Beverley Milton-Edwards

Palestinian state‐building: police and citizens as test of democracy

Abstract This article explores police‐society relations by assessing the impact of current state‐building efforts by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank. The article presents an outline of the emerging civilian policing model and its wider implications for citizens’ rights and the dominant political order. The specific focus of the paper rests on an examination of the potential tensions associated with the perceived need for strong coercive security structures (including the civil police) as part of state‐building efforts and the desire by the population for increased freedom and pluralism. This issue is further complicated by the ambiguous nature of the current experiment in limited autonomy underway in those areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip where Israeli redeployment has taken place.

Hamas: Victory with Ballots and Bullets

Since the electoral win of the Palestinian Islamic group Hamass ‘Change and Reform’ candidates in legislative elections in January 2006 and the subsequent formation of a Hamas government in April 2006 the dynamics of democratic politics on the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been severely undermined and challenged. By June 2007 Hamas had complete control of the Gaza Strip and President Abbas had formed a separate ‘emergency government’ located on the West Bank. This paper examines the prospects for democracy in the Palestinian Authority territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to what extent political factions are subverting institutions and frameworks for democratic rule in order to create outcomes where they extend a monopoly of power. The paper questions the extent to which the lexicon of Hamass ‘Islamism’ has manifested itself as Islamic governance since the organization obtained power through the ballot box in 2006. The paper ends with a discussion of some of the challenges facing Hamas and Fatah and the new political arrangements for governance, given the dynamics and debate outlined.

Political Islam in Palestine in an environment of peace

The announcement in the summer of 1993 of secret negotiations between senior figures in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Government of Israel came as a surprise to all those involved with the Arab-Israeli conflict. The product of these secret negotiations, the Oslo and Cairo Accords have paved the way for political momentum that is a controlled and incremental experiment in ending the state of conflict which has dominated relations between the Palestinians and Israelis for nearly a century. As the quote above illustrates, however, the vision of peace held by Palestinians, Islamists among them, has been at odds with the reality of the Oslo agenda. It is my intention in this article to explore the effects that these political agreements have had on the Palestinian Islamic movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. I set out to question whether the post-Oslo environment has created a momentum for peace, reconciliation and understanding or whether, in reality, it has exacerbated the religious nature of the conflict, which was previously subsumed under the rhetoric of both Israeli and Palestinian nationalism. Paving the path to peace It has been forcefully argued that the only way in which the Palestinians and Israelis could end the spiral of conflict that had dominated relations since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in 1987 was through the opening of a secret channel of negotiations between the two. While the Arab-Israeli conflict continued, the outbreak of the uprising placed intense pressure on Israel to reach some sort of political settlement with the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The uprising had communicated to the Israelis the undeniable fact that the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would no longer contain the Palestinian population. Yet, in secret, it was argued, the two sides could bridge the gap between them, flout the rules of conflict that kept them apart through the taboo of contact and allow them to experiment in top-level

Missing the ‘devils’ we knew? Israel and political Islam amid the Arab Awakening

While the immediate outcome of the Iraq War of 2003 was certainly to Israels strategic advantage, the more immediate and indeed visceral challenge of the ongoing Al-Aqsa intifada has dominated the security horizons of most Israelis. The legacy of this conflict, with its strong Islamist overtones, has clearly had a bearing on how the Arab Awakening has come to be perceived by Israel. Taking this experience as its starting point, this article examines the response by Tel Aviv to the Arab Awakening at an elite level and how, for the most part, Israeli perceptions of its Islamist essence, an essence that rejects popular accountability, continues to be viewed through a predominantly Realist prism. Such perceptions look set to endure, shaping Israels immediate attitudes towards the Palestinians and the wider Arab world. The authors argue that while Israeli concerns over the trajectory of the Arab Awakening do carry empirical weight, such concerns can be equally understood as part of a wider critique with regard to Israels own emerging democratic deficit. This was seen most recently in a raft of legislative bills put before the Knesset between 2009 and 2012 designed to curb civil liberties in Israel; alongside its continued occupation of Palestinian lands and wider demographic shifts, such moves increasingly tarnish Israels proud claim to be both Jewish and democratic.

Policing Palestinian Society

This paper examines policing during the Palestinian uprising. It looks at the formation of the Palestinian Police Force (PPF) in 1993/94 under the framework of the Autonomy Agreement (Oslo Accords) signed on September 13, 1993 between the government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The paper explores the model of policing adopted under this framework suggesting that transition is allowing the perpetuation of an authoritarian approach to state‐society relations through this particular institution. I will also examine the role of the international donor community, training and recruitment and the debate about police‐community relations.

Prepared for Power: Hamas, Governance and Conflict

This article examines the development of Hamas and its prospects for power in the wake of electoral successes, changes within the broader movement of Palestinian nationalism and the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip. The challenges that now beset Hamas are discussed in tandem with a reflection of demands related to governance, democracy, security and reform that affect many societies emerging from conflict. The major contention lies with the question of systems of transitional governance and whether they can withstand growing internal fragmentation and necessary demands for power sharing.

Forgoing primacy: damaging democratic policing in the West Bank

Since the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in September 1993, the international community has supported civil policing programmes. It has done so as part of its development commitments to Palestinian state-building. Such programmes were, until the outbreak of the second Intifada in 2000, largely regarded as successful in terms of supporting the establishment of a Palestinian civil police (PCP). Such programmes were essentially Western imported models which loosely mixed community and public order policing approaches. With re-engagement in the Palestinian security sector (PSS) in the West Bank in 2007, the international community has once again sought to play a major role in PSS reform. This role includes supporting rehabilitation and retraining of the PCP as a principal institution of state-building. Such activities alongside the so-called transformation efforts within the wider realm of the PSS have re-established as their goal law and order. Within the transformation agenda, there are inherent demands with respect to Israel and the Palestinian National Authoritys security and counterterrorism agendas. This analysis examines these activities, and accompanying political intent to contend that such approaches are undermining principles of democratic policing including civil police primacy (CPP). CPP reinforces police universality and means supporting rule of law by putting security under governmental control with proper mechanisms of accountability. This article argues that support to the security sector in the West Bank has increasingly only paid lip service or sought to subvert normative approaches to democratic policing.

Political Islam and the Palestinian–Israeli Conflict

The political and ideological positions of Islamist organizations with regard to the Israeli Palestinian conflict are reflected in both historic and contemporary discourse and organization. Since the period of the British mandate and the Balfour Declaration, Islamists from across the Muslim world have outlined and taken up a variety of positions with regard to the dynamics of the evolving dimensions of the conflict. Additionally, the very symbolism of the territory over which Israelis and Palestinians are contesting has particularly animated Islamist leaders and ideologues.

Faith in democracy: Islamization of the Iraqi polity after Saddam Hussein

This study addresses systematically the rising phenomenon of insurgency in Iraq and concurrent democratic developments since the fall of Saddam Hussein. It demonstrates two main features of the democratization process. First, not only that democratization is taking place within an unstable post-war environment but that much emergent Islamist discourse is also stifling the rebuilding of institutions where democratic rights are protected. Second, democratic discourse is subject to a consistent tension between secular and religious interpretations which in turn inhibits the post-war reconstruction process more widely. The analysis examines the prospects for democracy in Iraq as a Muslim polity and examines the factors that both facilitate and hinder state and polity reconstruction post-war. It offers the hypothesis that the Muslim polity needs to be intimately involved in its own processes of democratization of state and society in order for the present transition to lead to an outcome that is not characterized by state authoritarianism. The final section contends that democracy in Iraq is a long way off and it is most likely to emerge, if at all, as Muslim rather than liberal in character.

Revolt and revolution: the place of Islamism

The outbreak of revolt and revolution in the Middle East has given rise to a re-consideration of threat and security analyses as they pertain to the region and beyond. The resilience of some authoritarian regimes and the rapid collapse of others signal a significant transition within the region to which jihadi Islamist groups form one part of a powerful matrix. This article analyses the part and place of jihadi Islamism and Islamisms 1 more generally in the revolts and revolutions. The article contends that events provide both opportunities and threats in strategies aimed at countering terrorism in the Middle East.