[MER - One of the usually unspoken realities for Palestinians is the extent to which the Arafat Regime is now working closely with the Israeli Shinbet and the American CIA in order to get the money and support needed to be able to 'control' the Palestinian population.]

"Colonel Rajoub is head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Apparatus, and today he works with Shin Bet... It is a delicate subject for both sides and the veil is lifted only rarely. But on January 1, when a settler fired randomly at Palestinians in Hebron, Col. Rajoub (Palestinian intelligence chief) and Ami Ayalon, the Shin Bet chief, appeared together in public to impose a curfew and prevent disaster for the town -- and the peace agreement."

" 'Fateh people say cynically that this might be the only really successful part of the relationship with the Israelis,' said Ghassan al-Khatib, a Palestinian analyst."

"CIA training teams from the United States are operating in Gaza, while Canada has supplied communications and surveillance equip- ment and computers to the Palestinian agency... The European Union recently sent a mission to assess how it too could help."