The Brothers in the Security Services

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Some of you think that my criticism of the Palestinian security services amounts to branding everyone who works in them a traitor. That assumption is mistaken. I am convinced that large numbers of the members of the security services are sincere, honest patriots, some of whom have fallen as martyrs, been wounded, or been arrested. There is a great difference between speaking about institutions and speaking about individuals, and I have explained in many articles the tasks assigned to these services under the texts of the agreements with Israel, such as Oslo and Taba. There are clear, unambiguous provisions that place upon the Palestinian Authority the responsibility of defending Israeli security, and Israel intervenes directly and indirectly in the security services to ensure they are carrying out their duty in line with Israeli security requirements. And there is Dayton, the American security coordinator, who controls the security services and intervenes in the appointment of individuals within them. Did Dayton not come to Jordan accompanied by the Palestinian Minister of Interior to pull you out of your training courses? Has any one of you ever asked himself: why do the Palestinian security services receive about 45% of the Palestinian budget, while the Ministry of Agriculture receives less than 1%? Why do America and Israel give the security services all this money? Is it so that you can liberate Palestine?

The problem is that you are subjected to a great deal of misinformation, and there are those who falsify the facts before you, or hide them, or twist them. For example, they tell you that you are protecting the security of citizens against thugs, or pursuing Hamas members who lie in wait for you. And I tell you that the thugs were created by the Palestinian Authority itself, which now uses their pursuit as though it were a patriotic act. The thugs, dear brothers, are still among us; they have not been imprisoned or hanged, even though some of them are implicated in killings. They live among us in a state of calm, and perhaps a day will come when the Authority unleashes them once again. As for the members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, they have been pursued since 1994, and many of them have been thrown into prison.

I have written explaining these matters repeatedly, and here I present to you a portion of what the enemy itself writes. The following article was published by the newspaper Arab48, quoting a Zionist newspaper. I hope you will read it, and I am ready for public debates with anyone who tells you that the Palestinian security services serve Palestinian national security. Perhaps security bodies such as the police serve Palestinian civil safety, but in general, it is not the function of the security services to serve national security. And whoever wants national unity has no choice but to turn his back on the enemy.

Dayton sums up his role in training the Palestinian security forces: “My job is to make them do more so that the Israeli army can do less.”

Arab48

09/08/2008, 07:39

In a report published by the newspaper Haaretz on Friday, which described the American general Keith Dayton as “the Palestinians’ own [Orde] Wingate” — in terms of “teaching them what an army is and how the fight against terrorism is waged” — Dayton affirmed his commitment to American interests and his work with the Israeli security agencies, to such a degree that he draws inspiration for his ideas from what he hears from their senior officials. He also affirmed that his mission can be summed up as making the Palestinian security forces do more so that the occupation forces can do less.

The report stated that Dayton, who is leaving for the United States this week, has completed three tasks: the first was building the first battalion of the renewed “National Security Force,” comprising 500 recruits from the West Bank who have returned from a four-month training course in Jordan. The second task was building a training base in Jericho for the Presidential Guard. The third was establishing a strategic planning unit within the Ministry of Interior in Ramallah.

It was learned that before his departure for the United States, an agreement was reached for a second battalion to leave for training in Jordan. And after a long delay, he managed to obtain the approval of the Israeli Ministry of Defense to supply the Palestinian forces with bulletproof vests, in addition to military jeeps.

It is worth noting that Dayton was appointed at the end of 2005 as the American security coordinator to the Palestinian Authority. Unlike his predecessors, he resides in the region and moves about within it. His primary mission was to rebuild the Palestinian forces so they could take on security responsibility in the West Bank, in order to convince the occupation forces that they were capable of preventing attacks against Israel.

In the interview with Haaretz, Dayton affirms that he is an American, and that he is present here to advance American interests, in addition to the existing relations between the United States and Israel. He also affirms that he is working to build Palestinian capabilities that he believes will allow for the establishment of a Palestinian state, in line with what the Israeli government wants. And he says he is trying to build an independent Palestinian authority such that the Authority’s territories will not be a launching point for carrying out attacks against Israel, without the Israeli army being forced to remain in the area at all times.

He adds that he works with the Israeli security forces, that he understands well the challenges facing them, and that he has drawn many of his ideas based on what he hears from them, particularly from the Israeli army’s Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi. He said: “My job can be summed up as giving them the ability to do more, so that the Israeli army can do less.”

Asked about the length of time this process would take, he said that depends on Israel. He said he is working hard to build a disciplined Palestinian force of an appropriate size, and that it is therefore important for the Palestinians to have a real political horizon to aspire to. He added that there is a budget for this project for the next two or three years, and that the time required relates to accomplishing the tasks demanded by the American administration, in addition to being tied to the Israeli army and the Israeli government.

The newspaper adds that Dayton, as a military man, understands the existence of the military checkpoints erected by the occupation army in the West Bank, and understands why they bother Palestinians, and that he is working to reconcile the needs of both sides.

The newspaper noted that Dayton served in the American ground forces for 38 years, held the post of military attaché in Moscow, and headed the unit that searched for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. There, according to him, he came to understand the sensitivity of the Palestinian cause in the Arab world through the graffiti he saw on the walls as he moved around Iraq, particularly images of the Dome of the Rock encircled by an Israeli cobra.

After arriving in the region to succeed General Charles Ward, his first mission was to train and arm the Palestinian Authority’s forces in the Gaza Strip, following the disengagement. However, Hamas’s electoral victory complicated matters, according to him, especially given the ban on contacts with Hamas, in addition to the ban on Americans entering the Strip, which had been imposed five years earlier following the killing of three American guards. Congress then refused to fund his mission for fear the money would reach Hamas. He then tried to offer assistance to Abu Mazen’s Presidential Guard and to activate the crossings, particularly the Rafah crossing, but in the absence of funding, “no one was trained or armed,” in his words.

The newspaper adds that Dayton and his team did not properly gauge the balance of power in the Gaza Strip, and that when the fighting between Hamas and Fatah began in the spring of the previous year, they had praised the Presidential Guard’s performance. However, Hamas’s takeover and the rapid collapse of Fatah a few weeks later took them by surprise. In this context he says: “It’s difficult to assess what will happen in the Gaza Strip when entry there is barred… We had many meetings with the Egyptians, the Israelis, and the Palestinian Authority officials who were operating the crossings, and every time we listened to worrying reports from Palestinians coming out of Gaza about the situation there.” In this context, he points to Congress’s refusal to provide assistance to the Authority’s Palestinian security forces in confronting Hamas.

The collapse of the Authority in the Gaza Strip led to Dayton’s mission being transferred to the West Bank. At the time, the American Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, asked him to rebuild the Authority’s forces in the West Bank. He adds that the formation of the emergency government headed by Salam Fayyad removed the political obstacles, and Congress was persuaded to release the funds, out of fear that what had happened in Gaza would be repeated in the West Bank. Dayton obtained a budget of up to 86 million dollars and got to work. Since then, two other American generals have arrived in the region: Jim Jones, who is shaping future security arrangements, and William Fraser, who is following up on the implementation of the Road Map; both are working in cooperation with Dayton.

According to Dayton’s work plan, it requires retraining the Presidential Guard and establishing five renewed battalions of “National Security Forces,” which operate armed alongside the police, whose training, arming, and organization is being handled by the European Union. The Jordanian government allocated its own police training base for this training, and in parallel, work has proceeded on building a Palestinian training base in Jericho, while the Interior Ministry in Ramallah is being arranged as a professional security headquarters with foreign advisors.

According to the report, the idea of security reform within the Palestinian Authority was not a new one, but had been proposed six years earlier as a way to end the control of the late Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, who used to run numerous security agencies personally.

Asked about the size of the forces that would operate in the Palestinian territories, he said he is thinking only of the future, and that there will ultimately be three bodies: the police, national security and intelligence, and internal security.

According to the plan, veteran security officials who had been loyal to Arafat are being retired, and their places are gradually being taken by new recruits.

The newspaper notes the extent of his admiration for the capabilities displayed by the trainees in Jordan. He also says he had previously visited the training base accompanied by the Palestinian Minister of Interior, Abdel Razzaq al-Yahya, whom the report described as well known to the Israelis since the earliest days of the Oslo agreement. According to Dayton, the Palestinian minister delivered a speech there in which he told the trainees: “You are not learning how to fight the Israelis, and you are not here to fight the occupation, but to fight the forces of unrest, crime, and chaos in Palestine” — according to Dayton.

He adds that he recently obtained an additional budget of up to 75 million dollars, allowing him to train and arm two more National Security battalions in the coming year, continue existing projects, and organize refresher courses for senior officers from all of the Authority’s security agencies.

The newspaper attributes the enthusiasm Dayton displays to the budgets provided by Congress, to the enthusiasm shown by the new Palestinian recruits, and to the assistance he receives from Israel.

The report goes on to say that the Israeli security agencies allowed the new recruits to reach Jordan for training and to return quickly, with the crossing of 600 recruits at the Allenby Bridge taking only an hour and a half. All the Israeli authorities — border guards, the army, the airport authority, and the Shin Bet — sent representatives to speed up their crossing. For his part, the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, approved the request to supply equipment, in order to help Dayton’s mission succeed.

It adds that the first test of activating this new Palestinian force began with a campaign to impose the Authority’s control in Jenin. In this context, Dayton says he is satisfied with the results, and he also praised the cooperation between the [Palestinian] forces and the Israeli army. In this context, he notes that Barak had met with Israeli and Palestinian officers and praised the work of the Palestinian forces, describing them as making progress despite some setbacks. Here he says that he, Dayton, met with the military commander of the Central Command, Gadi Shamni, who was concerned about these setbacks, and pledged to him that he would work to improve the situation among the Palestinians.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الأخوة في الأجهزة الأمنية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.