MIDEAST: Crime Soars in Palestinian Areas

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ferry Biedermann

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Feb 3 2004 (IPS) - The suicide attack on a bus in Jerusalem last week brought a sharp setback to fledgling attempts by the Palestinian Authority to reassert control at least over civilian affairs.

Within days the Israeli army entered areas of Bethlehem where civilian control had been handed back only months ago. Looking for militants, the Israelis also entered Jericho, where incursions have been rare through the Intifadah.

The suicide bomber who was responsible for the death of 11 people on Jerusalem’s number 19 bus came from Bethlehem. To make matters worse, he was a member of the Palestinian police. Cooperation between the two sides on policing matters was dealt a sharp blow.

Law and order has been a difficult issue between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And it has been a difficult issue within the Palestinian administration. Crime and lawlessness have increased dramatically in Palestinian areas to the point where anarchy is becoming a serious concern for lawmakers.

The Palestinian police operate in areas where the Palestinian Authority (PA) has civilian control under the now all but defunct Oslo accords. That includes all major cities in Gaza and the West Bank, and many rural areas. The are expected to police the large majority of the Palestinian population except in East Jerusalem which is excluded form the Oslo accords.

In addition to the police there is a Preventive Security Service (PSS) that operates in areas where the PA is supposed to have security control. But in practice the PSS also operates outside these areas when called for. Since the Intifadah its operations have been severely curtailed.

Under normal circumstances there has cooperation between Israel and the PA both at police and security levels. But the Israelis have always considered PA areas a haven for criminal gangs. In security matters cooperation has been patchy since the outbreak of the Intifadah.

Israeli police are in charge of settlers in occupied territories and in Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza where Israel retains full control under the Oslo accords. The distinctions are often only theoretical because of the Initfadah.

Just a few days earlier, the Palestinian government headed by Ahmed Qureia had for the first time in more than a year ordered police officers back into their uniforms. In the wake of successive Israeli incursions, the force had at different times in different Palestinian cities stopped patrolling with their arms and in uniform. The danger of being targeted by Israeli soldiers was too great.

Last week the security committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council issued a report sharply critical of the government and the security agencies for failing to fight spiralling crime rates. It pointed to widespread corruption in the law enforcement agencies, and ordered the government to act or face censure in parliament. The government ordered the police back into the streets following that.

Commander of the police in Ramallah Mohammed Salah complains about the obstacles the conflict has put in his way. “The Israelis arrested scores of our men,” he says. “They expelled almost 100 to the Gaza strip, and our patrols are still a target especially when the soldiers enter the city at night.”

The absence of a uniformed and adequately armed force has made it almost impossible to carry out law enforcement duties, says Salah. The Israelis have seized a lot of police weapons, and most police vehicles have either been destroyed or confiscated along with their communications equipment, he says..

The result are not hard to spot. At the Ramallah studios of Radio Amwaj (Arabic for ‘waves’) the front door made of steel remains firmly closed. Visitors are allowed in only after they have made an appointment, and not at all after eight in the evening.

Around midnight Dec. 30 four masked men forced their way into the studios, and cut off the electricity and live broadcast. They tied up staff members and made off with equipment worth about 30,000 dollars.

“Ramallah has been experiencing a crime wave for months now,” says general manager of the station Saad Arouri, pointing at the damage the robbers did to his studios.

Journalists at the radio station agree that the absence of an effective police force is a problem, but the most important reason for the rise in crime is the huge rise in poverty over the last couple of years, they say. Israeli security measures mean that people in Ramallah cannot work inside Israel any more. Trade and travel within Palestinian areas has also become difficult.

PSS commander Sabri Tmazi says his force has seen an estimated 60 percent rise in crime since the start of the Intifadah. “That is in burglaries and other property crimes,” he says. “Violent crime and murders have stayed almost at the same level, so it’s clearly an economic issue.”

The government has ordered the PSS to stay away from regular law enforcement, but Tmazi is dismissive of that order. “The public comes to us, they trust us more than the police,” he says.

It has become a matter of some speculation in cities such as Ramallah who is more corrupt, the security services or the police.

In the absence of the rule of law, the family and clan structure which has always played a crucial role in Palestinian society is becoming even more important.

Last week a money changer was robbed on a street in the centre of Ramallah. Another money changer, Kshek, said he was not worried. “This office is owned by a powerful family and if anybody messes with us they know that the family will come after them.”

Political scientist Imad Ghiada from the Bir Zeit University near Ramallah says the situation is becoming dangerous for the PA.

“Any government that cannot provide security for its own people at the most basic level is in grave political danger,” he says. He points to the example of Iraq where failure to establish security after the fall of Saddam Hussein “has undermined the new authorities.”

Ghiada says the Israeli government could be encouraging the growing anarchy and lawlessness in the Palestinian areas in order to undermine the PA. But Israeli spokesmen frequently bemoan the absence of security control in the Palestinian territories. They call on the PA to act, especially against militant groups.

Crime in the Palestinian areas does not stop at the Israeli checkpoints. Car theft has for long been found to be a cooperative venture between Israeli and Palestinian gangs. The car of a prominent Israeli peace activist that was stolen recently was retrieved in Ramallah, says Tmazi.

How it is possible that stolen goods till cross the checkpoints became somewhat clearer last week when three Israeli soldiers were caught taking bribes from Palestinians at checkpoints. One complete Israeli border police company was disbanded for similar abuses.

The army is investigating what – or who – some soldiers allow past their checkpoints.