NABLUS, November 6 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A special advisor to the Israeli interior minister and former commander of the Israeli army in the West Bank branded Palestinian agents collaborating with Israel as "traitors", ruling out any sense of guilt for the fate they meet at the hands of patriotic Palestinians.

Asked by the BBC "Do you ever feel a sense of guilt about people that have been recruited when you know what could happen to them?" General Moshe Govati said: "Why we should feel like this?"

"If he (Palestinian agent) wants money, he gets his money. If he had some political ideology, it's his decision. If we succeeded to blackmail him because we could do it - well he knows why," added the senior Israeli official.

Commenting on a report that Palestinians had executed a number of collaborators with Israel in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, Govati underlined: "For myself, if I were Palestinian, I would hate them to death."

"But I'm an Israeli and I'm threatened every moment by the Palestinians all over the country.

"But you have to understand that once a Palestinian got the decision to collaborate with the Israeli agencies, he knows that maybe he will not die as an old man. He is a traitor - I need him - but he's a traitor".

Israeli internal security ministry spokesman attempted to downplay Govati’s shocking statements, claiming he was speaking on his personal capacity as a military expert and not as a ministerial advisor.

Firing back, a defiant Govati said his remarks were prompted by absolute conviction that collaborators are branded as traitors by their compatriots.

He admitted that Palestinian agents are so important for the Israeli intelligence gathering process.

The Palestinian Authority has took a tough line against suspected collaborators, sentencing most of them to death in a quick deterrent trials.

Some collaborators were even killed by local inhabitants or members of Palestinian resistance groups.

But the question which remains unanswered is why some Palestinians accept to be recruited by the occupation army.

A recent security study carried by a Palestinian researcher pinpointed the fact that the Palestinian economy is "pegged to - if not controlled by - the Israeli economy".

"The economic factor is the most important means through which the Israeli intelligence can recruit Palestinians to fall in the trap of collaboration," according to the study prepared by Khedr Abbas.