Since the signing
of the Oslo Accords in 1993, under the guise of an innocent police force, the
Palestinian Authority (PA) has created a military organization with noteworthy
fighting capabilities which could pose a significant military challenge to
Israel in the event of a full-scale military confrontation. The army of the PA
is presently a complex, multifaceted apparatus consisting of at least a dozen
different branches with overlapping responsibilities. The proliferation of
security apparatuses was a manifestation of Yasser Arafat’s style of
leadership during the peace process period, but with the outbreak of the
second intifada, the PA has confronted many problems in the application
of military force due to the cumbersome nature of its security apparatus.
The intifada
has also created a false perception in Israel and the world about the PA’s
real military capabilities, since the forefront units of the Palestinian
military, the National Security Forces have, so far, been excluded from the
fighting. These units, the most capable part of the PA’s military apparatus,
should be counted on to confront Israel if the conflict escalates.
This paper examines
the milestones in the buildup of the Palestinian armed forces, their structure
and organization, weapons, capabilities and tactics. It describes the peculiar
nature of the relations between Arafat and his lieutenants and the complex
relations between the Palestinian security services and the plethora of
paramilitary forces that have emerged during the second intifada such
as Tanzim, the Popular Resistance Committees and the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has
met the Palestinian security services in battle in at least three major rounds
of violence since 1994. In all of these engagements, the PA’s security
services, despite their rudimentary image, proved that they have sufficient
capacity to become one of Israel’s most challenging adversaries. What remains
unclear is what would be their role in the context of a wider regional
conflict between Israel and an Arab coalition. The paper concludes that in
such an event, the presence of a Palestinian army west of the Jordan River
would change the existing Arab-Israeli military balance and introduce new
operational as well as psychological challenges which deserve serious care.
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