As Israeli-Palestinian war-and-peace-making prospects continue to bounce around like a ping-pong ball in a wind tunnel, some important new survey evidence has just been published that warrants the attention of those who work for peace and normalcy in the entire Middle East. The work in question is a public opinion survey of Palestinians that questioned them on their attitudes to their own security services, including the police, army, intelligence, and the various armed militias and neighborhood political or gang-like groups.
It helps us understand, for example, why there is continued strong support for the Palestinian political militias and underground resistance groups that continue to attack Israelis, as happened again earlier this week with such negative impact on Israeli-Palestinian peace-making efforts. It also shows that most ordinary citizens prefer the rule of law to the rule of the gun. There is a powerful message here to Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and to those around the world who seek to assist them both.
The survey’s summary results have just been published by the two Swiss-based groups that conducted it, the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and the Graduate Institute for Development Studies at Geneva University. The survey, entitled Palestinian Public Perceptions of Security Sector Governance, was overseen by Arnold Luethold, Riccardo Bocco and Luigi de Martino, whose initial summary report is now available on the web at http://www.dcaf.ch/mena/Palestinian_Perceptions.pdf.
The study’s importance relates both to the Palestinian-Israeli situation and to the wider context of the whole Middle East, where many governance systems and a few entire countries are run by security agencies like personal fiefs. Understanding the relationship between ordinary citizens and the security-military services that dominate them is the critical first step towards serious security sector reforms, without which political and economic reforms in the region will remain an incomplete effort and an elusive dream.
The July 2005 survey involved 1,500 individuals living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, asking their views on public sector security forces and the relevant civilian bodies needed to oversee them, including the judiciary. I contacted DCAF’s Senior Fellow and head of their Middle East program Arnold Luethold to find out more about the survey’s significance, in his view. He said that “Understanding how the public views the security sector and its activities is important for good governance, and it is also an important tool for evaluating the direction of future reforms. By giving the public a voice in the discussion of their own future security, public perception studies are a step towards greater inclusiveness in the management and oversight of security issues. They are also a means for establishing public accountability of the security sector and involving civil society in its governance.”
Among the report’s key findings are the following:
* The feeling of security among the Palestinian population increased significantly from October 2004 until July 2005. A majority of Palestinians perceive Israeli occupation as the main threat to their security, with the lack of socio-economic improvement being the second most important reason for the feeling of insecurity.
* Palestinians place high trust in unofficial (non-statutory) forces. After the Civil Defense, non-statutory armed groups such as the Al-Aqsa and Al-Qassam Brigades are the most trusted organizations amongst Palestinian security organizations in the occupied Palestinian territories. Organizations controlled by the Palestinian Authority, such as the Preventive Security, General Intelligence, National Security and Civil Police, scored significantly lower trust levels.
* Despite the high level of trust in these non-statutory armed groups, a majority of respondents are in favor of dissolving them (56 percent say this is a very important measure, reaching 69 percent in the refugee camps in Gaza). The reasons for this apparent contradiction — high trust but also a desire to disband the armed groups — is an issue that will be explored in more depth.
* The Sharia (Islamic religious) courts are the most trusted judicial institutions (50 percent expressed very high trust). In second place were Palestinian clan-based customary law institutions, with the official Palestinian Authority judicial institutions ranking comparatively lower.
* There is strong and widespread support for security sector reform among the Palestinians. When asked to rate the importance of eleven concrete security sector reform measures, a sweeping majority of respondents (82 to 97 percent) considered all proposed measures as either ‘very important’ or ‘rather important’.
* Fighting corruption and nepotism were the top priority (84 percent considering this as ‘very important’). Equally important were legal prosecution of security personnel responsible for human rights violations and establishing an ombudsman to investigate citizens’ complaints.
* There is strong demand for accountability and increased oversight of the security services. A majority of respondents in all areas want the Palestinian Legislative Council to increase oversight of the security apparatus.
* The Palestinians support changes in the judiciary to strengthen the rule of law, with 74 percent or higher approving measures to strengthen the legal framework, improve the functioning of the judiciary, unify the Palestinian legal code and improve the training of judges and prosecutors.
The authors of the survey report conclude that, “strong and widespread support for in-depth reform suggests that the security sector has largely failed to meet the Palestinian people’s expectations and finds itself in a major crisis of confidence and legitimacy. Unless confidence in the official institutions is restored, popular support for substitute organizations, such as private militias and parallel court systems, is likely to grow.”
These findings are also relevant for the entire Arab world, not just Palestine, because public aspirations for more emphatic rule of law and less impunity by security services seem widespread throughout the region. The very legitimacy of prevailing governing elites and systems is deeply linked to the performance of the security and judicial systems, which makes this sector so vital for reform efforts throughout the Arab world.
DCAF’s Luethold was very clear about the implications of the survey findings, which officials in the region and abroad would do well to heed. He told me: “In the eyes of ordinary Palestinians, Israeli occupation and weak Palestinian governance have at least two things in common: They increase the feeling of insecurity amongst the population, and limit the prospects of economic development. It is therefore not surprising that Palestinians look for change, not only from outside, but also from inside. The widespread and overwhelming popular support for Palestinian security sector reform sends a strong message to the Palestinian Authority to put its house in order and to give top priority to fighting corruption and nepotism and increasing political oversight and control of the security forces. The mission of the Palestinian Authority could be made less impossible if Israel accepted to create an enabling environment, and more attractive if the international community linked its assistance programs to tangible outcomes in areas where the Palestinian people want change to occur.”
The linkage between development and security has always been clear, but is becoming more urgent these days throughout the entire region. This survey is one more piece of evidence that, as Luethold expressed it, “good governance rests on functioning institutions not on individuals. Improving security sector governance therefore often requires either improving the functioning of existing institutions or establishing new ones, or a mix of both. In the long run, development assistance cannot compensate for the lack of such institutions, but it can help a society develop its institutions.”
Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 19 October 2005
Word Count: 1,227
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