al-shabaka the palestinian policy network contact@al-shabaka.org www.al-shabaka.org al-shabaka policy brief THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY SECURITY FORCES: WHOSE SECURITY? By Alaa Tartir May 16, 2017 To speak of Israeli-Palestinian “cooperation”…is to use no less than a misnomer. This is not, however, simply because “the outcome of cooperation between an elephant and a fly is not hard to predict,” as Chomsky so pithily writes…but because under Oslo, “cooperation” is often only minimally different from the occupation and domination that went before it. “Cooperation,” in this context, is above all an internationally pleasing and acceptable signifier which obscures rather than elucidates the nature of Israeli-Palestinian relations. – Jan Selby, 2003 I…applaud the Palestinian Authority's continued security coordination with Israel. They get along unbelievably well. I had meetings, and at these meetings I was actually very impressed and somewhat surprised at how well they get along. They work together beautifully. – Donald Trump, 2017 Overview From the outset, the Palestinian Authority (PA) security establishment has failed to protect Palestinians from the main source of their insecurity: The Israeli military occupation. Nor has it empowered Palestinians to resist that occupation. Instead, the PA has contributed to a situation in which the Palestinian struggle for freedom has itself been criminalized . Rather than recognize resistance as a natural response to institutionalized oppression, the PA, in tandem with Israel and the international community, characterizes resistance as “insurgency” or “instability.” Such rhetoric, which favors Israeli security at the expense of Palestinians, echoes discourse surrounding the “war on terror” and criminalizes all forms of resistance. This dynamic can be traced back to the 1993 Oslo Accords but it has been galvanized over the last decade through the PA’s evolution as a donor-driven state that espouses neoliberal policies. The donor-driven reform of the security sector has been the lynchpin of the PA’s post-2007 state building project. The enhanced effectiveness of the PA’s security forces as a result of massive donor investment has in turn created additional ways of protecting the Israeli occupier, thus creating spaces that are “securitized” within which the occupier can move freely in the execution of its colonial project. Such a development could only have two outcomes : “Better” collaboration with the occupying power in a way that shored up the destructive status quo; and greater violation of Palestinians’ security and national rights by their own government and national security forces. The Palestinian Authority Security Forces: Whose Security? 1