THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 47, March 16, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
AMERICA'S SHINY NEW PALESTINIAN MILITIA
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
DAYTON'S MEN: CONSEQUENCES OF AMERICAN EFFORTS TO IMPROVE THE MILITARY FORCE OF THE PALESTINIAN
AUTHORITY -- ENHANCING THE FIGHTING POWER OF ENEMIES OF THE U.S.A. & ISRAEL -- THE PALESTINIAN LEADERSHIP'S
UNENDING DETERMINATION TO DESTROY ISRAEL & UNDERMINE U.S. INTERESTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST -- THE LIKELIHOOD
THAT THE U.S.-TRAINED & EQUIPPED PALESTINIAN TROOPS WILL BE EMPLOYED TO HELP PALESTINIANS ACHIEVE THEIR
GOALS OF ELIMINATING ISRAEL & UNDERMINING U.S. INTERESTS -- WHAT THE U.S. CONGRESS SHOULD DO ABOUT THIS
DANGEROUS SITUATION
FULL STORY:
"The stupidest program the U.S. government has ever undertaken" – last year, that's what I called American efforts to
improve the Palestinian Authority (PA) military force. Slightly hyperbolic, yes, but the description fits, because those
efforts enhance the fighting power of enemies of the United States and its Israeli ally.
First, a primer about the program, drawing on a recent Center of Near East Policy Research study by David Bedein and
Arlene Kushner:
Shortly after Yasir Arafat died in late 2004, the U.S. government established the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator to
reform, recruit, train, and equip the PA militia (called the National Security Forces, or Quwwat al-Amn al-Watani) and make
them politically accountable. For nearly all of its existence, the office has been headed by Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton. Since 2007,
American taxpayers have funded it to the tune of US$100 million a year. Many agencies of the U.S. government have been
involved in the program, including the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the Secret Service, and branches
of the military.
The PA militia has in total about 30,000 troops, of which four battalions comprising 2,100 troops have passed scrutiny for
lack of criminal or terrorist ties and undergone 1,400 hours of training at an American facility in Jordan. There they study
subjects ranging from small-unit tactics and crime-scene investigations to first aid and human rights law.
With Israeli permission, these troops have deployed in areas of Hebron, Jenin, and Nablus. So far, this experiment has gone
well, prompting widespread praise. Senator John Kerry (Democrat of Massachusetts) calls the program "extremely
encouraging" and Thomas Friedman of the New York Times discerns, in the U.S.-trained troops, a possible
"Palestinian peace partner for Israel" taking shape.
Looking ahead, however, I predict that those troops will more likely be a war partner, than a peace partner, for Israel.
Consider the troops' likely role in several scenarios:
No Palestinian state: Dayton proudly calls the U.S.-trained forces "founders of a Palestinian state," a polity he
expects to come into existence by 2011. What if – as has happened often before – the Palestinian state does not emerge on
schedule? Dayton himself warns of "big risks," presumably meaning that his freshly-minted troops would start directing
their firepower against Israel.
Palestinian state: The PA has never wavered in its goal of eliminating Israel, as the briefest glance at
documentation collected by Palestinian Media Watch makes evident. Should the PA achieve statehood, it will
certainly pursue its historic goal – only now equipped with a shiny new American-trained soldiery and arsenal.
The PA defeats Hamas: For the same reason, in the unlikely event that the PA prevails over Hamas, its
Gaza-based Islamist rival, it will incorporate Hamas troops into its own militia, and then order the combined troops to
attack Israel. The rival organizations may differ in outlook, methods and personnel, but they share the overarching goal of
eliminating Israel.
Hamas defeats the PA: Should the PA succumb to Hamas, the latter will absorb at least some of "Dayton's men"
into its own militia and deploy them in the effort to eliminate the Jewish state.
Hamas and PA cooperate: Even as Dayton imagines he is preparing a militia to fight Hamas, the PA leadership
participates in Egyptian-sponsored talks with Hamas about power sharing – raising the specter that the U.S. trained forces
and Hamas will coordinate attacks on Israel.
The law of unintended consequences provides one temporary consolation: As Washington sponsors the PA forces and
Tehran sponsors those of Hamas, Palestinian forces are more ideologically riven, perhaps weakening their overall ability
to damage Israel.
Admittedly, Dayton's men are behaving themselves at present. But whatever the future brings – state, no state, Hamas
defeats the PA, the PA defeats Hamas, or the two cooperate – these militiamen will eventually turn their guns against Israel.
When that happens, Dayton and the geniuses idealistically building the forces of Israel's enemy will likely shrug and say,
"No one could have foreseen this outcome."
Not so: Some of us foresee it and are warning against it. More deeply, some of us understand that the 1993 Oslo "peace"
process did not end the Palestinian leadership's drive to eliminate Israel.
The Dayton mission needs to be stopped before it does more harm. Congress should immediately cut all funding for the
Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator.
© Daniel Pipes 2010
Originally Published in National Review Online, March 16, 2010
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, March 16, 2010
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/8077/america-palestinian-militia
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a
former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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