Case Studies
Israel and Palestine: Training Security Forces in Negotiation
The Oslo Agreement of 1994 instigated a two-fold process. First, it launched Palestinian security sector reform (SSR) aimed to protect Palestinians and serve as pillar of statehood. Second, it mandated Israeli and Palestinian security forces to work together in border regions, jointly supervising various bridges and boundaries.
The Palestinian security forces were chosen for their loyalty to the Palestinian cause. Many were former prisoners. They were trained and equipped in the use of force, but not provided with skills for working with civil society. In spite of their loyalty to their people, and their passion to help, they lacked knowledge on how to engage effectively with civil society.
Like the Israeli and Palestinian populations at large, Israeli and Palestinian security forces have a history of antagonism and violence. They had little opportunity to meet each other and understand little about the other’s culture, experiences and perceptions. This caused tensions and problems with the civilians crossing these checkpoints between Gaza and Israel and between the West Bank and Jordan. Israeli and Palestinian security forces need communication skills and conflict resolution skills to deal with the public and with each other.
A number of local initiatives responded to these challenges. Between 1996 and 1999 several freelance conflict resolution trainers set up a programme to train Palestinian police, security forces, and government employees on how to better relate with the public. The programme was led by the Palestine Center for Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation (CCRR), an interfaith centre that provides peacebuilding education programmes to a variety of audiences, including the police, security forces, and government employees, in collaboration with PANORAMA, a Palestinian NGO focused on democracy and civil society, and the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights. Its purpose was to improve relationships between Palestinian security forces and Palestinian civil society.
In Hebron, Bethlehem, Abu Dis, Jericho, and Ramallah the trainers reached at least 200 Palestinian members of the security forces. The programme focused first on facilitating an internal dialogue between the different factions in the security forces, to help them learn to understand each other and coordinate with each other. The training included an introduction to conflict resolution skills and methods, a self-assessment to reflect on theirown motivations and behaviours and how these impact the public, a discussion of the impact of internal conflicts within the Palestinian security forces on the public, and an exercise on improving relations with the public.[1]
In 1998-1999, a separate programme brought together Israeli and Palestinian security forces mandated to manage a 24-hour a day border checkpoint at Allenby bridge at the Jordanian border and at Karmy bridge between Gaza and Israel. Given the history of conflict and animosity, this programme aimed to improve the relationships between Israeli and Palestinian security forces. The CCRR and the Israeli Centre for Negotiation and Mediation designed a model of training material course for 40 hours, co-facilitated and co-trained with one Palestinian and one Israeli facilitator. Senior officers on both sides also attended the course.
The officers had little information about each other’s habits, values and general culture other than the negative rumours and stereotypes each side held of the other. Given the lack of trust and understanding, it was difficult for them to work with each other. This course focused on ways to resolve daily conflicts between the two sides, including communication skills and cross-cultural understanding to change the image each side has of the other. The training began with basic trust building. Facilitators helped participants understand the experiences and perceptions that shaped each person’s understanding and behaviour emphasizing their shared humanity. Each participant was given the opportunity to introduce their culture and values to the others. These courses were the first opportunity for those officers to get to know each other and to learn how each side sees the other. All participants and their ranking officers reported a great interest in these courses, and a commitment to continue attending it. Participants indicated that their relationship with each other has changed after taking this course, and the way they were dealing with each other also changed and became better.[2]
Excerpt from the book Local Ownership in Security: Case Studies of Peacebuilding Approaches edited by Lisa Schirch with Deborah Mancini-Griffoli and published by The Alliance for Peacebuilding, The Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
Footnotes
[1] Palestinian Center for Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation Annual Report 2005. Bethlehem, Palestine. Pg. 14. (Accessed August 19, 2014 at http://www.ccrr-pal.org/upload/English%20Report.pdf)
[2] Participants gave a written and oral evaluation every day of training.
Policy and Research Papers
Local Ownership and Security Sector Reform
Over the past two decades, in response to the underwhelming results of international development efforts across the Third World, arguments concerning the importance of local ownership have been gaining currency within the international development community. At its core, the discourse around ownership revolves around fundamental questions of agency: who decides, who controls, who implements, and who evaluates. The growing emphasis on local ownership, then, emerged as a critique of mainstream development practice and the broader cult of Western expertise which underpins it. As Joseph Stiglitz argued a decade ago, a vision of development in which all the answers and all the agency are seen to lie in the hands of foreigners is inherently problematic and ultimately self-defeating: ‘We have seen again and again that [local] ownership is essential for successful transformation: policies that are imposed from outside may be grudgingly accepted on a superficial basis, but will rarely be implemented as intended’. Since then, the principle of local ownership has been viewed increasingly as a precondition for effective development assistance, even if
the translation of the principle into actual practice remains an ongoing challenge.
Palestinian Women and Security
This report presents the perspectives of Palestinian women and girls on issues related to security as well as their assessment of the services provided by local authorities and/ or the international community to address their security needs. It concludes with a series of recommendations made by Palestinian women and girls for improving these services.
The findings of this report are based on focus group discussions and in-depth interviews conducted by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) with Palestinian women and girls between June and November 2009 in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. DCAF hopes that the report’s findings will encourage stakeholders to integrate the perspectives of women and girls into the national security debate within the Palestinian Territories.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Background
Methodology
Maps of the Palestinian Territories
Findings
Military and Political Violence
Perceptions of Insecurity in the Public Sphere
Perceptions of Insecurity in the Home
Perceptions of the Response Mechanisms
The Recommendations of Women and Girls
Conclusion
Annexes
Annex 1: Focus Group Discussions: Questioning Route
Annex 2: Selection of Organisations Offering Services to Palestinian Women
Policing in Palestine: Analyzing the EU Police Reform Mission in the West Bank
International efforts for security sector reform (SSR) and state building more broadly, have faced major challenges in the Palestinian Territories. Donor countries struggled to overcome an unwillingness at home to use aid funding for police reform purposes, while managing Israeli obstructionism and security concerns, rivalries between Palestinian police generals and a lack of Palestinian preparedness for the technical and practical aspects of police reform. In this context, the European Union Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support (EU COPPS) was established in 2005 as an EU Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) mission; the European Union Police Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support (EUPOL COPPS), the followup EU police mission, began in 2006. The role of EUPOL COPPS was to provide support to the Palestinian Civil Police (PCP) for immediate operational priorities and longer-term transformational change. As efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have taught the international community, police reform is not as easy as the train-and-equip standard. Especially in postconflict environments, rebuilding the police should take into account the communities’ needs in order to build legitimacy for the institutions of government. This paper seeks to fill the gap of evaluation in the field of police reform efforts by answering the following questions: How should international actors think about police reform efforts in a subordinate, non-juridical and only partially empirical state, and what role do the monitoring and evaluation of police reform efforts play?
Stocktaking of Security Sector Roles in Climate and Environmental Security: Report on the occupied Palestinian Territory
The occupied Palestinian Territory is facing a range of climate and environmental risks which directly affect human security. From rising temperatures and increasing aridity to water scarcity and widespread pollution,the combined effects of climate change and human pressures on the environment are contributing to local tensions and increasing the fragility of both communities and local ecosystems in the West Bank, which was the geographic focus of this study.
ISSAT's this stocktaking study has found significant potential for SSG/R programming to improve service delivery of security institutions with regards to mitigating the impact of climate and environmental risks on communities and the environment, as well as strengthening social cohesion and contributing to sustainable peace. While international partners in their SSG/R programming tend to not yet fully maximize the potential of this area, findings place SSG/R’s role on climate and environmental security at the heart of the triple nexus between humanitarian needs, development and security. Moreover, working at this nexus is relevant in the context of the sustaining peace and prevention agenda, commitments to mainstream DRR into all sectors under the Sendai Framework, as well as the Paris Agreement’s Global Goal on Adaptation
Executive Summary: Stocktaking of Security Sector Roles in Climate and Environmental Security: Report on the occupied Palestinian Territory
The occupied Palestinian Territory is facing a range of climate and environmental risks which directly affect human security. From rising temperatures and increasing aridity to water scarcity and widespread pollution,the combined effects of climate change and human pressures on the environment are contributing to local tensions and increasing the fragility of both communities and local ecosystems in the West Bank, which was the geographic focus of this study. This is an executive summary of the full report.