[News] The Palestinian Authority Security Forces: Whose Security?
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed May 17 11:25:47 EDT 2017
https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/palestinian-authority-security-forces-whose-security/
The Palestinian Authority Security Forces: Whose Security?
by Alaa Tartir on May 16, 2017
------------------------------------------------------------------------
/To speak of Israeli-Palestinian “cooperation”…is to use no less than a
misnomer. This is not, however, simply because “the outcome of
cooperation between an elephant and a fly is not hard to predict,” as
Chomsky so pithily writes…but because under Oslo, “cooperation” is often
only minimally different from the occupation and domination that went
before it. “Cooperation,” in this context, is above all an
internationally pleasing and acceptable signifier which obscures rather
than elucidates the nature of Israeli-Palestinian relations./– Jan
Selby, 2003 <http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/12317/>
/I…applaud the Palestinian Authority's continued security coordination
with Israel. They get along unbelievably well. I had meetings, and at
these meetings I was actually very impressed and somewhat surprised at
how well they get along. They work together beautifully. – /Donald
Trump, 2017 <http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.787109>
*Overview*
From the outset, the Palestinian Authority (PA) security establishment
has failed to protect Palestinians from the main source of their
insecurity: The Israeli military occupation. Nor has it empowered
Palestinians to resist that occupation. Instead, the PA has contributed
to a situation in which the Palestinian struggle for freedom has itself
been criminalized <http://jps.ucpress.edu/content/46/2/7>. Rather than
recognize resistance as a natural response to institutionalized
oppression, the PA, in tandem with Israel and the international
community, characterizes resistance as “insurgency” or “instability.”
Such rhetoric, which favors Israeli security at the expense of
Palestinians, echoes discourse surrounding the “war on terror” and
criminalizes all forms of resistance.
This dynamic can be traced back to the 1993 Oslo Accords but it has been
galvanized over the last decade through the PA’s evolution as a
donor-driven state that espouses neoliberal policies. The donor-driven
reform of the security sector has been the lynchpin of the PA’s
post-2007 state building project. The enhanced effectiveness of the PA’s
security forces as a result of massive donor investment
<http://carnegie-mec.org/2011/02/28/policing-people-building-state-authoritarian-transformation-in-west-bank-and-gaza-pub-42924>has
in turn created additional ways of protecting the Israeli occupier, thus
creating spaces that are “securitized” within which the occupier can
move freely in the execution of its colonial project.
Such a development could only have two outcomes
<http://jps.ucpress.edu/content/46/2/7>: “Better” collaboration with the
occupying power in a way that shored up the destructive status quo; and
greater violation of Palestinians’ security and national rights by their
own government and national security forces.
This policy brief analyzes the evolution and “reform” of the Palestinian
security forces since the establishment of the PA, and then examines
Palestinian-Israeli security coordination and its deleterious effects on
the Palestinian ability to resist Israel’s occupying forces as well on
basic liberties. It focuses on the PA forces in the West Bank and not
the situation in Gaza, which requires separate research and analysis. It
concludes with policy recommendations to reinvent the PA security
forces’ operations and overhaul their structures so that they may truly
serve to protect their own people.
*The Rise of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces*
The evolution of the PA security forces can be categorized in three
phases <http://www.stabilityjournal.org/articles/10.5334/sta.gi/>: The
Oslo Accords (1993-1999), the Second Intifada (2000-2006), and the
post-2007 PA state-building project.
The Oslo Accords were characterized by two parallel, yet conflicting,
projects: State building and national liberation. The former implied
constructing state-like institutions and a bureaucracy (soon inflated)
under occupation, while the latter meant pursuing the revolutionary
program for self-determination that had been adopted by the PLO. The
tension between these ventures already manifested themselves under the
late president Yasser Arafat’s rule. Arafat’s personalized style of
governance
<http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/9844/1/State_Formation_under_the_PNA2.pdf>and
its resultant complex network of corruption
<https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/corruption-in-palestine/>and patronage
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538102?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents>meant
that the evolution of the PA security forces was from its advent neither
inclusive nor transparent. Rather, it was fraught with nepotism and was
used as a tool to address the threats posed by Oslo’s opponents and to
stabilize the population. In turn, it also solidified the nascent
“peace” agreements. The 9,000 recruits in the “strong police force”
envisaged in the 1994 Cairo Agreement became nearly 50,000 security
personnel by 1999.
This proliferation of the security forces – all spying on each other, as
Edward Said once said – has had severe consequences for
Palestinians.Arafat’s establishment of security-driven political
structures nourished authoritarianism and blocked accountability
mechanisms in the Palestinian political system. This resulted in a
dearth of legitimacy and further insecurity for Palestinians. As the
security establishment grew in numbers and institutions, Palestinians
remained ill-protected, and corruption and patronage within the forces
became endemic. The divide-to-rule approach paved the way for future
Palestinian fragmentation.
During the Second Intifada, Israel destroyed the PA’s security
infrastructure because PA security forces participated in the uprising.
This created a security vacuum into which non-PA actors inserted
themselves, with mixed results for Palestinians. This exacerbated
intra-Palestinian competition and led external donors, the PA, and
Israel to be even more concerned with building a strong and dominant
security sector. In June 2002, the PA announced its 100-Day Reform Plan
<https://www.google.ch/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwij_f6H6YjTAhUBlBQKHVyvCU4QFggnMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdocuments.worldbank.org%2Fcurated%2Fen%2F821861468762865028%2FWest-Bank-and-Gaza-update&usg=AFQjCNFzvQDqvhbzDnF_J42XOtM52EcnjQ&sig2=vVxSWepWV6TshmLeWVe2lA>.
In 2003 the Road Map
<http://www.un.org/news/dh/mideast/roadmap122002.pdf>demanded that a
“rebuilt and refocused Palestinian Authority security apparatus”
confront “all those engaged in terror” and dismantle “terrorist
capabilities and infrastructure.” The forces were forced to combat
terrorism, apprehend suspects; outlaw incitement; collect all illegal
weapons; provide Israel with a list of Palestinian police recruits; and
report progress to the United States.
Accordingly, Palestinian security reform “remained…an
externally-controlled process, driven by the national security interests
of Israel and the United States, and characterized by very limited
ownership on the part of Palestinian society.”The international donor
community led this reform in 2005 through the establishment of the
European Union Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support (EUPOL
COPPS) and the United States Security Coordinator (USSC). This situation
continues to this day, in the form of a “one gun, one law, one
authority” strategy
<http://www.aljazeera.net/home/print/0353e88a-286d-4266-82c6-6094179ea26d/97a3c162-9eb9-4e06-b5c7-c7758f9da15a#L1>through
which the PA’s monopoly on force and violence is ensured.
The security sector consumes more of the PA’s budget than education,
health, and agriculture combined
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The post-2007 state-building project under the PA has aimed, mainly
through EUPOL COPPS and USSC, to reinvent the PA security forces through
technical means
<http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWESTBANKGAZA/Resources/PRDP08-10.pdf>including
training and weapons procurement. It has also aimed to reinvent the
forces politically
<https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/eastern-mediterranean/israelpalestine/ruling-palestine-ii-west-bank-model>by
constraining Hamas and its armed wing, curbing Fatah-allied militants
through co-optation and amnesty, cracking down on criminals, and
conducting security campaigns, particularly in Nablus and Jenin. The
forces became known as Dayton’s forces
<http://www.aljazeera.com/palestinepapers/2011/01/2011125145732219555.html>in
reference to Keith Dayton, the US Lieutenant General who led the PA
military establishment’s “professionalization and modernization”
process. Local and international human rights organizations have accused
these reformed
<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13533312.2014.910404>forces
of human rights violations
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde21/006/2013/en/>and suppressing
freedom
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/19/palestine-no-action-assault-police>s.
The most current phase has further entrenched the predominance of
Israeli security interests at the expense of the Palestinians.
Disarmament and criminalization have impaired popular resistance against
the occupation, including peaceful demonstrations and marches, advocacy
against Israel’s violations of human rights, and student activism.
Today, the PA security forces largely protect the security of the
occupier and not that of the occupied. In short, the security of
Palestinians has been jeopardized because their own leadership has been
subcontracted
<https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/opinion/subcontracting-repression-in-the-west-bank-and-gaza.html>to
repress them
<https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/palestinian-authority/2017-03-06/palestinian-response-trump>.
The post-2007 security reform agenda has thwarted Palestinians’ national
struggle, their resistance movement and their everyday security, and has
subverted the very functioning of Palestinian politics.
*Security Coordination as Domination *
To understand the magnitude of the security coordination enterprise, it
is useful to note that the Palestinian security sector
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/11/security-aid-pa-sustains-israel-occupation-161103120213593.html>employs
around half of all civil servants, accounts for nearly
<https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/after-gaza-what-price-palestines-security-sector/>$1
billion of the PA budget, and receives around 30% of total international
aid disbursed to the Palestinians. The security sector consumes more of
the PA’s budget than the education, health, and agriculture sectors
combined. The sector is currently comprised
<https://www.academia.edu/31426494/Infographic_The_Palestinian_Security_Sector_in_the_West_Bank_and_Gaza_Strip>of
83,276 individuals in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including 312
brigadier generals, of whom 232 report to the PA and 80 to Hamas. In
comparison, the entire US Army has 410 brigadier generals.The ratio of
security personnel to the population is as high as 1 to 48 – one of the
highest in the world.
Security collaboration between Israel and the PA has fulfilled the Oslo
Accords’ objectives of institutionalizing security arrangements and
launching a peace process that is tightly controlled by the security
sector in order to enable Israel to fulfil its colonial ambitions while
claiming to be pursuing peace. This process of “securitized peace” is
manifest
<https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/after-gaza-what-price-palestines-security-sector/>edin
a number of ways, including <http://jps.ucpress.edu/content/46/2/7>the
PA security forces’ arrest of Palestinian suspects wanted by Israel (as
in the recent case of Basil Al-‘Araj
<https://palestinesquare.com/2017/03/16/the-assassination-of-basel-al-araj-how-the-palestinian-authority-stamps-out-opposition/>
who was arrested and released by the PA only to be chased and eventually
assassinated by the Israelis); the suppression of Palestinian protests
against Israeli soldiers and/or settlers; intelligence sharing between
the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the PA security forces; a revolving
door between Israeli and PA jails through which Palestinian activists
cycle for the same offenses; and regular joint Israeli-Palestinian
meetings, workshops, and trainings.
Though Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to suspend
security coordination, he has at the same time declared it a
“Palestinian national interest”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/211102-israeli-palestinian-security-collaboration-called-into>and
a “sacred” <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG5NcdkthQ0.>doctrine. The
PA security forces’ activities and Abbas’s political maneuverings have
naturally created a deep gap in trust between the Palestinian people and
the PA.
Indeed, multiple surveys over the years have shown that the majority of
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (between 60%
<http://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/625>and 80%
<http://english.dohainstitute.org/file/Get/8c85f60b-1071-46de-8e64-ceb72c06cd71>)
oppose security coordination with Israel. And in a March 2017
Palestinian Center for Policy and Surveypoll
<http://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/poll%2063%20fulltext%20March%202017%20English.pdf>,
two-thirds of respondents demanded Abbas’s resignation, with 73%
expressing the belief that Abbas is not serious in his threat to suspend
security coordination with Israel. In a 2010 Maan News Agency poll, 78%
of respondents said they believe that the PA security forces are engaged
in surveillance, monitoring activities, and intervening in people’s
privacy. Finally, according to Visualizing Palestine, 67% of West Bank
Palestinians
<http://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/palestinian-authority-occupied>said
they feel that they are living in an undemocratic system that cracks
down on freedoms in large part as a result of the security realm
<http://thisweekinpalestine.com/the-security-forces-operating-in-palestine/>.
Negative public perceptions about security coordination are fueled by
lived experiences – from which elites are often spared – as well as by
official rhetoric and the contents of the leaked Palestine Papers
<http://www.aljazeera.com/%20palestinepapers/>. For instance, US General
Keith Dayton remarked
<http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/html/pdf/DaytonKeynote.pdf>in 2009
that senior IDF commanders asked him, in regard to the Palestinian
security forces he was training, “How many more of these new
Palestinians can you generate, and how quickly?” He also said that a
senior Palestinian official addressed
<http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/html/pdf/DaytonKeynote.pdf>a
graduating class of these “new Palestinian men” in Jordan, saying, “You
were not sent here to learn how to fight Israel…you were rather sent
here to learn how to keep law and order, respect the right of all of our
citizens, and implement the rule of law so that we can live in peace and
security with Israel.” And in 2013, in a speech before the European
Parliament, Israeli president Shimon Peres stated
<http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/full-text-of-peres-speech-to-european-parliament-1.508915>:
“A Palestinian security force was formed. You and the Americans trained
it. And now we work together to prevent terror and crime.”
Coordination will remain a feature of the skewed reality that favors
Israel if action is not taken
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While security coordination between Israel and the PA has been cemented
since the Oslo Accords, the status quo is not a foregone conclusion.
However, change will be difficult to achieve, as the system has created
a segment of Palestinian society that will seek to maintain it. This
segment is composed not only of security personnel in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, but also of those Palestinians benefiting from institutional
arrangements and a network of collaboration and domination. The status
quo
<https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/palestinian-authority-unsettling-status-quo-scenarios/>is
beneficial for them, and “stability” is their mantra. They are committed
to an approach that privileges the political, economic, and security
elite, and they have no incentive to reverse the rules of the game.
Any attempt to halt security coordination would thus have real
consequences for the PA and its leadership. Yet the perpetuation of the
status quo is destructive for the majority of Palestinians living under
Israel occupation and for the Palestinian people at large. With the
crushing of the ability to correct political wrongdoing and hold elites
accountable, business as usual will likely continue. Security
coordination will remain a defining feature of the skewed reality that
favors the occupier if action is not taken – and soon.
*Reinventing the PA’s Security Doctrine and Establishment *
The entrenchment of the PA security establishment requires policy
interventions at multiple levels, from correcting biased rhetoric to
establishing accountability mechanisms. The following recommendations,
addressed to different stakeholders, propose an overhaul of the PA
security forces’ operations and structures.
/The Palestinian Authority /
The PA must listen to the Palestinian people and respect their wishes
and aspirations, including in the security domain; otherwise the
legitimacy and trust gap will grow far greater. There has never been an
inclusive Palestinian political system, but a more responsive,
representative, and responsible leadership would ensure that the
security of Palestinians, rather than that of their occupier and
colonizer, is a core concern. An authentic security sector, as Tariq
Dana has argued
<http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/211102-israeli-palestinian-security-collaboration-called-into>,
would mean an end to the “focus on internal policing known as the
‘Dayton Doctrine’” and “a program that demands accountability and
justice be put in place.”
AsHani Al-Masri has elaborated
<http://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Hani%20Masri%20%20Arabic%20New.pdf>,
this would require gradual but firm steps to eventually freeze or
suspend security coordination, including: Putting a stop to Palestinian
security apparatus intervention in political issues; reducing security
allocations in the annual budget; disbanding parts of the security
apparatus and restructuring the remainder, with an emphasis on
professionalism, patriotism, and freedom from political nepotism; and
instructing the security apparatus to resist raids by Israel in Area A.
Although the PA still argues that the current security arrangements and
division of labor serve the two-state solution, the relentless Israeli
colonization of Palestinian land means that the PA and its leadership
must reassess their function. The looming threat of annexation should
push the PA to take action before its role solidifies as a subcontractor
to the Israeli occupation.
/Palestinian Civil Society /
Palestinian civil society organizations, especially human rights
organizations, must form more effective coalitions and intensify their
efforts to hold the PA and its political and security leadership
accountable for their human rights violations. In the absence of
institutions that perform checks and balances, pressure that goes beyond
writing and publishing reports (though this in itself is an important
act) is urgently needed. In other words, Palestinian civil society
organizations need to develop practical actions that confront the PA’s
continuous rights violations.
Resistance is the duty of the Palestinian people, especially when
policymakers do not represent them
<https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Resistance%20is%20the%20duty%20of%20the%20Palestinian%20people%2C%20especially%20when%20policymakers%20do%20not%20represent%20them&via=AlShabaka&related=AlShabaka&url=http://ow.ly/oU0m30bHSEK>Click
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These civil society actors, including academic institutions, public
intellectuals, and think tanks, must also address the PA’s faulty
discourse, in which Palestinian resistance is reframed as criminal
insurgency or instability. Israeli and international actors who use this
discourse should also be confronted. Civil society must embrace and
operationalize resistance rather than see it criminalized, and view it
as an all-encompassing way of living under occupation and in exile.
Resistance as a way of life can help to reverse how the political and
security elite currently portray it. Resistance can then ensure
<https://www.alaraby.co.uk/supplementpalestine/2016/2/28/%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%AF%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%B9%D9%82%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%AA%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%B9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9>the
restoration of the core values and ideas that enable Palestinians to
engage collectively to realize rights.
External actors, particularly the security bodies EUPOL COPPS and USSC,
need serious scrutiny from civil society, both within Palestine and in
their home countries. They cannot continue to dominate the security
realm without accountability or transparency. By promoting the rule of
law in an authoritarian context, these bodies contribute to the
“professionalization” of authoritarian practices by (ab)using a good
governance framework. Their claim that their mandate is “technical”
enables them to evade the very political results of their operations and
interventions. After a decade of operation, it is time to conduct an
independent Palestinian-led evaluation of these bodies and use that as
an accountability mechanism to reform these erstwhile “reformers” and
decide on the way forward.
/Donors and the Donor Industry /
In a context highly dependent on aid, the supremacy assigned to
securitization and militarization extends to the realm of development
<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14678802.2015.1100016>.Policymakers
in donor states and Palestinians who facilitate donor programs should
address how “securitized aid” has transformed a liberation movement into
a subcontractor to the colonizer
<https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/opinion/subcontracting-repression-in-the-west-bank-and-gaza.html?_r=0>,
and has resulted in authoritarian tendencies
<https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/after-gaza-what-price-palestines-security-sector/>that
favor the security establishment at the expense of other sectors, such
as health, education, and agriculture, as well as at the expense of
democracy.
Moreover, in Palestine, securitized aid and development have not only
fail
<https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/can-oslos-failed-aid-model-be-laid-rest/>edto
address poverty, unemployment, and empowerment, but have also created
new insecurity and illegitimacy. Development planners must acknowledge
that thesepatterns
<https://alaatartir.com/2014/11/20/unwilling-to-change-determined-to-fail-donor-aid-in-occupied-palestine-in-the-aftermath-of-the-arab-uprisings/>will
never be reversed unless people
<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13629395.2015.1126391>, and
not the security establishment, drive actions and are the constant
reference point.
At base, all these actions are the duty of the Palestinian people,
especially when policymakers do not represent them and their
aspirations. Palestinian society needs to confront the tools used to
repress its mobilization and organize in order to ensure the realization
of its fundamental rights. The non-factional youth-led initiative End
Security Coordination <https://www.facebook.com/EndCoordination/>that
emerged in the aftermath of Basil Al-‘Araj’s assassination in March 2017
represents an example of such mobilization. In their call for action,
the youths stated
<https://www.facebook.com/EndCoordination/photos/a.1856026354670386.1073741830.1851201625152859/1856026578003697/?type=3&theater>,
Our people have struggled for too long for us to stand idle while
repressive leaders barter our oppression and dispossession for their
personal gain…We are approaching 30 years since the Oslo Accords
that transformed what remained of our land into open air prisons
administered by unrepresentative PA officials who have hired
themselves out to be our colonizers’ first line of defense…The Oslo
regime does not represent us. Now is the time for us to come
together and rebuild our collective struggle for the liberation of
all of Palestine.
If such organized resistance can continue and increase, pressure from
the people may be able to change the trajectory of PA-Israeli security
coordination, rendering Palestinians better equipped to work toward
self-determination and the attainment of human rights.
--
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