The Washington reports that Palestinian Recruits Hit Streets Unprepared
The first class of Palestinian security officers trained under a multimillion-dollar U.S. program to strengthen the Palestinian Authority is deploying to one of the West Bank’s most restive cities without promised supplies of body armor, helmets or even flashlights after Israel blocked a shipment of equipment.The shortage in U.S.-funded supplies threatens the Palestinian government’s ability to provide security in the West Bank, which Israel has made a condition of future withdrawals from the occupied territories. There have also been significant problems with the training, including a final round that one American involved in the program described as “a complete fiasco.”
Of course given the past “success” of training Palestinian security forces Israel’s reticence is somewhat understandable.
This is accounted for in the article that observes:
Israeli officials contacted Friday said they could not immediately comment on what supplies had or had not been approved for the Presidential Guard. But they said Israel has been as cooperative as possible in approving equipment, given its own security needs.A senior official in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office said Israel had approved most requests related to the Palestinian security training — “both weapons and equipment.”
“Believe me, it wasn’t easy,” this official said.
Last month, an armored personnel carrier that had been donated to the Palestinian Authority years ago was used by Hamas fighters to attack a crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, wounding 13 Israeli soldiers.
(Israel has in fact approved much more sophisticated equipment, so what has happened?)
Schwartz said the unit involved in that exercise “was given additional training before returning to the Palestinian Authority,” adding, “It achieved the standard.”The American, who talked on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, also spoke of the training supervisors putting on what he called “a dog-and-pony show” when U.S. congressional delegations or other visitors came to the site.
Visitors “do a bus tour where they view various training sessions that are completely staged,” the American said.
Dog and pony show? That’s certainly the impression I’ve gotten from all those newswire photos. The Palestinian security forces have been trained but it looks like a lot of choreography.
Unfortunately the article fails to mention one other matter and that is the makeup of the Palestinian Presidential Guard. In response to the State Department’s announcement of the training, the Skeptical Bureaucrat reminded us:
The Presidential Guard’s personnel overlap to a large extent with al Fatah’s Force 17 (of Black September infamy) and even with the al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade. So, watch for future news of U.S.-trained and equipped terrorists – maybe even HAMAS infiltrators in the Guard – committing atrocities against Israel.
I don’t trust these security forces. Unfortunately, the State Department has a stake in ensuring that they succeed, even if it means denying their failures.
Isabel Kershner writes in Israel’s tactics thwart attacks, with tradeoff.
Suicide bombings in Israel have dropped off so significantly that the nation’s security officials now dare to speak openly of success. But the very steps they are taking to thwart bombers appear to collide head-on with the government’s agenda of achieving peace with the Palestinians.It is a classic military-political dilemma. The progress in stopping suicide bombers, the vast majority of whom cross into Israel from the West Bank, has brought enough quiet for Israel to resume peace talks with the Palestinian leadership there.
But the current calm is fragile, and to maintain it Israeli security officials say they must continue their nightly arrests and sometimes deadly raids in the heart of the West Bank — tactics at odds with a peace effort that envisions a separate Palestinian state, an eventual Israeli withdrawal from much of the West Bank and, in the meantime, a gradual transfer of authority to the Palestinian police.
“The price of staying out†of the West Bank, said one senior Israeli military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of military restrictions, “might be one that we don’t want to pay.â€
The dilemma to Kershner is, of course, that how can Israel take charge of its own security and not allow the Palestinians control of their own territory. But it’s not really a dilemma. Kershner ably points out the terror that was an outgrowth of trusting the Palestinians when the Palestinians didn’t accept Israel’s right to exist.
As the military official said, trusting the Palestinians may entail a price that’s too high. Certainly history has taught that lesson.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
