Building the Palestinian Contras

By Khalid Amayreh in Occupied Jerusalem; 7 April 2008 - Peace Palestine
http://peacepalestine.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/khalid-amayre...

Israel, the Bush Administration and the Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by Mahmoud Abbas, are collaborating to build a depoliticized Palestinian security force whose main task and raison d’être will be to crush any popular uprising against a prospective “peace deal” imposed upon the Palestinians.

The new force, whose members are being trained in neighboring countries, particularly Jordan, is being prepared to gradually replace the vast bulk of existing Fatah-dominated security forces in the West Bank.

The PA, acting on instructions from the donor countries, especially the US, has already laid off thousands of Fatah soldiers and officers for a variety of reasons, including retirement age, financial difficulties and the necessity of restructuring PA security agencies, notoriously plagued by corruption, nepotism, cronyism, indiscipline and lack of professionalism.

Many of the people being laid off, however, are in their early and mid 40s, which suggests that the PA is trying as much as possible to “dispose of” elements deemed “too patriotic” and “indoctrinated in hostility to Israel and Zionism.”

According to one cadet from the Hebron region, the force, whose members had to be thoroughly sifted by the Shin Bet, Israel’s chief domestic intelligence agency, is being trained in crowd-control tactics, conducting arrests, suppressing demonstrations as well as using rifles.

Currently the cadets receive a monthly salary of $600-800 per month, which will reach $1000-1500 after graduation. (This is nearly equal to the monthly salary of an average Ph.D holder at Palestinian universities).

Interestingly, most of the trainees don’t even possess a high-school diploma, and very few have a college degree.

One disgruntled officer, a traditional Arafatist from Dura, near Hebron, intimated to this writer that “ignorance is the main and sought-after qualification of these recruits.”

“The more ignorant, the more uneducated, the more stupid one is, the better qualified he will be viewed. They want blockheads, people whose brains are empty so that they would be able to handle them the way the want,” said the officer, who asked for anonymity for obvious reasons.

“They are following the old adage which says ‘a good soldier doesn’t think, he only obeys orders’.”

In addition to ‘nearly total ignorance’, the new recruits must be as apolitical as possible, as unreligious as possible and have no previous affiliation or association with any political groups, especially Islamist groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

“They are trying to brainwash a given cadet in a way that if and when they instruct him to shoot his father, for example, he would shoot father, mother and brother as well,” said the disgruntled officer from Dura.

One PA officer involved in building the ‘new security force’ said the main purpose was to replace the existing, unreliable, and mostly corrupt security forces with professional forces that can “get the mission accomplished.”

However, when asked what the ‘main mission’ was, the officer responded, “the mission is always to be determined by the political leadership.”

A few months ago, PA Interior Minister General Abdel Razak al Yahya told hundreds of trainees at the village of Jeftilik near Jericho that “your mission is not to fight Israel, your mission is to establish security and restore law and order.”

“You are not here to confront Israel, the conflict of Israel has until now led nowhere. You must show the Israelis that you can do the job!!”

Earlier this year, more than 250 trainees were sent to Jordan for a four-month crash course sponsored and financed by the United States under the close supervision of Lieutenant General Keith Dayton.

Last year, Dayton botched up a plot conceived by his boss, Elliot Abrams, a neocon Jewish member of the Bush Administration, which would have seen forces loyal to Gaza’s former strongman Muhammed Dahlan topple and possibly crush the democratically-elected Hamas government.

However, Hamas preempted Dahlan’s planned coup, by carrying a counter-coup during which Hamas’s smaller but more disciplined and better trained forces decisively defeated and ousted Fatah forces, thus consolidating its control over the entire Gaza Strip.

As a result of the ‘Gaza fiasco’, the Bush Administration reportedly sought a more ‘authentic alternative’ namely to establish a more bona fide Palestinian quisling force that would help the American-backed PA regime impose a possible ‘peace deal’ with Israel, presumably one that would allow Israel to annex large parts of the West Bank, including the bulk of East Jerusalem and surrounding Jewish colonies, in return for the creation of a deformed Palestinian entity, to be called a State, made up of disconnected Bantustans and truncated territories.

Hence, the ongoing efforts to create the new Palestinian Security Forces, whose main task is to repress and, if deemed necessary, kill Palestinians who dare oppose the liquidation of their just cause.

I asked Professor Abdul Sattar Qassem of the Najah National University in Nablus what could be done to thwart efforts to create a ‘quisling force’ whose main job is to repress Palestinians on Israel’s behalf.

Qassem said he thought that the term ‘quisling’ accurately described the new force or forces being created and trained by the CIA.

“First of all we have to tell our sons who are being trained in Jordan that they are being trained to carry out immoral and unpatriotic acts, that they will be instructed to kill Palestinians in defense of Israel.”

Qassem said he was certain that the PA was effectively a tool to liquidate the Palestinian cause in exchange for some money from the US.

He dismissed the PA claim that the new forces were necessary for re-establishing the rule of law and protecting the personal security of the Palestinian people.

“I think we can uphold the rule of the law without sending our sons to be trained by the CIA to kill their own countrymen on Israel’s behalf. Let the PA take its hands off the justice system, let them rein in their thugs, and law and order would be restored immediately.”

“The problem, the main problem, is that we are dealing with a lying authority.

“They lie a lot.”

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U.S. supervising training of elite PA unit in Jordan

By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent; 06/04/2008 - Ha’aretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/971913.html

Some three weeks ago, the Palestinian interior minister, General Abdel Razak al-Yahya, arrived in the Jordanian village of Giftlik to visit the training camp of the "special second battalion" of the Palestinian National Security force. Yahya gathered all 620 soldiers and officers belonging to the first PNS battalion to undergo training under an American program and Jordanian guidance - the first supposedly elite unit of what used to be viewed as the Palestinian Authority's army.

"Your duty is not to any organization or party, but only to the Palestinian Authority," Yahya told them.

The old general, a veteran of numerous battles and wars with Israel as a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's military wing, the Palestinian Liberation Army, and even the Syrian army, did not hide his opinion about clashing with Israel.

"You are not here to confront the Israeli side, and the conflict with it has led until now only to suffering and not to positive results. You must prove to the Israelis that you are capable of performing and succeeding."

He told the young officers, most of them in their 20s, that their objective, first and foremost, is to assist their people in contending with the threats of crime, terror and other problems.

Yahya, like others present on the occasion, could not help but feel that the new force currently taking shape in Jordan is different from everything they have seen before. Even the Israeli defense establishment is not treating this battatlion with the customary disdain it reserves for the PA's security forces.

It is not just a matter of the American training program, but also and mainly the motivation and "fighting spirit" of those soldiers, "the cream of Palestinian youth." They were sent to Jordan only in late January, for a four-month course, as part of the plan drawn up by the U.S. Security Coordinator for the Israel-Palestinian Authority, Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, to rebuild the PA security services and particularly the PNS.

Potential recruits were subjected to quadruple vetting. First the PA rejected candidates who were unsuitable because of past involvement in crime or terror organizations. Then the Israeli Shin Bet, the Americans and Jordanians considered each candidate separately. Only 20 names were struck off the list by the Israelis.

The training the Palestinian troops are receiving at the camp in Giftlik is very diverse: using guns and rifles, taking control of houses and clearing them out, conducting arrests, crowd control, using force and even lessons about human rights and military ethics. They are being trained to deal also with hostage situations.

They will move at the beginning of June to a camp in Jericho, where they will undergo an array of other training: driving, first aid and logistics. During July they are slated to get equipment and arms, and will be ready for action as of August 1.

"Dayton's baby," as some senior PA officials have dubbed the battalion, made the news recently after Israel agreed to have the soldiers deploy to Jenin on completing their training, but there is still no certainty regarding their first assignment.

This is the first battalion to undergo American training, but Dayton's plan calls for training another four battalions of similar size. Palestinian Interior Ministry officials say a second group will be able to leave for training in Jordan in early August.

Dayton and his team have accompanied the battalion since its inception. It was also they who presented the Defense Ministry this past February with the lists of equipment transfers that Israel will have to approve for the new PNS forces: cars (just recently, Israel okayed equipping PA security services with 148 pickup trucks for moving troops), uniforms, shoes, first-aid equipment and more).

Contrary to media reports until now, the Palestinians were pleasantly surprised by the Israeli defense establishment's willingness to help make the new forces' training and equipment a success, perhaps out of a desire to avoid friction with the U.S. administration.

Nevertheless, Israel has yet to approve transfer of basic equipment such as bulletproof vests and helmets. The PA initially thought of asking for night-vision equipment as well, but was persuaded by the Americans to drop it.

Dayton's team is also involved in setting up a strategic planning group at Yahya's Interior Ministry, which is responsible for all security services. The group is meant to draw up a budget and strategic guidelines for PA forces. In addition, the American team is planning infrastructure projects such as rebuilding bases and training facilities for PA troops.