25
Inaccessibility of service
– Because of the agreements and
the current situation, police enforcement services are not
available to some 760,000 Palestinians, or about one-third of
the Palestinian population in the West Bank. This population
(about 700,000), most of whom live in villages situated in
Area B and a smaller proportion in villages in Area C (about
60,000), are unable to access immediate police services
due to the need for security coordination with Israel. Security
coordination can take several hours, which often makes the
involvement of the Palestinian police irrelevant.
Furthermore, many of the villages the police patrol infrequently
(at times left unpatrolled for over a year) become places of
refuge for criminals, who flee to these villages after committing
crimes in areas controlled by the Palestinians in the knowledge
that they are in effect beyond the arm of the law. As a result of
this absence of regular, effective law enforcement, the local
population hoards weapons for self-defense, which intensifies
their frustration and further undermines the legitimacy of the
security forces and of the PA’s power.
The inability to enforce law and order in dozens of villages
in Area B undermines the legitimacy of the PA as a central
government that should be able to provide its citizens with
their most basic needs and expectations – personal security,
good governance, government services, etc. A Palestinian
governor who needs to send enforcement and supervisory
forces is unable to do so without an armed police escort, thus
adversely affecting the level of service citizens receive from
the central government.
6
A low level of professionalism
– Despite improvement in
the capabilities of Palestinian security forces, the different
organizations suffer frompoor training andmotivation. Although
security personnel salaries are not high, they are sufficient
to attract young people seeking job security. The units suffer
from visible underemployment because of the numerous
different forces and small volume of work, which lead to a
poor organizational culture. The promotion system, based
on fixed periods of service, creates a situation in which there
are multiple officers promoted to senior positions without any
clear assignments, while at the same time, the number of foot
soldiers is declining.
Organizational challenges
– The low wages as well as the
lack of a regular payment schedule have created a situation
whereby police and members of other security forces work
3-4 days a week in order to save on cost of travel to and from
work. The employment roster is much larger than necessary,
as previously such apparatuses were inflated to employ people
affiliated with the Fatah movement (whose presence was
needed there to ensure the stability of the regime). Additionally,
there is a significant problem in division of authority, which leads
to power struggles among the various security apparatuses,
and this negatively impacts the efficiency and professionalism
of the law enforcement.
Problems in full completionof lawandorder processes
– The
complete process of law enforcement requires fully operative
6 Based on a discussion with the Palestinian governor of a large
district in the West Bank.
prosecution and legal systems. These two areas are incomplete
and do not allow for due process of law enforcement. The
main problems are professional evidence collection, a weak
prosecution, and a legal system that finds it difficult to resist the
pressureexertedon it by clans andvariousgovernmental entities.
Security coordination issues
– The security coordination
mechanism should operate through the Palestinian security-
coordination apparatus, and from there to the Israeli security
coordination officers at the relevant Israeli DCOs. However, the
Palestinian coordination apparatus is sometimes bypassed,
creating a gap that impedes coordination:
IDF
Israeli security
coordination
officers
RSC/
DCOs
NSF
PG
MI
PSO
PGI
Israeli
intelligence
Coordination channels
Alternative informal channel
Palestinian side
Israeli side
CP
Israeli
Police
Factors that enable progress towards a two-state solution
In this interim situation, when no negotiations are being
held and the Jewish settlements remain in place, with the
IDF deployed in the West Bank and continuing its regular
operations, there is little tolerance for the dramatic changes
required to move ahead to the two-state solution. The IDF’s
principal security task, the prevention of terror attacks against
Israeli population and enabling settlers to continue living
their day-to-day lives, will continue to affect the extent of its
ability to transfer some of its security authority to Palestinian
forces. The current makeup of Israel’s governing coalition
includes parties such as Habayit Hayehudi and Yisrael
Beiteinu, which are not especially enamored of the idea of
expanding the authority of Palestinian forces. As we recently
saw, when the army tried to implement a new policy of
transferring additional authority to the Palestinian security
forces in Area A (Ramallah and Jericho), Habayit Hayehudi
ministers strenuously objected, and their efforts to thwart its
implementation met with success.
7
At the same time, even
within these restrictions, Israel has the ability to allow the
Palestinian security forces to build up their capabilities in a
controlled fashion, bolster their internal legitimacy, and better
serve the needs of the Palestinian population. Below is a
proposed model for the expansion of the security authorities
to be transferred to the Palestinian security forces.
7 See
.
