GAZA CITY — Abu Salim, an earnest, cleanshaven young Palestinian police sergeant, says he joined the force to protect and serve his people. His elder brother shares those goals, he says.
But his brother is a fugitive member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a Palestinian militant group responsible for hundreds of deadly attacks against Israelis. And Abu Salim says that if he were called upon to arrest his sibling or other wanted men, he would refuse.
The 35,000-strong Palestinian security forces are supposed to be the centerpiece of a bold attempt by the new Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, to quell attacks by groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which for more than four years have waged a relentless war on Israel.
Although violence ebbed after Abbas sent his officers into the streets last week, enormous obstacles stand in the way of his plan to harness a security force that has little real sense of its priorities, let alone its loyalties.
Made up of no fewer than 13 branches, the Palestinian security services are riddled with internal rivalries and beset by disorganization. They are short on weapons and equipment, with ranks thinned, bases destroyed and morale sapped by a conflict in which many find themselves unwitting combatants.
Like Abu Salim, who did not want his full name used, many members of the security services feel a kinship with the militants, regardless of whether they are literally family. The Palestinian security forces, created under the Oslo interim peace accords of the early 1990s, were conceived as a means of providing respectable employment to young street fighters who had cut their teeth in the first Palestinian uprising, from 1987 to 1993.
From the earliest months of the current conflict, Israeli troops regarded any armed Palestinian as a threat, even uniformed police officers.
"We were a target, and an easy one," said Capt. Mohammed, an 11-year veteran of the Palestinian preventive intelligence service. Like other low- to mid-ranking officers interviewed, he did not want his name used because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
The captain said two fellow officers were killed and more than a dozen injured in 2002 when his post in downtown Gaza was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike. Later, he lost three fingers when he and his men were caught in an exchange of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants.
"There is this idea that we are supposed to work with the Israelis," he said, toying with the black glove he wears to cover his mangled right hand. "How can we trust them not to just shoot us on sight? They've done it before. We think they'll do it again."
The Palestinian security forces, however, may be their own worst enemy.
Feuds among rival security chiefs, who often command loyalty based on patronage or clan ties, regularly spill over into shootouts and abductions, particularly in the Gaza Strip.
Some branches of the service so loathe one another that straying into the wrong patch of territory without a full complement of armed escorts would be deadly. Particularly at odds are the preventive security and militant intelligence branches, which have attacked one another with grenades and gunfire.
In many ways, the fragmented security forces are a legacy of Yasser Arafat. The veteran Palestinian leader, who died Nov. 11, was a master at playing one commander against another, keeping each one guessing as to whether he was in favor or on the outs.
The late Palestinian Authority president played a tireless game of embracing and repudiating powerful figures such as the West Bank security chief, Jibril Rajoub, and Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan, who are still waiting to find their places in the new order under Abbas.
Because chaos served his purposes, Arafat resisted no reform as adamantly as he did any streamlining of the security forces.
Arafat's refusal to allow the appointment of any commander who did not report directly to him was a major reason for Abbas' angry departure from his post as prime minister.
Today, Abbas and other Palestinian officials say there is no way to stem growing lawlessness, particularly in Gaza, without a strong and well-armed security force.
But some Israelis are skeptical that the Palestinians can be relied on to keep internal order, let alone quell attacks against them.
"All these promises about what the Palestinian forces can do are like a check that can bounce at any moment," said David Hacham, an Israeli reserve colonel who advises the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Palestinian issues. "With what there is to work with, it's hard to believe there can be real progress on the ground."
Abbas is preoccupied with the leading Palestinian militant factions, seeking to persuade them to give up attacks. Persistent reports have suggested that one means of persuasion might be to offer the gunmen jobs in one of the security branches.
