Congressional Research Service - January 8, 2010 - Back to Resources Page

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Since shortly after the establishment of limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip in the mid-1990s, the United States has periodically provided assistance to the Palestinian
Authority (PA) for civil security and counterterrorism purposes. Following the death of Yasser
Arafat in late 2004 and the election of Mahmoud Abbas as his successor as PA President in early
2005, then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice created the office of U.S. Security
Coordinator (USSC) for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to help reform, train, and equip PA
security forces which had been personally beholden to Arafat and his political allies. Previous
Israeli-Palestinian efforts at security cooperation collapsed during the second Palestinian intifada
that took place earlier this decade.

Since Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, Lieutenant General Keith Dayton,
head of the USSC since November 2005, and the State Department’s Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) have helped with the “gendarmerie-style” training
of West Bank-based PA security personnel. As of June 2009, approximately 400 Presidential
Guardsmen and 2,200 National Security Forces troops have been trained at the Jordan
International Police Training Center (JIPTC) near Amman. All troops, new or already serving, are
vetted for terrorist links, human rights violations, and/or criminal records by the State
Department, Israel, Jordan, and the PA before they are admitted to U.S.-sponsored training
courses at JIPTC. Approximately $395 million in U.S. funds have been reprogrammed or
appropriated through the International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) account
for training, non-lethal equipment, facilities, and strategic planning assistance for the PA forces,
and for PA criminal justice sector reform projects, including $100 million for FY2010 pursuant to
the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010 (P.L. 111-117).

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Congressional Research Service - January 8, 2010 - Back to Resources Page