Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has marked his 100th day in office by beginning a major overhaul of the Palestinian security apparatus. The move will surely please Israel, the United States and the Palestinians themselves. It shows the courage and determination of the Palestinian leader as he continues the reform process. Abbas has appointed three new security chiefs, while at the same time forcing hundreds into retirement and pushing aside top commanders. His aim is to crack down on widespread corruption, theft, extortion and incompetence.
The United States and Israel have consistently argued that the Palestinian security apparatus is weak and inefficient in reining in activists. Palestinians make the same claim. These sweeping changes in the security forces will help allay the concerns of all parties. But the reforms are a risky business. Abbas is ejecting Arafat’s old guard who have controlled the security forces for decades. This old guard is part of a large group within the bureaucracy which has an interest in seeing reform fail. He has made it a point to give these men generous pensions which should reduce opposition. In the case of some influential figures, such as Moussa Arafat, a cousin of Arafat, he has reassigned them in the position of special advisers. Abbas is also applying the law to the letter: Hundreds of the men he is pushing out are over 60 and must retire.
The steps being taken should put paid to Ariel Sharon’s recent pronouncements downsizing Abbas. When Sharon met Bush earlier this month, he used the same language to describe Abbas as he once used to describe Arafat — that he was a “disappointment, unable or perhaps unwilling to subdue the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure.” Bush did not buy the characterization and neither should anybody else. Abbas has overseen a remarkably peaceful transition since Arafat’s death in November; he has steered his people through presidential elections without a shot being fired in anger.
Since taking office on Jan. 15, his constant insistence that it was unrealistic for Israel to demand that the PA’s forces confront and disarm Hamas and Islamic Jihad — that persuasion to co-opt would be infinitely better — won for him a Palestinian factional commitment to a cease-fire for the remainder of 2005.
And now comes a bold, practical move to unify dissolute PA police forces. Abbas is carrying out the security reforms that Arafat promised but failed to implement.
Of course, what Abbas inherited from Arafat cannot be resolved overnight. Palestinians must help and so too must Israel and the United States, especially an administration that has run hot and cold on Palestine must give Abbas the support it failed to give him when he was prime minister. In those days partly because of the security problem, he resigned after a very brief time as premier. Today, on the other hand, Abbas is dealing with the very same problem head-on.
