Training of Palestinian forces gets slow start

By Adam Entous

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A long-delayed U.S. program to train the backbone of the Palestinian security forces will start this month but is only projected to graduate 2,000 men in 2008, a pace some officials see as too slow to underpin a state.

Israeli, Palestinian and Western officials said the first battalion of nearly 700 U.S.-screened recruits to an overhauled National Security Force will cross into Jordan this month for the American-funded training after a nearly year-long delay.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday for a three-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank, has made overhauling Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces a centerpiece of his push for agreement on a Palestinian state before he leaves office in January 2009.

But the slow start to the U.S. program could fuel doubts about peace efforts that hinge in large part on convincing Israel the Palestinians have the capacity to combat militants before its army leaves occupied land, Western officials said.

U.S. government documents show the four-month-long courses, at a facility in Jordan already used by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, will focus on law and order and policing training. None of the instructors will be U.S. government personnel.

Zakaria al-Qaq of al-Quds University said U.S. training for just 2,000 security men was "meaningless" because "it isn't going to convince Israel and it's not going to change the (security) situation... The problem is political."

A senior Israeli official acknowledged Palestinian forces are "perceived by Israel as a joke and irrelevant ... Two thousand is a good beginning but a lot more will be needed".

Palestinian and many Western observers blame Israel for undermining the U.S.-led security overhaul, which could help the Palestinians make the case that they are ready for statehood.

The Palestinians have launched a security crackdown in parts of the West Bank but say Israeli raids are hurting the effort. Israel has also prevented equipment like body armor and new armored vehicles from reaching Abbas's men.

Despite the Israeli actions, Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel-Razak al-Yahya said "we have managed to establish a genuine force... one of the best trained in the world".

While acknowledging improvement in some parts of the West Bank, Israel asserts that Palestinian security forces are still unreliable and include large numbers of anti-Israel militants.

In addition to the Israeli army, the U.S. security program ran into opposition within the U.S. Congress and from pro-Israel activists who demanded more stringent safeguards after Abbas formed a short-lived unity government with Hamas Islamists.

ENOUGH BLAME

"There's enough blame to go around for everybody," a Western diplomat said of the delay in starting the U.S. training.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insists a Palestinian state will not be established until the Palestinians rein in militants in the West Bank, where Abbas's secular Fatah faction holds sway, and the Gaza Strip, which Hamas seized in June.