\"There\'s nothing like the State of Israel, may it be blessed.\" This was the tearful reaction of Israeli-Arab Yusuf Samir last night, after he escaped from the clutches of the Palestinian Authority. He had been held by a branch of the Palestinian secret security services, and showed signs of being beaten. \"We must be very concerned about this little country,\" he said. \"These [Palestinians] are poison, poison, all of them are poison.\"
Samir, whose whereabouts Israel did not know for the past two months, said that he had been told, \"We informed Israel that we are not holding you and that we don\'t know where you are, thus that no one is looking for you here.\" They accused him of being a spy, and interrogated him mercilessly. He was recently moved to an apartment in Bethlehem, where he noticed that one of the doors was unlocked. When his guard fell asleep, he decided to try his luck, and was soon on his way to the Israeli checkpoint at Rachel\'s Tomb. Samir was granted asylum in Israel from Egypt in 1968, and lives on the edge of the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem, not far from Beit Jala.
Samir, whose whereabouts Israel did not know for the past two months, said that he had been told, \"We informed Israel that we are not holding you and that we don\'t know where you are, thus that no one is looking for you here.\" They accused him of being a spy, and interrogated him mercilessly. He was recently moved to an apartment in Bethlehem, where he noticed that one of the doors was unlocked. When his guard fell asleep, he decided to try his luck, and was soon on his way to the Israeli checkpoint at Rachel\'s Tomb. Samir was granted asylum in Israel from Egypt in 1968, and lives on the edge of the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem, not far from Beit Jala.