Congressional Research Service - Library of Congress - July 24, 2009 - Back to Resources Page

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Since shortly after the establishment of limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip in the mid-1990s, the United States has periodically provided assistance to the Palestinian
Authority (PA) for civil security and counterterrorism purposes. Following the death of Yasser
Arafat in late 2004 and the election of Mahmoud Abbas as his successor as PA President in early
2005, then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice created the office of U.S. Security
Coordinator (USSC) for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to help reform, train, and equip PA
security forces which had been personally beholden to Arafat and his political allies. Previous
Israeli-Palestinian efforts at security cooperation collapsed during the second Palestinian intifada
that took place earlier this decade.

Since Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, Lieutenant General Keith Dayton,
head of the USSC since November 2005, has helped with the “gendarmerie-style” training of
West Bank-based PA security personnel. As of June 2009, 400 Presidential Guardsmen and 1,700
National Security Forces troops have been trained at the Jordan International Police Training
Center (JIPTC) near Amman. All troops, new or already serving, are vetted for terrorist links,
human rights violations, and/or criminal records by the State Department, Israel, Jordan, and the
PA before they are admitted to U.S.-sponsored training courses at JIPTC. Approximately $161
million in U.S. funds have been reprogrammed or appropriated through the International
Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) account for training, non-lethal equipment,
facilities, and strategic planning assistance for the PA forces, and $109 million in FY2009
supplemental appropriations have been approved by Congress in June 2009. Another $100
million in INCLE funds have been requested by the Obama Administration for FY2010.

The performance of the U.S.-sponsored forces in law-and-order operations—including crowd
control assignments during the December 2008-January 2009 Gaza conflict between Israel and
Hamas—and in some operations aimed at countering militant and/or terror organizations has
appeared to produce some positive results. Yet questions regarding the USSC mission persist.
How might short-term operational success translate into (1) a general pattern of sustained success
in countering and dismantling militant and terrorist networks in the West Bank and (2) permanent
consolidation of competent, defactionalized civilian control over the PA forces and the broader
criminal justice sector? Can this occur in a complex political environment featuring the
continuing presence of Israeli occupying forces and settlers, as well as other overt and/or possible
covert PA security assistance from, among others, Arab states, Russia, the United States, and
Europe? If it can, what are the long-term implications vis-à-vis Hamas-controlled Gaza?

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Congressional Research Service - Library of Congress - July 24, 2009 - Back to Resources Page