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What Happened When Israel Turned Over Security Control in the West Bank to the PA?

(Weekly Standard) Reuel Marc Gerecht - Most Israelis would surely prefer to have as little administratively to do with the Palestinians as possible. And it would certainly be better for Israelis if Palestinian terrorists planning a strike against Israelis were always taken down by Palestinian security forces without Israeli assistance. It would no doubt be an incredible relief to Israelis to have a responsible Palestinian gendarmerie in the Jordan Valley that could police the border to ensure nothing crosses that threatens Israel or Jordan. Duty on the West Bank is certainly no fun for Israeli soldiers. Yet since Israel turned over part of the West Bank to Fatah, the lead group within the Palestinian Liberation Organization, in 1994, Fatah-orchestrated security, despite tutorials from the Central Intelligence Agency, was an inadequate, lethal mess until the building of the West Bank barrier, started in 2002. The death in 2004 of Yasser Arafat, the spiritual father of Palestinian nationalism, helped improve the situation considerably since Arafat had personally orchestrated suicide-bombings. The writer is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2014-03-07 00:00:00
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