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The Improbable U.S. Plan for a Revitalized Palestinian Security Force

(Washington Post) Miriam Berger - Despite two decades of reforms, the Palestinian Authority security forces remain chronically underfunded and widely unpopular, ill-equipped to take on the massive responsibilities that their U.S. backers are envisioning. Washington sees the 35,500-strong Palestinian security forces as central to its plans to help stabilize postwar Gaza. But the Palestinian Authority and its security forces are already struggling to maintain order in the West Bank. They are not welcome in some Palestinian towns and cities, where militant groups have become the de facto authorities. Western officials said major efforts would be required to expand and train security forces at the scale needed for Gaza - and to get political buy-in from the Israeli government, which openly opposes the plan. A Western diplomat said, "The PA is not ready to go to Gaza and won't be anytime soon. I don't see them having the numbers to be able to do it, or the will, or the knowledge of Gaza." Many Palestinians came to view the force as a private militia that answered to their increasingly authoritarian leaders in Ramallah. From the start, those leaders and their U.S. supporters cared about "the functionality and effectiveness of the security forces in containing any confrontation or pushback" to Palestinian Authority rule, and not public legitimacy, said Alaa Tartir, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
2024-03-05 00:00:00
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