The Palestinian Force For Good?

"U.S. Helps Palestinians Build Force For Security"
A6, Friday 2/27/09,
By Ethan Bronner

It may seem minor, but Bronner citing “American taxpayer money” funding Palestinian forces is important. U.S. aid to Israel is often used by Israel’s detractors to claim that the US – and by extension everyday Americans – are complicit in whatever crimes they accuse Israel of committing.

Consistent with Times coverage is unqualified attribution to the Palestinians of lamenting the demise of the two-state solution. “Violence and settlement-building continue, and faith in the two-state solution is waning,” Bronner writes. Analysis of the Palestinian body politic reveals that outside of paying diplomatic lip service to the idea, Palestinian officialdom speaks neither explicitly or implicitly of desiring such a solution.

Furthermore, the line “violence and settlement building continue” obfuscates the reality that armed struggle against Israel is, and has been, the catalyst for both Israeli military responses (no doubt considered part of the “violence”) and for settlement building (in actuality the Olmert government has not built new settlements, and has actually dismantled several outposts).

Bronner reports that the “Israelis said that if they did not carry out their night raids on Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists in the West Bank, the area would be a lot less stable.” This is a good point and a necessary one. Unfortunately this sort of crackdown is a responsibility yet to be assumed by the PA and Bronner neglects to question what steps must be taken: more personnel, more fortitude, increased IDF-PA cooperation?

The issue of cooperation colors the rest of the article. “The need for consultation with the Israelis to move [PA General Safadi’s] men around frustrates him.”

First, it’s unclear if “move men around” refers to anywhere in the West Bank under PA jurisdiction, which is no small matter considering that the IDF, until a formal change of security control is shifted to the PA, still maintains control. The IDF must receive cooperation from the PA if they are to maintain law and order and combat terrorism. What may be a logical reason for this “need” is simply couched in the grumbles (politically motivated or not) by Safadi.

“We were willing to live together in one country. But the Jews want their own homeland,” Bronner quotes a reasonable sounding Safadi. We [the Palestinians] want to live together with the Jews, but they’re excluding us. It's a well-played propaganda point, which found an obliging reporter. Even when Palestinian officials are sounding their most moderate, defamation or subtly placed distortions of reality apparently can't be resisted.

On one hand it’s a positive to combat the myth that the US does not help the Palestinians. On the other hand it’s deeply disappointing that this article rests not only on the misplaced assumption that the PA is a good-faith negotiating partner, but on the absence of reporting how Hamas-Fatah unity (currently advocated by the U.S. and Europe) could undermine the West Bank’s “Palestinian force for security”.