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Two Alleged Hezbollah Spies Arrested

One is prominent Palestinian rights leader

by
Marc Tracy
May 10, 2010
(BBC)
(BBC)

Israeli security forces arrested a prominent Palestinian human rights activist and another activist on suspicion of spying for Hezbollah. Ameer Makhoul is the head of Ittijah, or The Union of Arab Community-Based Associations.

We only learned this today, because before then Israel had imposed a gag order on the case (remember, they can do that), and there were only scattered reports that Makhoul had been arrested from his home in Haifa late last week at 3 in the morning, held lawyerless for 48 hours, and remanded for six days. (Electronic Intifada also organized a petition protesting his arrest.) JTA noted that Ittijah was involved in the infamous 2001 Durban conference, and that it refuses to condition aid based on being from non-terrorist sources.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.