Palestinian Police Chief: The Palestinian Authority is a Leaky Boat

The Palestinian Authority put on a totally unreal show Sunday, Oct 16, when its spokesmen claimed to have actually prevented 17 attacks against Israelis during its first month of self-rule in the Gaza Strip. The PA asked Israel not to prevent the radical Hamas from taking part in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections next January, lest this serve to strengthen the radical Islamist movement. “Leave it to us,” said Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Ereket.
The truth is that Abu Mazen’s government’s is no more capable of preventing attacks in the Gaza Strip than it is of handling Hamas. This was frankly brought out by the deeply worried Palestinian police chief Gen. Ala Husseini when he addressed a closed meeting of Palestinian police and security commanders Wednesday, October 12.
debkafile‘s Palestinian sources offer passages of that address here for the first time.
Gen. Husseini: We are in the grip of security anarchy, caused by the policy of the last five years (Ed. Since Yasser Arafat launched his suicide terror uprising against Israel). We are trying to create an effective security apparatus to overcome the competing power groups in our midst. We have neither the resources, nor the weapons, or usable bases. Abu Mazen orders us to provide security, as does the interior minister Nasser Yousef. But we cannot manufacture security out of Gaza’s jungle of guns, robbers and thieves – all fighting each other and all claiming to be occupied in resisting Zionist forces. As a result, their weaponry is many times stronger than that of the security services, which have not received new supplies of arms or ammunition for five years (Ed. On Arafat’s instructions, all weapons supplies were siphoned into the hands of terrorist organizations.)
“They throw us into the sea and expect us to swim. It makes no sense for them to give us a paltry 500 shekel raise and expect us to tackle the gunmen. A policeman can tackle a thief; he can’t deal with a thief who calls himself a national resistance fighter.
“And this is our main weakness. If we fail to plug the holes in our ship, it will sink.” Hamas is deliberately creating havoc in Gaza. It was they who loosed killers against Mussa Arafat. Palestinian security forces are incapable at present of standing up to the organizations. They have all the fine slogans and we have nothing to say. But their heads think only of personal profit, the cash they can draw from this country or that organization.” (Ed. This is an oblique reference to Syria, Iran and the Hizballah.) They are not genuinely interested in the national cause.
“We must also acknowledge the truth that we don’t interest Israel”. Sharon withdrew from the Philadelphi border strip suddenly and without advance warning to us in order to show how incapable we are of guarding the border. Hamas took advantage of this opportunity for smuggling in a very large quantity of RPGs, which they straight away used to shoot up our police stations in the refugee camps. We can only hope that the weapons which they have brought in for the resistance stays concealed until the IDF returns to the Gaza Strip. (Ed. This is how the Palestinians see the future).
General Nasser Yousef, chairman of the commission the legislative council set up to examine the cause of the current chaos, what can he say? He is powerless. He even lacks the authority to replace commanders. Prime Minister Abu Ala has never once asked for a report. But Abu Mazen asks and receives a daily report, but as matters stand he too lacks the strength to do anything about it. End of quotes from Gen. Ala Husseini’s address.
debkafile‘s Palestinian sources report that for the moment, the Palestinians are totally absorbed – not in Abbas’ forthcoming talks at the White House on Oct. 20, but in the leadership primaries of the ruling Fatah taking place on Oct. 27. The security services chiefs are drawing up West Bank slates that are far from the wishes of Abu Mazen.
According to our sources, Abbas exercises even less authority on the West Bank than the Gaza Strip. In fact, his own Fatah party and its multiple factions ignore him and go their own way.
Two Fatah factions – the Al Aqsa Brigades Masoud Ayad and the Yasser Arafat groups – carried out two drive-by shooting attacks against Israeli civilians at two road junctions, Sunday, Oct. 16, defying all his attempts to restrain them. Three Israeli teenagers were killed, four injured, when the gunmen sprayed a group waiting for a hitch home outside Gush Etzion; a motorist was shot at the Eily junction further north. The two attacks were forty minutes apart and clearly coordinated. Carried out with the connivance of Hamas-Hebron, which provided the cars and the weapons, the attacks exposed the hollowness of the Palestinian Authority assertions of successes in terror prevention. It also showed up as a charade the Sharon government’s claims of good ongoing coordination with the Palestinian Authority on security matters. Palestinian police chief General Husseini’s version was a lot closer to the true state of affairs.