[News] Revealed: How British spies pull the PA's strings

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/revealed-how-british-spies-pull-pas-strings/37646>
Revealed: How British spies pull the PA's strings

Asa Winstanley <https://electronicintifada.net/people/asa-winstanley> and Kit
Klarenberg <https://electronicintifada.net/people/kit-klarenberg> - 31 May
2023
------------------------------
[image: Collage of five men]

Secret files reveal the names of British agents who influenced the
Palestinian Authority.

A cache of leaked documents obtained by The Electronic Intifada reveals the
extent of British intelligence penetration of Palestinian Authority forces,
including “daily direction” from a UK military officer.

The documents detail how shadowy British contractor Adam Smith
International (ASI) has influenced the Palestinian Authority for almost 15
years.

They expose several military intelligence trainers, naming names for the
first time.

Two of the British agents, including a likely MI6 officer, worked closely
with Israeli spies.

Some ASI personnel who worked with the Palestinian Authority are named in
the files as also working with the contractor’s controversial “Free Syrian
Police” project.

The program used British government funds
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/revealed-british-government-spied-palestinian-refugees/37111>
to support al-Qaida-linked groups fighting the Syrian government –
inadvertently, ASI claims.

ASI training to the Palestinian Authority is done in Ramallah, Jericho and
Jordan, under the ultimate command of a US general, and in coordination
with Israel.

The Electronic Intifada used the same document cache to reveal in February
that
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/revealed-british-government-spied-palestinian-refugees/37111>
the contractor had carried out a secret British government project to spy
on Palestinian refugee camps, with the aim of monitoring “criticism of
Western and Israeli foreign policy.”
No comment

You can read extracts from the files on this page and some of the full
documents at the end of this article. The cache has been publicly available
from a file sharing site since October last year. The Electronic Intifada
has chosen to publish only files it has reviewed and determined to be in
the public interest.

ASI declined to comment, directing us to the Foreign Office for queries
“regarding any particular project.” A spokesperson for the UK’s foreign
ministry declined to comment.

The Electronic Intifada understands that ASI has been ordering those named
in the leaked documents not to speak to this publication.

“It is important that you do not respond to these requests for information,
and that you let us know if you are contacted,” ASI director Daniel Pimlott
wrote in one internal email seen by The Electronic Intifada

“The Electronic Intifada is not a credible media organization and has a
pro-Russian slant,” he claimed.

“Remember the confidentiality clauses you signed up to and your obligations
to the UK government,” he added in an implicit warning to anyone who might
consider speaking out.

The Palestinian Authority has always been a brutal collaborationist proxy
force
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/podcast-ep-45-palestinian-authority-and-other-collaborators>
for Israel’s occupation. Its leader Mahmoud Abbas once described security
collaboration
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/mahmoud-abbas-collaboration-israeli-army-secret-police-sacred>
with Israel as “sacred.”

In 2021 there were weeks of protests
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-palestinian-authority-manages-dissent/33546>
after Abbas’ goons beat
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/palestinian-authority-forces-are-israels-foot-soldiers>
to death Nizar Banat <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/nizar-banat>, one
of his most prominent critics, whose influential Facebook videos often
denounced collaboration.

One of the main US goals in the region is to preserve the Palestinian
Authority.

To further that goal, they established the United States Security
Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority
<https://il.usembassy.gov/our-relationship/lieutenant-general-michael-r-fenzel/>
.

The position was founded in 2005
<https://www.state.gov/about-us-united-states-security-coordinator-for-israel-and-the-palestinian-authority/>
and the first person to take the role was Keith Dayton
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/keith-dayton>, a US army general.

In 2007, Dayton was instrumental in a CIA-backed coup
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-papers-and-gaza-coup/9200>
against the elected Palestinian Authority leadership. Hamas’ political wing
had won the 2006 legislative elections, much to the anger of Israel and the
US.

The coup failed in the Gaza Strip, but was successful in the West Bank,
resulting in a bitter and sometimes violent split between Hamas and Abbas’
faction Fatah.
British trainers

The leaked files are ASI bids for British government contracts, mostly in
countries other than Palestine.

In the bids ASI often cites its training of Palestinian Authority armed
forces as evidence of its suitability for other lucrative contracts, in the
process revealing previously unknown names and details.

ASI’s training of the Palestinian Authority falls under the auspices of the
“British Support Team,” which is funded
<https://declassifieduk.org/uk-spends-millions-training-security-forces-to-control-palestinians-in-west-bank-and-lebanon/>
by the Ministry of Defence and run by ASI under the auspices of the US
Security Coordinator.

One of the leaked documents, part of a 2019 bid on a project in Tunisia,
describes ASI’s work as “assisting the UK Government in building the
capacity of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces” for “over 10 years.”

An obscure post
<https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/palestinian-officers-academy-poa-anthony-malkin/>
published on LinkedIn by one of ASI’s military contractors confirms these
details.

It was written by Anthony Malkin
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-malkin-58244830/>, a former British
army colonel and military intelligence
<https://www.theculturalexperience.com/expert-guides/col-anthony-malkin/>
officer.
[image: Collage shows the same man with a beard]

British military trainer Anthony Malkin.

Claiming Arabic fluency, Malkin describes how, from 2013, he established a
Palestinian Authority training academy and designed courses for its
officers.

While Malkin’s post does not name ASI – alluding only to “an international
development company” – his LinkedIn profile does list the firm as one of
his employers.

The LinkedIn post aligns well with the descriptions in the ASI files –
although the files do not name Malkin.

But one file dating to 2015 does seem to refer to him, describing “a
specialist military technical advisor” who is “a former head of leadership
training at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst” and who was then “the
only international consultant embedded at this high level within” the
Palestinian Authority armed forces.
[image: PA, US and UK troops on a training exercise]

A photo apparently taken by Anthony Malkin shows PA, US and UK troops on a
training exercise. (LinkedIn
<https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/palestinian-officers-academy-poa-anthony-malkin/>
)

The adviser “developed a nine-month practical leadership curriculum with
over 1,700 lesson plans in English and Arabic,” according to the file.

Malkin’s LinkedIn post seems to tally with that, describing how he set up
an “officers’ leadership course … for nine months” with a “live-firing four
week culminating exercise in Jordan based on Sandhurst.”

What are the priorities of this course?

According to Malkin’s LinkedIn post, he made sure Palestinian Authority
forces were trained in conducting “raids into Palestinian refugee camps,”
which he claims are “lawless sanctuaries for criminals and armed political
activists.”

Palestine is described in another ASI document as one of several “priority
countries” for the “Conflict, Security and Stability Fund,” a
$1.6-billion-dollar
<https://declassifieduk.org/uk-spends-millions-training-security-forces-to-control-palestinians-in-west-bank-and-lebanon/>
British government pool for global interference projects, which often
finances ASI projects.

It has been described
<https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201617/jtselect/jtnatsec/208/20806.htm#_idTextAnchor012>
by one parliamentary committee as a potential “slush fund” that doesn’t
meet the needs of UK national security.

One ASI document written as part of a 2019 bid on a “police reform”
contract in Jordan says that almost $7 million in British government funds
have been spent on the British Support Team since 2012.
[image: ASI document extract]

According to the document, the funds came from the Ministry of Defence.

However, according to Malkin’s blog post, the project was – at least
initially – also funded by the US military.

Another ASI document from 2019 shows the extent of British government
penetration of the Palestinian Authority under the auspices of US
imperialism.

It says that the ASI runs Palestinian-Authority-embedded “advisers …
reporting frequently” to British government officials, “in the case of the
[occupied Palestinian territories], taking daily direction from a serving
UK senior officer.”

Although the leaked documents seem to refer to Malkin only obliquely, other
British overseers are explicitly named.

A 2016 bid for ASI’s “Free Syrian Police” project names former British army
intelligence officer David Robson as a senior director of the UK’s “support
to security sector reform in the occupied Palestinian territories.”

The document boasts tantalizingly of Robson’s “distinguished military
career” during which he “operated at the highest political and strategic
levels.”

But Robson is more forthcoming on his LinkedIn page
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgrobson/>.

There it says he was a colonel of “info superiority” as an intelligence
adviser to the head of the British army between 2007 and 2010. He was
subsequently the commander of the 1st Signal Brigade
<https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/formations-divisions-brigades/headquarters-allied-rapid-reaction-corps/1st-signal-brigade/>,
a UK-NATO army unit.
[image: Collage shows photo of a man and a LinkedIn extract]

Former British military intelligence officer David Robson trained
Palestinian Authority forces and went on to lead a program in Syria that
aided al-Qaida.

He went on to become senior British officer for the United States Security
Coordinator in Ramallah, working with Palestinian Authority forces between
2012 and 2015.

Robson was later hired by ASI to lead its Syria program, “tracking and
managing the risks affecting AJACS” – the so-called “Access to Justice and
Community Security” program which directed the Free Syrian Police.

British funding to the project was halted after a 2017 BBC documentary
<https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42217132> exposed evidence that ASI was
aiding al-Qaida.

Despite the scandal, Robson went on to work with Palestinian Authority
armed forces again, and even as military expert for UNRWA
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/unrwa>, the UN’s agency for Palestine
refugees in Jerusalem, his LinkedIn page states.

Others are named in the ASI files as also working with Israeli intelligence.
[image: Collage shows photo of a man and an ASI document extract]

Michael Frayne worked with Israel’s notorious torture agency the Shin Bet.

Michael Frayne, a former close protection officer in London’s Metropolitan
Police and Northern Ireland’s Royal Ulster Constabulary, is named as a
prospective security manager in a 2016 ASI bid on a Foreign Office-funded
project in South Sudan.

Listing his experience, the document names him as a collaborator with Shin
Bet <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/shin-bet>, Israel’s secret police,
“against Islamic-based terrorist organizations.”

A more senior figure named John Deverell is exposed in an ASI bid on
security “reform” in Tunisia.

A former British army brigadier <http://horsington.blog2.idnet.com/?p=3554>,
the Arabic-speaking Sandhurst graduate once “reported personally to Foreign
Secretary David Miliband,” a Labour Party politician in office between 2007
and 2010.
[image: A man in a suit and tie]

Former army officer John Deverell allegedly helped Israel improve its
checkpoint security.
YouTube

Deverell’s ASI resumé states that in 2007 he began overseeing the
Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, as another United States Security
Coordinator adviser.

Deverall had previously worked for US general Dayton as his deputy in
Iraq, soon
after the illegal US-UK invasion
<https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/2003/jun/23/iraq-2>
.

The resumé also describes Deverell as having been “deputy commander” of
“operational intelligence” in Iraq.

Asked to comment, Deverell told The Electronic Intifada he had never been a
military intelligence officer and that “at no stage during my time in the
West Bank did I report to, or prepare any reports for, British military
intelligence.”

Deverell’s ASI resumé boasts a glowing recommendation from Dayton himself:
“the finest senior strategic mind I have ever encountered.”

For two years, the files claim, Deverell “was the first British government
servant living and working full time in the Palestinian Territories [sic]
since the end of the British Mandate” in 1948.

In office, Deverell’s priority was to support Salam Fayyad
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/salam-fayyad>, then the unelected,
US-imposed “prime minister”
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/busting-myth-west-bank-economic-boom>
of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
[image: ASI document extract]

According to the ASI files, Deverell worked on “the improvement of border
security operations on the crossing points between Israel and Gaza.”

ASI claims Deverell “helped improve life for the Palestinians,” but only
“within the strategic objectives of encouraging their moderates [read:
Fatah against Hamas] and giving confidence to the Israelis.”

In his response to The Electronic Intifada, Deverell confirmed briefing
David Miliband “at times” but denied involvement in the US-backed coup: “I
started to work and live in the West Bank in 2007, after Hamas took over in
Gaza, not during the lead up to that point.”

He also denied involvement “in any aspect of border security operations
between Israel and Gaza, nor did I ever advise on them.” Asked in a
followup email to explain the resumé stating otherwise, he wrote: “I stand
by what I said. It is not for me to comment on what ASI said about me.”

ASI declined to comment on whether it had misled the government. The
Foreign Office also declined to comment.

While Deverell’s resumé gives the impression of being involved in military
intelligence, another figure named in ASI’s Tunisia bid looks like an
outright MI6 officer – a spy for Britain’s overseas intelligence agency.

The very nature of such a post makes it almost impossible to prove for
certain. But if the ASI files are to be believed, David Haines must at
minimum be an asset for MI6 within the British diplomatic service.

Haines is described in the Tunisia bid as “a former senior diplomat” who
has decades of experience in “counter-terrorism.” Countries including the
US and UK have a long history of disguising their spies
<https://apnews.com/article/north-america-ap-top-news-wa-state-wire-politics-united-states-985f444da7dd42c5b3b8abc422a977b8>
under diplomatic cover.
[image: Collage shows photo of a man and an ASI document extract]

British “diplomat” David Haines has a top secret security clearance to the
level of an MI6 officer. He worked with the Palestinian Authority in the
1990s.

According to the ASI bid, Haines led the British government’s “capacity
building program for the Omani intelligence services,” and is a fluent
Arabic speaker. On Haines’ LinkedIn page
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-haines-7734a779/>, this is described in
slightly more euphemistic terms as “managing elements of the UK’s relations
with Oman in the security and international relations spheres.”

It seems highly likely that a diplomat charged with such a sensitive
intelligence task would at the very least have very close ties to British
intelligence, if not be a member of such an agency himself.

The most telling line in Haines’s ASI resumé specifies that he is “security
cleared to DV level.”

“Developed Vetting” is the highest of the five
<https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels>
main levels of the British government’s national security checks. Those who
pass it – including all MI6 officers
<https://www.sis.gov.uk/clearing-you-through-security.html> – can be
given “frequent
and uncontrolled” access
<https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels#developed-vetting-dv>
to top secret security files and codewords, as well as to foreign
intelligence.

Haines is put forward in ASI’s Tunisia bid as an intelligence adviser.

According to the bid, he led teams managing cooperation on “counter-terror”
investigations “between security services in Oman, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria and
Israel/OPT and their [British government] counterparts.”

In other words he managed cooperation between British and Israeli spies.

His LinkedIn profile says he was based in the British consulate in
Jerusalem in the mid-1990s, helping the Palestinian Authority establish
itself “with particular focus on capacity building” – similar language to
his later work building up Omani intelligence.
The money

Some of the ASI bids contain detailed budgets, giving an indication of the
kind of fees commanded by the organization’s consultants.

The files show that David Robson was allocated $285,000 for leading ASI’s
“AJACS” program in Syria between 2015 and 2016.

The Tunisia bid is missing a detailed budget breakdown, meaning we do not
know how much John Deverell and David Haines were paid. But the project as
a whole was allocated almost $500,000 of UK government funds.

It is unclear if the Tunisia bid was successful.

David Haines was allocated almost $43,000 for 52 days work on another ASI
intelligence role in Jordan in 2018, which was funded by the Foreign Office.

Michael Frayne was allocated $23,000 for 40 days work in South Sudan in
2017 and 2018.
Junior imperialist partners

Anthony Malkin, Michael Frayne and David Robson did not respond to requests
for comment.

David Haines did not respond to a request for comment sent via the Foreign
Office news desk.

The ASI files give important new insights into the role that the UK plays
as a junior partner in the US empire.

The documents make clear the subservient role that British military and
intelligence forces play in the West Bank, under overall US control.

And ultimately, all three entities – the US, the UK and the PA – are in bed
with Israel and its occupation of Palestine.

*Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist and associate editor with*
The Electronic Intifada. *Kit Klarenberg
<https://twitter.com/KitKlarenberg/> is an investigative journalist
exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and
perceptions.*
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