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Special Report
Building ‘Frankenstein’ in the Middle East?
U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority trains security forces who torture other Palestinians in the West Bank.
The Financial Times reported last week on a “sharp rise” in torture cases in the West Bank, which is governed by the Fatah-affiliated Palestinian Authority and thought to be a good deal more moderate than Hamas-ruled Gaza, as well as a peace partner for Israel.
The rise has, indeed, occurred since a Hamas terror attack in the West Bank in August that killed four Israelis. The PA, which saw the attack as implying a threat to its own rule, rounded up over 700 suspects — “almost all,” FT says, “without proper warrants and held…without the assent of civilian judges or prosecutors.”
That, of course, was hardly the worst of it. Among others, FT notes the horrific case of Ahmad Salhab, a 42-year-old former mechanic who was first tortured by PA security officers in 2008, and then again in the latest wave, by a method called Shabeh, “in which detainees are handcuffed and bound in stress conditions for long periods.”
The first time, in 2008, Salhab emerged from the ordeal with torn spinal discs. This time, in September and October, he was
held in solitary confinement, deprived of the medication he requires as a result of the earlier abuse and subjected again to Shabeh. His condition deteriorated so badly that he could neither walk nor stand upright…. [He] was released on October 16 but had to spend 10 days in Hebron hospital before he could return home. Now he walks on crutches and has little hope of ever making a full recovery.
FT also cites a more detailed report on PA torture posted by Human Rights Watch a month ago. It notes that “more than 100 allegations of torture [have been] registered so far this year,” including one involving a man tortured for ten days; that “the PA has been extremely lax in prosecuting security officials for torture and ill-treatment of detainees”; and that eight detainees have allegedly died in custody since 2007.
Troubling here is that the PA security forces making the arrests, if not those actually carrying out the torture, are largely U.S.-funded and trained. As Israeli commentator Caroline Glick noted in a recent column,
between 2007 and August 2010, U.S. assistance to the PA security services totaled $400 million.… This assistance has paid for the training and outfitting of 400 Presidential Guards and 2,700 soldiers in the National Security Forces. The U.S. plans to train five additional 500-man NSF battalions.
The 2007 starting-date of the program, which until recently was run by General Keith Dayton, was not arbitrary: that was when Hamas staged a bloody coup in Gaza against Fatah, with which it had been purportedly sharing rule. The U.S., fearing a repeat performance in the West Bank, set out to build a more capable PA force that would keep Hamas at bay.
But that wasn’t the only aim. The creation of a modern, competent PA force is also supposed to enable the transition to Palestinian statehood — a goal that has been pursued obsessively, if unavailingly so far, by the Obama administration.
From a cold realpolitik perspective, one could say that, if the PA force has succeeded so far in suppressing Hamas, one shouldn’t quibble too much about the moral aspects. Relatively moderate Arab countries like Egypt and Jordan also crack down hard on their Islamists, and their methods are no prettier. Comme ci, comme ça.
But the situation is indeed problematic, and partly for moral reasons. If the point of Palestinian statehood is supposedly to free the Palestinians from Israeli occupation, then creating another Arab police state for them seems of dubious value at best. At least, it is hard to see why the U.S. should invest so much money and diplomacy — including harsh pressures on Israel — toward that goal.
And pragmatically speaking, the fact that PA forces fight Hamas hardly means they can be counted on to be moderate; such internecine conflict is rampant in the Arab world. Indeed, the PA continues to be an entity no less steeped in anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic incitement than Hamas-ruled Gaza.
So much so that Israeli security forces are quite worried about the growing PA capacity, with General Avi Mizrachi, head of Central Command, saying in a speech last May that “the IDF must be prepared for an escalation in fighting against Palestinian security personnel trained in Jordan by U.S. General Dayton.”
He added:
About the Author
P. David Hornik is a writer and translator in Beersheva, Israel, blogging at PDavidHornik.typepad.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (28) | Leave a comment
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Ken (Old Texican)| 11.29.10 @ 7:32AM
David,
Tighten up your cinch over there, and pull your hats down tight.
Our current President is too busy trying to dismantle America these days.
He will fail, but you allies are in for a wild ride it seems to me.
I'm sorry.
Post American| 11.29.10 @ 9:01AM
LOLZ Didn't Israel create Hamas in the First place to counter the PLO? Didn't the USA prop and support the secular Saddam in Iraq and the loons in Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Blowback is a B!
loulou| 11.29.10 @ 11:03AM
What planet are you living on?
Israel did not create Hamas.
Are you a mentally deficient individual?
RCV| 11.29.10 @ 3:21PM
Pure nonsense. The origins of Hamas are well-documented and they have nothing to do with Israel.
As for the PLO, here is the stark reality: Israel must survive as a Jewish state, which is its purpose for being. Demographically, it cannot survive both as a Jewish and as a Democratic state, and at the same time retain the West Bank. (Sealing off Gaza and letting it fall into the sea, is an option on the other hand.) The best solution, in retrospect, would have been to return most of it (sans Jerusalem and certain other key parts) to Jordan after the '67 war, but that's no longer an option. The only remaining viable alternative is to deal with the Palestinian Authority as Israel is doing - from a position of strength and on its own timetable. But a non-Israeli entity on the West Bank is inevitable, and Israel knows that. The PA is the only present alternative available for Israel and for the US.
Alan Brooks| 11.29.10 @ 6:03PM
"But a non-Israeli entity on the West Bank is inevitable"
In other words, the wars go on for decades (you don't have to mince words at AS).
RCV| 11.29.10 @ 6:45PM
No question. If I knew how to end them, I'da won the Nobel.
BTW, did you see the wikileak about the Saudis pressing for military attacks on Iran? Surprise, surprise!
Alan Brooks| 11.29.10 @ 8:19PM
Right, Saudis don't want their oilfields WMD'd.
How many A-bombs (or even merely dirty bombs) do you think it would take to spread enough nuclear fallout in the oilfields to cripple production?
Not all that many.
Clint| 11.29.10 @ 8:34PM
This part is old new . It's about stability in the region regarding Sunnis and Shiites.
The question is who is getting advantage from the Wikileakage. Not The Saudis, Not Iran, Not The United States.
We shall see.
Alan Brooks| 11.29.10 @ 9:30PM
"Not The Saudis, Not Iran, Not The United States."
Yo meen, dem Jews in dat dere Israel are de onez who am takin' avdantige of de sit-jew-ashun? it's dat Mossad, eh?
Clint| 11.29.10 @ 10:15PM
Interesting, that you even went there.
Why not others ?
Joel| 11.29.10 @ 9:17AM
To Post American, Israel did not create Hamas--this is merely a myth. Details here
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrar.....ar.html#p4
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.29.10 @ 10:34AM
Joel,
No need for a link. PostAmerican's screen name says it all.
He is just another communist, (pardon the shorthand), either wearing Muslim robes or not.
jems | 11.29.10 @ 12:02PM
What is the bottom line?
again and again
Intelligent Design| 11.29.10 @ 1:32PM
Obama has pledged hundreds of millions of our tax dollars (and our Debt) to the "Palestinians". This is the same as giving aid and comfort to the enemy, both ours and Israel's. The new House of Representatives should defund this aid, as well as any aid going to North Korea. It should also impeach Obama.
Christopher Holland| 11.29.10 @ 6:25PM
You can not impeach Obama because he is a dickhead. Being stupid is not against the law, you can not legislate to make people be smart. Obama is part of the price everybody pays for living in a free, democractic country. I can't stand the bloody idiot either, but we have to wait until 2012 and then vote him out of office. That is the best system anybody has ever been able to come up with. Like Winston Churchill said, democracy is a terrible system, but the alternatives are much worse.
Anthony| 11.29.10 @ 8:53PM
What about a democracy where only male landowners who can read and write are allowed to vote? That worked for a while.
David Wrights | 11.29.10 @ 1:47PM
I think everyone knows that Obama will be impeached in the House soon. I see some heads shaking, but trust me on this. There will be a vote to impeach Obama in the House.
Steve A| 11.29.10 @ 2:18PM
David, For what? This would be an idiotic political move. I'm all about getting this guy out of office asap but come on man.
RCV| 11.29.10 @ 3:15PM
No, there will not, and if you think so you are just deluding yourself.
Dan| 11.29.10 @ 4:31PM
This is what happens when the only reason for a people's being is to destroy Israel. If Israel did not exist, Hezbollah, Hamas and the PA would have to invent another bogeyman to keep power.
Alan Brooks| 11.29.10 @ 6:05PM
Yes, this is probably the main point of all the countless points in the region.
Israel is the Other.
Alan Brooks| 11.29.10 @ 9:25PM
[so Toddard can grasp it] the "Other" being the #1 Enemy, an enemy to unite erstwhile enemies against.
Joel| 11.29.10 @ 5:12PM
Reply to RCV--the Palestinians in the West Bank already live under their own jurisdiction and are not part of Israel. They are not Israelis, not counted in its census, not relevant to its demography. They already have a level of autonomy just short of statehood, with all the problems that entails, some of them noted in Hornik's article. Promoting this entity to full sovereignty solves no problems for Israel and only creates worse problems of security. If Israel has demographic issues they concern Israel within the '67 borders and people who are citizens of people and part of it, not people who part of an autonomous Arab entity that is not Israel.
Christopher Holland| 11.29.10 @ 6:19PM
The only demographic issue for Israelis is that the Palestinians want to kill them all.
RCV| 11.29.10 @ 6:42PM
Of course, to everything you say. I was only speaking to the non-viability of the so-called "single-state solution", or of not dealing with the PA, which controls the entity of which you speak.
Christopher Holland| 11.29.10 @ 6:16PM
I am shocked - shocked - that there are terrorists in the PA. How did this happen?