Brynjar Lia:
Building Arafat's Police: The Politics of International Police Assistance in the Palestinian Territories After the Oslo Agreement
(Reading: Ithaca Press, 2007)

Synopsis
This book traces the evolution of the Palestinian police and security forces, beginning with its historical antecedents in Lebanon and the occupied territories, and the formation of formal police organizations after the Oslo Accords until the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000. The history of the Palestinian Police revolves around the fundamental question of how a national police force can be created and operated without the framework of an independent state. Apart from offering a far more detailed and accurate account of the Palestinian Police history than previous works, the study also provides unique insight into the problems and dilemmas of policing by non-state actors in war torn societies. The study traces the establishment and expansion of the Palestinian police and security forces with a focus on PLO efforts at recruiting, training and expanding the force, its political context, institutional development, and dilemmas of "non-state" policing in the context of the political-military conflict with Israel. Based on a host of new unpublished sources, spanning from Palestinian Authority documents, internal Palestinian Police publications, a unique access to the archives of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry (which chaired the most important police coordination committees), and a very thorough review of thousands of Arab, Israeli and international press, the present study gives a unique insight into a hitherto uncharted territory in contemporary Palestinian and Middle Eastern history. This book will also be of invaluable interest to students, researchers and practitioners in the field of security sector reform and international police assistance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book reviews

"This work is, and is likely to remain, the definitive account of its topic"
- Professor Rex Brynen, McGill University

"Brynjar Lia makes extraordinarily meticulous use of archival material in an impressively objective study, and manages to keep track of a wealth of detail that he superbly weaves into a wonderfully coherent account. Whether taken singly or together, his two books A Police Force without a State and Building Arafat's Police not only make an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the construction of the Palestinian police since 1994, but also real insight into the workings of international diplomacy and the interaction of donors and local actors."
- Professor Yezid Sayigh, Kings College, London

 

"These are impressively researched volumes, all the more so because of the institution researched. Police reform is a notoriously difficult subject to research regardless of country, time, or political atmosphere. Hostility and suspicion of the police researcher are endemic to most police departments. Trust is hard to build, and restrictions are placed on what information can be collected and certain areas of police work (such as intelligence) are simply off-limits to most researchers. The very nature of their job means that police officials are unwilling to share compromising or embarrassing operational details with outsiders. In the Palestinian case, Lia confronted a suspicious Palestinian Authority and an often less than helpful donor community, to say nothing of the dangers and difficulties of researching in a still 'live' conflict area. To have unearthed such a trove of information in this difficult context is truly remarkable. Shrewd, insightful and learned, these are volumes that will stand the test of time. One hopes at least the occasional police reformer sent off to foreign lands will give them a read. Current evidence suggests they won’t. But they should."
- International Peacekeeping, 14 (5) (November 2007), pp. 687-690, book review by Dr Gordon Peake.

 

" ... well-written and clearly comprehensible to both the lay and the scholarly reader ..."
- Journal of Palestine Studies 31 (3) (Spring 2008), pp.98-99, book review by Sarah Salwen.

 

"This is an impressive account of how foreign assistance affected the creation and growth of the Palestinian police. Lia’s insightful analysis is based on a unique host of unpublished primary sources, making this two-volume research a solid reference work. It is a worthwhile read, not only for Middle East scholars, but for anybody interested in the complexity of security assistance as part of peacebuilding efforts."
- Journal of Peace Research 45 (2) (March 2008), pp.305-306, book review by Are Hovdenak.  

 

"Enthusiasm and understanding imbue two taut, detail-laden analyses that unfold apace, with Lia displaying something akin to a social anthropologist’s eye for structure, texture and meaning. Lia’s treatment of Palestinian policing culture is superb: this is a complex business, developed through the interaction of insurgent-guerrilla history, intifada vigilantism, clan networks and customary law. Lia handles it deftly, shedding new light on the PNA’s use of military tribunals, treatment of collaborators, patterns of arms proliferation and the class tensions generated by recruitment policy. Treatment of the influential Abu Samhadana clan in the southern Gaza Strip, while short, is exemplary. Beyond social anthropological awareness, both Lia’s works benefit from a quickly established and clear-sighted reading of the meta-level architecture within which Palestinian policing unfolds. Israel is identified as an ‘occupying and colonial power’, a hegemon, with ‘preferences and policies’ that constitute ‘a major determinant of the evolution of the Palestinian police’. Essential asymmetries are reflected at design level in the lopsided Oslo framework, according to which ‘the Palestinian police’s main duty ... was the protection of Israeli security and colonial interests in the Occupied Territories’ (pp. 2–3). The improbability of policing around Israel’s expansive settlement enterprise is a recurrent theme, detracting from PNA jurisdiction over persons and territory and relentlessly detrimental to operational efficacy. Towards the end of A police force without a state, Lia points to the causes of the al-Aqsa intifada as ‘arms proliferation, increased Fatah radicalism and the absence of a centralized and powerful police institution whose identity and loyalty rested solely with the PNA’s political institutions, not with local clans or factions’ (p. 410).
- International Affairs (London, RIIA), 84 (6) (2008), pp. 1330-1332, book review by Nigel Parson.

 

 

[Commenting on a picture of top US diplomats on board a plane with a Dan Brown novel on their desk]:

"No wonder we have no peace in the Middle East. George Mitchell spends all his time with Hillary Clinton discussing the plotlines of Dan Brown novels while Jeff Feltman stares off into the distance, bored and wishing he were back in Lebanon. Shouldn't they instead be reading books like this one? Or this one? Or this one? ..."

- Abu Muqawama Blog, 3 November 2009