafficked in women”, of Arabic origins, with some objects brought from Palestine. Paintings, decorative objects, all I could think of that you could find in an Arabic home, so I could prove that she had been my wife. This story I combined with a real story, the story of one of the victims of the second Intifada, Talar, aged 25, who died during a raid by an Israeli patrol in northern Palestine and the West Bank on the 9Th of March, in case anybody wanted to check whether the story I was telling was true. From that moment, I also included photos of my travels, my life among different terrorist organisations, people I met, until the album was complete. I would say that the album was my safe conduct. It has taken me out of a few tight spots in many countries.

C: We are watching now images from the presentation of “Diary of a Skin” with Esteban Ibarra, president of the Movement Against Intolerance, who cannot be with us today because a new trial, against Boold and Honour, another of the organisations mentioned in “Diary of a Skin”, is starting today. But let’s carry on, because there are many issues that we want to talk about, and we want to leave some time to answer some of the many questions that have arrived through different media. I think that we should talk about the Jackal. At some point he becomes your mentor. How do you reachhim? How do you reach the Jackal? What is the Ilich Ramirez Repatriation Committee?

 

 

AS: The truth is that reaching Carlos the Jackal was very complicated. Before I started this investigation I knew nothing about terrorism. Not that I know much now, but at any rate then I knew even less. I knew that Carlos the Jackal was an almost legendary character about whom many movies had been made and many books had been written, but until one of the courses on terrorism that I followed, of the many that were being organised in Spain, in this case, one organised by the Defence Ministry in Jacain late 2005, I had no real notion of who the Jackal really was. I learned that his name was Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, that he was an icon, probably the most famous and lethal terrorist of the 20th century, born in Venezuela, converted to Islam, member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and responsible for many terrorist operations in the 70s and 80s in Europe and all over the world. After that he became one of my objectives. My first trip to Venezuela was a fiasco, and I didn’t manage to reach his family. It was very complicated and I achieved nothing, but for Castillo, a painter that had been his class mate at the Fermin Toro School, in Caracas. I had to go back to Venezuela on several occasions to find Ilich’s family. Finally, I ended up having a close and warm relationship with Vladimir Ramirez, I met his mother Eva Sanchez, his nephews, in short, all the family. Then I created, as a cover story for my investigation, the Ilich Ramirez Repatriation Committee. My first direct conversation with Ilich Ramirez happens just a few days after the Venezuelan presidential elections in 2006, I think that it was on the 8^th of December. Luckily for me, Vladimir Ramírez had agreed to let me film an interview with him, and while the camera was on Ilich made a telephone call to his brother Vladimir from the maximum security prison where he was confined, and thus I was able to have this first conversation, which started in Arabic, with the Jackal. I had to wait two years, until 2008, for him to be transferred to another prison with looser levels of security, La Santé, in Paris, where he had free access to the telephone. From that moment, we called me weekly, sometimes two or three times a week, as web master for his website and responsible of his presence on the internet. I taped hours and hours of conversations about all sort of issues.

 

VIDEO

 

C: What can you tell us about this conversation? What do you think these words mean?

AS: He is one of the most significant figures of revolutionary struggle and terrorism of all times, and in this conversation is him, and not me, who affirms to have been charged with the task of supervising the bombing against Carrero Blanco, Franco’s prime minister, which totally changed Spanish history. According to his testimony, he trained members of the Basque ETA in Algerian training camps during the 70s. I think this is a very interesting example of the cooperation that has always existed, way before the speculations generated after the Madrid bombings, between different terrorist organisations, in this case of Arabic origins, for example the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, where Ilich belonged, and other organisations such as the ETA, the Columbian FARC, the Baader-Meinhof or the IRA. There has always been close cooperation, and I have experienced it during these years I have spent among terrorist groups.

 C: Have you said farewell to the Jackal?

AS: No. I was lucky because it was him who stopped our conversations, not me. It was something I had been worrying about, because if it had been me who interrupted these conversations probably he would have been suspicious. But in the latest European elections he had the daring, or the temerity, to openly support a political party blatantly pro-Zionist and anti-Israeli. This caused an important scandal in Israel, and the Israeli government complained to President Sarkozy, causing his penitentiary privileges to be taken away from him, for example, telephone access. Therefore, I have not been able to tell him how I really was an infiltrated journalist, and how I had been using him as a cover for the infiltration. However, I have sent him a signed copy and a letter, explaining my reasons and who I really am.

C: Let’s talk about your contact with armed groups in different countries. Here we have a sample of the many hours of footage obtained by you. We are going to reproduce an small sample while we comment on it. What is this, Antonio, could it be shooting practice?

AS: Yes, this is hidden camera footage, with a member of the Tupac Amaru group, converted to Islam, Sidi, he is a Muslim. C: We are watching a conversation where you were being told that [UNINTELIGIBLE] Exactly, exactly.

C: [UNINTELIGIBLE] Well, now we are seeing the weapons. These images have already been commented upon, because the weapons carry some marks that prove that they belong to the army, is that right?

AS: Yes, these were not the images that we were going to show, but never mind. These images were filmed during my military training. According to my comrades in Bolivarian groups, of the many that exist in Venezuela, there are camps were military training can be obtained, up to six just around Caracas. I had applied to access the FARC’s training camps in Colombia, and I actually had a personal interview, to hand over my written application, with a representative of the Colombian guerrillas, and pass to Colombia through the Green Roads. My application received a favourable answer just a fewdays before Raul Reyes’ camp bombing, in Ecuador, which had international consequences that I guess will be discussed later. From then, and due to my insistence on receiving military training before returning to Venezuela, I was authorised to enter a specific camp. I was put into a car and driven for days until reaching a camp where for the first time I held an assault rifle; they had FALs, of obvious Venezuelan manufacture, Israeli UZIs, American M4s, the AK, not 47, but 130, of Soviet origins, Kalashnikovs, grenade launchers, in short, all sorts of weapons. I think it is important to highlight that these camps are organised by Bolivarian groups, in a fully unofficial manner. These groups are very enthusiastic about the revolution, but the service they render to this revolution by keeping armed resistance activities is questionable. If it ever made sense, which is very doubtful, it did only in those years when the guerrillas confronted right wing governments, which is the origin of these Bolivarian groups still operating in Venezuela.

C: We will discuss these further later on, because some of the questions are reaching us from Venezuela. I don’t know if we can watch the footage on the Tupac Amaru group’s statement. How is a terrorist statement made, Antonio?

AS: I belong to a generation that no longer had to do the compulsory military service. I had ever had a gun in my hands and I had never seen a machine gun or any of those weapons; only in American movies. Nevertheless, after months of training with the manuals I had been given and the rest, I passed the exams. Maybe that is why they accepted my application to take part in the filming of some of the statements being issued in Venezuela, both before and after the presidential elections in 2006, by groups like La Piedrita, Alexis Vive, all Bolivarian groups from the 23 de Enero and other areas of Caracas or of Venezuela at large. They appear hooded and armed, warning of the consequences if America or any other country interferes in Venezuela again. Some of these statements had already been issued by members of the groups I had infiltrated, and finally, afterI got to the camps, mi participation in one, several, actually, of them was agreed. My first surprise came from the infrastructure around them. When you watch a terrorist statement from Al Qaeda, Hammas, ETA or any other organisation, you never imagine the infrastructure around it. Apart from the people giving the statement, there are armed people keeping guard, its much more complicated that it seems. I took the risk and smuggled a hidden camera, in order to have, let’s say the “making of”, what stands behind the filming of these statements.

 

C: Everybody can watch this footage on the web site that we have created for Antonio. www.antoniosalas.org, and it will also be distributed to the media. We have to proceed, because the book is full of interesting issues and making a summary is truly difficult. In April 2009, a plot to assassinate Evo Morales was unearthed. What can you tell us about this?

 

AS: When I created the official web site for Carlos the Jackal I knew that I was placing a bait, a magnet for members of terrorist groups worldwide. And it worked. It worked really well. One of the first people to contact me through the website was a Eduardo Rocha, who claimed to be a converted Muslim, born in Bolivia but at the time one of the representatives, as vice-president, of the Islamic community in Hungary. He sent me an email for me to pass his greetings to Carlos the Jackal, written in a suspiciously friendly tone, as if he had really had a close relationship with Ilich Ramirez. Then, I asked the Commander Ilich Ramirez who this character was, and he told me that he had indeed been his contact in Hungary in the operations carried out during the 70’s and the 80’s. He encouraged me to keep in touch with him and from that moment on I became the middleman,so to say, between Ilich Ramirez and Eduardo Rocha. For around a year, maybe longer than a year, Ilich would send me postcards and letters for me to forward to Rozsa in Hungary. Rocha sent me his books, and I even wrote two books on Arabic issues in order to reinforce my identity as Mohammed Abdala, that I sent to him too. It was quite a fluent relationship. Once I had confirmed that this was an interesting character, for example, he had been correspondent for several British and Spanish media in the Balkans War, until he changed the camera for a gun, creating the first international militia on the Croatian side, I realised that an interview with him would be of enormous value for my investigation. Coincidentally, I was the last person to have an interview with him, a very long and intimate one, for a gazette that I distributed in several mosques and revolutionary centres, called “Los papeles de Bolivar”, and which notwith standing being printed by photocopying, was published in English, French, Basque, Arabic and Spanish.

 

C: I have right now the issue of “Los papeles de Bolivar” with that interview with Commander Eduardo Rocha. Is this when your investigation reaches an end? Did you know anything about this terrorist plan? Tell us more.

AS: In his last email, 4 or 5 days before he was shot to death, he asked me to send his sister Silvia, in Bolivia, a packet with copies of his book, for distribution among the Bolivian Islamic community. The very day that I sent the packet, 16^th or 17^th of April, last year, Friday I think, on leaving the mosque I went to a cyber-cafe, opened my email and found hundreds of news released by the media all over the world, publishing that Eduardo Rozsa had been shot down during an anti-terrorist operation alongside two other members of his alleged terrorist group. The remaining members were arrested. They were planning to assassinate Evo Morales. For me this set off all the alarms, telling me that I had gone too far. When I started this investigation I assumed the risks of approaching armed groups, of smuggling hidden cameras. What I could not have imagined is that my name would be linked to the attempted assassination of a president, because, after Rozsa’s death, when all Bolivian journalists and information services started trying to find out about Eduardo Rocha, the first thing they found on the web was his last interview with some Mohammed Abdallah, who additionally was web master for Carlos the Jackal. As you can imagine, from that point on, speculations, conjectures and wild guesses spiralled up, and many people started looking for me too.

C: After you finish your investigation, you start writing the book that we are presenting today. Many questions have already been raised. I have a sample here of all the questions that have been sent through different media, and we will try to answer as many as possible. Don’t you think that the Islamic community will find your infiltration offensive?

AS: To the contrary. I think that the main victim, or the first victim, of jihadist terrorism is the Islamic community. Not only because statistically most victims of jihadist attacks in the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Africa are Muslims, of Arabic race even, but because jihadist terrorism is a blasphemy for Islam, for the international Islamic community, which is not necessarily Arabic. I have tried my hardest, sincerely and from the first day, to be a good Muslim. I have always respected the five precepts of Islam, and despite the difficulties of being a good Muslim, or a good Christian or Jew, in these days, I think that the Islamic community will have nothing against me. Quite the opposite.

C: What about Hugo Chávez?

AS: I don’t know. It is impossible to say. I have tried to be absolutely impartial. I don’t represent any interest, I work for no TV network, for no information service, for no editorial line, I don’t represent any political party, I have loyalty for nobody but my readers, which are the only funding that this investigation, as with the previous ones, has had. Therefore, the book is cruelly objective. I merely tell what I have experienced, as a European Muslim journalist infiltrated into Bolivarian organisations, keeping contacts with other insurgent, terrorist, whatever we wish to call them, organisations. And I think that if president Chavez reads it with an impartial eye he’ll find that the book reveals many interesting facts.

C: We have questions from Latin America. For example, from Colombia, through Periodista Digital, Dora Glottman, from Radio Caracol asks: according to your investigation, what sort of training do the FARC receive in Venezuela?

AS: I did not receive any training with the FARC in Venezuela. After going through several filters I had a personal interview with their representative, also filmed with a hidden camera, in order to hand over my written application to join the training camps, but in Colombia. Nevertheless, it is true, and I think I am revealing no secret here, that the FARC receive cooperation, support and sympathy from the Bolivarian groups. For example, in neighbourhoods like the 23 de Enero, where for the first time in the world, a statue to Manuel Malulanda, Tirofijo, has been erected. It is from these Bolivarian groups, and it is important to understand this. These groups are made up by people with a guerrilla tradition going back to the 50s, that for decades have maintained that weapons can be a form of language, a way to the Revolution. When Chavez enters office, many of them enter powerful positions in the Venezuelan security forces. It is them that organise unofficial training programs, in different training camps where you can train in the use and maintenance of short-range weapons, long-range weapons, rifles, grenade launchers and even explosives.

 

C: We have a question from Caracas itself: Eduard Marquez asks: did you know that Chino Carias had been expelled from the Tupac Amaru group? Chino Carias is a character mentioned many times throughout the book. What do you have to say?

AS: My experience, as a mere tourist who has spent several months in Venezuela over the past six years, is that the Bolivarian groups are in fierce competition with one another. Although all of them share the same devotion, loyalty and love for Hugo Chavez, there are power struggles and clashes that have led to the assassination of six of my comrades, friends with whom I lived in those years. They got killed, one by one, within the internecine wars between different factions, such as Carapaicas, Alexis Vive, La Piedrita, or Tupac Amaru. The Tupac Amaru movement was actually created in Uruguay during the 70’s, and evolved into a number of organisations, for example in Peru, Argentina and Venezuela. I know that Chino Carias was expelled from one of the sub-groups of the political wing of Tupac Amaru, legalised several years ago, and organised his own cell, in this case armed and not of a political nature, called Capitulo de Venezuela, which right now is inclose cooperation with similar groups in Peru through Alberto Carias himself.

 

C: Another question from Planeta de Libros: is ther e any truth behind the alleged relationship between Venezuela and Islamic terrorism?

AS: When I started this investigation I knew nothing about the Arabic world, Islam, terrorism or the revolutionary history of Latin America. Thus, when I started my research, I believed everything I read, everything that was written in books and newspapers, and started elaborating a list of things to be checked. There is an enormous bibliography, scores of articles, about the supposed Al Qaeda training camps in Isla Margarita, in Venezuela, including information allegedly leaked by members of the DISIP, the Venezuelan information services, saying that Mustafa Setmarian, for example, a historical member of Al Qaeda, was living in Venezuela under Chavez’s protection. Many articles have also been published, and still are, yesterday for example, about Hezbola Venezuela and the supposed presence of Hezbola in the Bolivarian Republic; lots of things that I did my best to prove. I went to Isla Margarita to get in touch with the Islamic community there, accused of being members of Al Qaeda, and I can certify what is true and what is false in this entire story. The same applies to Mustafa Setmarian and Hezbola Venezuela. In this very moment, after Teodoro Darnott, founder of Hezbola Venezuela, was convicted to 10 years in the first conviction for terrorism in Venezuela, I am in charge of Hezbola Venezuela, so I think I am in a position of authority to separate the truth from the lies. And what I found is that thereis a fierce and merciless political manipulation of terrorism. It already happened in 2006, right before the elections. And of course, there are no Al Qaeda training camps in Isla Margarita. The leader of the Islamic community was questioned after 9/11 along with many other people that had returned from trips to Arabic countries around the time of the attacks.

C: From A3 News, Ramon Ongil asks if you fear for your life, and what can you tell about the safety measures that you follow to protect your identity.

AS: Of course. I am no hero. Obviously, when you decide to undertake this sort of investigation you assume risks and you feel the danger, and when you decide to make it known to the public, this fear increases. What I cannot say much about is the security measures that I follow, and which are as comprehensive as possible, and which are not very different from those followed by anyone threatened by ETA or any other terrorist group. I think this is pretty obvious.

 

C: From Barcelona, from the web site Planeta de Libros: was the language barrier very difficult to overcome? When did your accent stop giving you away?

AS: Never. The accent gives me away to this day. I did some Arabic courses, regular and intensive ones, in Northern Africa in 2004 and 2005. At that time, after the 11M and the 7J, the Madrid and London bombings, logically all European security forces where very actively investigating jihadist terrorism. In fact I found it very moving that many police agents, even mere agents, joined the same Arabic and terrorism courses that I was following in order to try to learn anything that could be of help. In Northern Africa I coincided with police agents from Italy, Germany, and other countries, and there I realised that our accent could be identified when speaking Arabic. Italians spoke Arabic with anItalian accent and Germans with a German accent, and therefore it was easy to see that I would speak my little Arabic with a Latin accent. That was one of the reasons that led me not to try to impersonate a fully Arabic person in the first place, and looked for an origin in a country with a marked anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist political drive, such as Venezuela, to place the character. That is why Mohammed Abadala, although supposedly of Palestinian origins, was born in the state of Merida, in Venezuela.

C: From Cadiz: I would like to know what you have found most shocking in this investigation, I mean, did you have some preconception that you have dismissed?

 

AS: Everything. I started this investigation with a heap of prejudices based on my ignorance of Islam, the Arabic culture and terrorism. I, probably as do many of our viewers, sincerely believed that all Arabs were Muslims, that all Muslims were Arabs, that all Muslims were terrorists and that all Arabs were terrorists. As I integrated into the Arabic community and converted to Islam, joining the umma, the community of believers, I realised that not all Arabs are Muslims, that not all Muslims are Arabs, and of course that not all Arabs are terrorists and that not all terrorists are Muslims. I think that we are somewhat trapped by preconceptions, and I left them behind as I got deeper into my investigation.

C: I am going to proceed with the last questions, because we are running out of time. From Periodista Digital, Juan Jose Miralles, who publishes a blog and has released several academic texts, holds the view that the first front for the West in this Fourth World War is jihadist terrorism which has declared a fourth generation war on it, the first target of which is winning back al-Andalus, Spain, in order to fulfil the prophecies of Mohammed himself, the Islam of the prophesied mahid, the cult Caliph that will regain the kingdom of Spain. This is the Islam, along with its leaders, that needs to be persecuted. He wants to know what you think about his opinions on this confrontation between Islam and the West.

 AS: I know Miralles’ blog. He has been one of my constant sources, because the first stage for an infiltration like this implies learning a huge amount of theory. Reading a lot and researching a lot for a long time. However, when Islam is seen from the outside, we normally make the istake of seeing it as a coherent and unified whole, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Islam is divided by as many secessions, sects, clashes and personalities as Christianity. The Muslims make the same mistake, thinking that all Christians are just the same, while we know that there are scores of sects, branches, orthodoxies, etc., different churches that call themselves Christian. The same happens with Islam. Apart from the division between Sunnites and Shiites, which is the most widely known, there are many terrorist groups that follow different and conflicting lines. Morabits, wahabists, in short, a large number of conflicting groups. Therefore, there is no unified plan. Mohammed’s words have been very freely interpreted by different organisations as a justification for spurious interests. Regarding the conquest of al-Andalus, I don’t think the problem is coming from where it’s been suggested, because Al Qaeda faced a fiasco in Iraq; the support that they expected to receive from the Iraqi resistance, after they offered their help, once proven that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and that there had been no previous links between Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden, all the men that they were expecting to join Al Qaeda never did so. This fiasco in Iraq drove Al Qaeda to Northern Africa and this affects us more, the Spanish and the French, responsible for the colonial presence in Northern Africa, in countries such as Algeria, Tunisia, the Sahara, etc. Therefore, my opinion is that the imminent danger for al-Andalus comes from the Maghreb, and not from this supposed jihadist international of all terrorist groups, which in fact, when seen from within, are as divided as the Imams of the different mosques in Spain, unable to unite among themselves.

C: We have to finish, Antonio. We are watching the first reactions, and the debate about the ethical limits of this kind of journalism has already been reopened. How can you defend yourself against the accusations of sensationalism, and of placing your ethical limits beyond those of other poeple?

AS: I am not even going to try. The publication of “The year I trafficked in women” was treated by the media in the same way that this new publication will be. Furthermore, I suspect that this one will be politically brandished in a way that is beyond my control. But when the controversy about “The year I trafficked in women” happened I was in Ramallah, already in the course of this investigation, and read criticisms from a journalist who said that if I had such guts, why didn’t I infiltrate jihadist terrorism and go to Palestine. And I was reading this in a cyber-cafe in Ramallah. I could not explain to this journalist that I was already there. Thus, I have no need to defend myself and have no intention to do so. My defence is my work, what is written in the book and what I filmed with my hidden camera, and all documents that will be visible on the internet. Regarding ethical limits, I have broken none. Fortunately, characters like Ilich Ramirez himself realised that I was much more valuable working legally that committing any illegal action. They insisted over and over again, and there are many conversations in which this is recorded, for me not to participate in any illegal action, and thus to remain able to keep his presence on the internet and even represent him in meetings celebrated in Sweden and other countries. I have never committed a crime; sometimes it’s been difficult to travel with my own documentation, and to stay within the law, respecting those moral and ethical codes that I probably share with the same journalists that criticise me.

C: Many more issues could be raised here, Europe, the possible support from certain groups, from other terrorist organisations, such as ETA, etc. We will keep the debate open on our website, in Antonio Sala’s website, where there is an internet forum and a blog where Antonio Salas will comment on your reactions. The book is an extraordinary work of journalism, but the issues raised by Antonio were too wide, so additional documents will be available on this website which we believe to be al most compulsory for everybody interested in today’s world. Here we finish this virtual press conference. Thank you very much.

PDF: http://www.antoniosalas.org/sites/all/themes/internal/antoniosalas/pdf/press_conference_the_palestinian.pdf