Israel Matzav

'Palestinian' civil war watch: 30,000 'policemen' to be fired transferred?

This is a 'Palestinian' civil war watch, but it isn't really for a civil war between Fatah and Hamas. It's more like a general insurrection.

The 'Palestinian Authority' has announced plans to fire some 30,000 'policemen,' many of whom don't report for work anyway, but all of whom have arms. Those of you who pay taxes in countries that finance the 'Palestinian Authority' will love the rationale for hiring all these useless people in the first place: The international community was paying for them anyway. That was in the bad old days of Yasser Arafat, but nothing has changed since Arafat's death. Wait. There's more.

But the move, which will leave about 30,000 policemen unemployed, has drawn sharp criticism from some Fatah leaders and security officials, who warned over the weekend that it would trigger a "revolt" against the PA leadership and destabilize security in the West Bank.

A senior Fatah official said that it was "inconceivable" that the PA would reduce the number of its policemen while Hamas was recruiting more men to its security forces in the Gaza Strip.

"I don't know whose idea this is, but it's a very dangerous one that will only weaken Fatah in the West Bank," he said. "Instead of getting rid of the policemen, we should be looking for more to join our security forces."

The PA security forces have some 80,000 men and women on their payroll. However, it is estimated that nearly half of them don't report to work and actually have no real jobs.

The PA has an unusually high ratio of security forces to civilians. Agreements signed between the Palestinians and Israel in 1994 and 1995 limited the PA security forces to some 30,000.

Under pressure from the US and EU, PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salaam Fayad recently agreed to reduce the number of policemen in the West Bank by half.

Previous attempts by the PA leadership to lay off thousands of policemen were called off for fear of a mutiny inside the Palestinian security services.

Somehow, I would bet on this attempt being called off too. But one 'Palestinian' has a great idea for dealing with the situation:

Unemployed policemen, especially those who are young, might find a new home with other hostile Palestinian groups, [Gaza-based businessman Abdel Karim Darwish] said, referring to Hamas. He added that the best solution would be to ask the Gulf countries to absorb many of the unemployed policemen.

You mean transfer them? What a great idea! Why didn't I think of that? It's been tried in other countries. But in 'Palestine,' the 'blessed land,' there's a fatwa against that sort of thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:15 PM