For the last three years, the RAND Corporation has undertaken a major project focused
on a single question: How can an independent Palestinian state be made successful?
This project has analyzed and discussed a wide range of issues, from demographics and
economics to health care and education. The results have been presented in four RAND
publications: Building a Successful Palestinian State (The RAND Palestinian State Study
Team, 2005); The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State (Suisman et al., 2005);
Helping a Palestinian State Succeed: Key Findings (2005); and Strengthening the Palestinian
Health System (Schoenbaum, Afifi, and Deckelbaum, 2005).

This study examines key security issues regarding the construction of a Palestinian
state. Throughout the history of Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, security has been the
most important—and most challenging—issue for Palestinians, Israelis, and their neighbors.
Indeed, security trumps all in terms of the requirements of turning war to peace and
conflict to potential cooperation. Building a Successful Palestinian State dealt with matters
of security within an independent Palestinian state. This study addresses the external
security of such a state. External security clearly has many dimensions and requires, first
and foremost, a thorough examination of the attitudes, analyses, ideas, and needs of the
two critical parties: Israel and Palestine. Analysis of external security requirements also
calls for examining relations of an independent Palestinian state with its neighbors, the
role of outside powers and key international institutions, and the political and security
picture of the Middle East as a whole.

As with other aspects of the overall RAND Palestinian project, this study does not
prescribe means for getting from the situation today to the establishment of a Palestinian
state. Nor does it include a discussion of what a final status agreement should look
like, except to the extent that consideration of the role of security issues in negotiations is
indispensable for a successful outcome. The focus here is instead on what, in the authors’
judgment, would need to be done in terms of external security so that the key parties,
especially Israelis and Palestinians, can have high confidence that a peace agreement can
be sustained. The study does not attempt to recount the negotiations that have been
conducted over the past several decades, but rather focuses on those critical elements such as border arrangements, Israeli settlements, a role (if any) for Palestinian military
forces, and confidence-building and security-enhancing measures of all types—that have
emerged in the history of efforts to bring this conflict to a close.
Research for this study was carried out between September 2002 and July 2005
under the direction of the RAND Health Center for Domestic and International Health
Security in conjunction with the Center for Middle East Public Policy (CMEPP), one of
RAND’s international programs. RAND Health and CMEPP are units of the RAND
Corporation.

Primary funding for this study was provided by a generous gift from David and
Carol Richards, and the authors are deeply indebted to them for their inspiration, vision,
and support. This research in the public interest was also supported by RAND, using
discretionary funds made possible by the generosity of RAND’s donors and the earnings
on client-funded research.

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