It is well known that no occupation can survive without collaborators. No oppressive regime can survive without the help of the oppressed and since oppressed people need to live and need favors from their oppressors, blackmailing and bribing people to get them to collaborate is a common practice.

When the Israeli intelligence agencies want information they know they can rely on someone who will be desperate enough to help them. It�s how things have always been, it�s how things are, and sadly it�s how things will be as long as there is an oppressive racist regime occupying Palestine.

It is a sad reality where Palestinians need a permit for almost everything and this gives the Israeli authorities endless opportunities to force people to be collaborators and to provide information on their friends, neighbors and relatives. Even if most people refuse, the Israeli authorities can still count on the fact that even though this will be a terrible stain on themselves and their families, some people will be desperate enough and succumb to the pressure. And then there are opportunists, people who will collaborate for money and position. This phenomenon too has been around forever.

There are always people, who will, for money or power or position, or even just for small favors praise the regime, undermine those who oppose it.

They will make those who risk everything and resist seem unreasonable and make themselves seem more �realistic� and �practical.� This is a type of collaboration that is harder to spot, but in the end it too is exposed for what it is. One hears talk of how ending the Zionist occupation of Palestine is a dream, how a reality without Israel is unrealistic and of course how romantic and na�ve it is to think that a solution to the conflict in Palestine can be reached �in our lifetime.� And, they will argue, since the Palestinians have given everything, and Israel will not budge, there is no choice but to wait until God willing Israelis will be convinced of their wrong-doing and things will change.

It is fascinating to see how the same voices will also oppose the call for BDS and explain that instead of boycotting we must talk, claiming that, �we do not want to hurt anyone, all we want is peace.�

They will support peace camps, and dialogue groups, and peace parks (there is now an entire �peace industry� in Palestine) and what not but will do nothing to actually resist the oppression and remove the regime. Lately I heard someone quote MLK, Jr. misrepresenting his �I have a dream� speech and claiming that the dream is that someday, perhaps in a generation or two or three there will be a free Palestine and all people will live in peace. But in the meantime Palestinians mustn�t resist, mustn�t call for BDS, mustn�t fight, leaving out the part of MLK�s speech that calls for �The fierce urgency of now� and calls to avoid the �tranquilizing drug of gradualism� and finally, �to make justice a reality.�

MLK, Jr. Gandhi and Nelson Mandela are three figures that provide the inspiration for so many of today�s struggles against injustice, and not one of them called upon people to be hesitant, weak or careful. They called for action, they called for immediacy and they called for, indeed they demanded heroism. And indeed in the case of the Palestinian struggle there are far more heroes than collaborators, far more people willing to act than those wanting to delay and far more people willing to boldly lead, than those who are weak and hesitant. But Palestinians are not permitted to be heroes. Palestinians are only permitted to be victims and terrorists, oppressed or imprisoned. We cannot call Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails bold leaders, even though so many of them are in prison precisely because they are leaders.� And we may not call Palestinian fighters heroes, though so many of them dare to face the Israeli military behemoth with great courage, and we may not call Palestinian mothers and fathers who raise one fine generation after another heroes, they are considered a �demographic threat.� And of course, Palestinians who call for boycott, who refuse to pretend that all is well and denounce the �normalization� efforts of dialogue and peace talks, are �hard line extremists.�

As I write these words I am in France on a speaking tour. Near Chateaubriant, in Western France there is a sight where the Germans executed twenty-seven local men during WW-2. It was in retaliation for the assassination of a senior German officer. The youngest among the executed was seventeen. The sight is somber and beautiful and includes photos of the men, and the wooden posts to which they were tied when they were executed. There are nine posts; the men were executed in three rounds.� As we walked around this sight I tried to imagine what it would be like if the world had said that these innocent men were terrorists and that the Germans had a right to defend themselves against terrorism.� If the world accepted that occupied France was in fact �disputed� and not occupied and the Vichy regime was recognized around the world as a legitimate French government and French claims to freedom would be discounted as merely anti-German propaganda. It�s a funny world, isn�t it?

Israel uses Palestinian towns of 1948 to provide safe havens for collaborators from the West Bank.� These people who can no longer live in their own communities for fear that they will be killed need a home and the assumption is that they will be somewhat safe within the 1948 boundaries. This arrangement also allows them to remain among their own people, other Palestinians, though in most cases they are easily identified and the stain upon them and their families is impossible to erase. But this is only good for small time collaborators. The bigger fish get to live in the US or Europe and they go on speaking tours earning big bucks for defending Israeli crimes.

This article was written by Miko Peled for American Herald Tribune on Apr. 26, 2016. Miko Peled is an Israeli writer and activist living in the US. He was born and raised in Jerusalem. His father was the late Israeli General Matti Peled. Driven by a personal family tragedy to explore Palestine, its people and their narrative.