| Summary: | This article provides a contextual analysis of
the evolution and reform processes of Palestinian security forces over the last two
decades. It categorises the evolution of security reform processes into three phases:
the Oslo Accords phase; the Second Intifada phase; and the Fayyadism phase. The article
argues that despite the attempt to reverse the conditions of insecurity through security
reform under Fayyadism (the Palestinian Authority’s state-building project between
2007–2013 in the occupied West Bank), fundamental tensions between the Palestinian
Authority’s security forces and the Palestinian resistance movement have emerged. This
tension manifested in authoritarian transformations and trends and therefore the entire
security reform project constituted yet another form of institutionalised insecurity,
but framed in a state-building and good governance framework. This article concludes
that the enhanced functionality of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces and the
reformed style of governance, resulted in the criminalisation of resistance against the
Israeli occupation. In this way, the state-building project during the Fayyadism era
directly and indirectly sustained the occupation. Conceptually, the Palestinian case
demonstrates the fundamental flaws of conducting a security sector reform in the absence
of sovereign authority and local ownership of the reform processes, and while living
under a foreign military occupation.
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