Arafat's navy without a sea

Lt. Akram Farid adds proudly: "With one section of 30 to 50 men we can restore order anywhere."

That may have been true before the intifada, but some of the most acute disorder today is among the security branches themselves, where personal rivalries among the chiefs predominate.

Adding to the sense of chaos is that most of the 11 forces are under separate commands - and commanders - in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Calling for reform of the security forces, the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, wrote in a report issued two weeks ago that "there is a need for clear regulation to demarcate between the competencies of each branch of the security services."

The head of the Naval Police, Maj. Gen. Juma Ghali, resigned in July after Yasser Arafat appointed his own nephew, Musa Arafat, the director of Military Intelligence, to the post of chief of the Palestinian National Security Force.

But Hassan says that because of "historic sensitivities" the Naval Police will never take orders from Musa Arafat. "The loyalty of the Naval Police to Musa Arafat is a big dream that cannot be achieved," he says. "If I am transferred to Military Intelligence, OK, I will take his orders, but as Naval Police there is no way I will do so and this is a fact well known to the president."

Aware of the antipathy of some of the forces toward Musa, Yasser Arafat promoted Maj. Gen. Abdul Razaq al-Majaide to the post of chief of the Palestinian National Security Force in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And he limited Musa Arafat's authority to Gaza. But that perhaps cosmetic change was not enough to prompt General Ghali to reconsider his resignation.

"We have complexities among the security apparatuses that the president is unable to solve in spite of the fact that he created these complexities," explains Hassan.

The multiplicity of forces and rivalries are a deliberate policy, in the view of Shalom Harari, a former adviser on Palestinians to the Israeli defense ministry. "It's divide and rule. Arafat wants every commander to be subordinate to him directly and reporting to him. "

In practice, Arafat's decree unifying the security forces will have no impact on the Naval Police, Hassan says. "Al-Majaide will still have to call the president if he needs something from the Naval Police," he says.

Mahdi Abdul Hadi, director of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, says it would be a mistake to expect Arafat to give up his direct control of the security forces. "To give up that card means he is left completely naked," he says. "Arafat will ask 'what's in it for me?' "

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