Getting to peace needs Palestinian security

Palestinians face a double threat when it comes to their own security. First, they face the security threats inherent in an occupation by a foreign army and the abuses and confrontations that result in deaths of both combatants and innocents. Second, Palestinian society lacks a well organized and disciplined security service and its towns are plagued with political militias and criminal gangs, as well as ad hoc violence. The problem of militias was most clearly seen in June, when Hamas-controlled gunmen seized control of Gaza and expelled the Palestinian Authority and Fatah from the strip.

Palestinians cannot afford to have private armies that parties use to consolidate their power outside constitutional structures and to conduct their own independent foreign policies. In the name of "resistance against occupation," these militias launch attacks, including rockets aimed at Israeli towns, intentionally designed to undermine Palestinian diplomatic progress, even though negotiations are the only realistic prospect for securing an end to the occupation and creating a Palestinian state.

Therefore, these two security problems - occupation by the Israeli military on the one hand and militia violence that undermines diplomatic efforts on the other - require the same solution: the strengthening of the Palestinian government's security forces and their monopolization of the use of force in Palestinian society and an eventual independent state.

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