A group of high-ranking Palestinian civil police officers went, on Thursday 9 March, to Bir Zeit armed with flowers to reach out to the population. In a school, and later in a women’s association, the police officers did prevention work against cybercrime or drugs.
These visits are part of community policing, supported by the EU Police Support Mission in the Palestinian Territories, EUPOL COPPS, with the aim of bringing civilians and police together.
In 2016, the EU provided 11 mobile police units - one per district - to bring the police closer to citizens. “If you don’t go to the police, the police comes to you“, summarised Pietro Tripodi, EUPOL COPPS Senior Advisor on Community Policing.
“When people see people in uniform, they think they are enemies. There is a social contract between the police and the citizens, the police are there to meet their needs”, EUPOL COPPS Head of Mission, Nataliya Apostolova, told a group of journalists visiting Palestine, including EUROPE, on 6 March. Moreover, according to one European source, community policing is a good way to prevent terrorism.
More broadly, the EUPOL COPPS mission, established in 2006, aims to help the Palestinian civil police, which has about 8,000 members, and the justice sector to reform and improve their performance so that Palestine can have functioning institutions for a two-state solution.
The Palestinian police and judiciary only have authority in Area A of the West Bank, although the Israeli army regularly raids this area, which does not facilitate the work of the Palestinian police.
“We are engaging in establishing institutions able to cope with necessary activities that are going to be challenging”, the head of mission warned.
In concrete terms, the Europeans are there to provide support, advice and best practice to their Palestinian counterparts, not to control what they do.
“It is mainly about technical support and actions. We don’t have an executive function, we cannot substitute for the Palestinians”, said Giovanni Galzignato, Head of the Rule of Law Section, on 6 March. “We try to advise them, but they have to develop their own concept. We are not here to say ‘do or don't do’”, added the head of the police section, Bertram Welsing.
The mission also has an expert on environmental crimes. EUPOL COPPS was the first EU mission to have such an expert on board. The main challenge is to prevent and raise awareness of fly-tipping (illegal dumping).
The mission also has two prison experts. Highlighting the “terrible situation” in Palestinian prisons - overcrowding, men and women sometimes mixed together, cells without light - Ms Apostolova explained that she had informed Member States about this and sought funding to improve the infrastructure. The EU has financed the construction of a new prison in Hebron with modern equipment, but is now waiting for it to be connected to the electricity system, subject to authorisation from the Israeli authorities.
EUPOL COPPS also works on gender equality. In January, the mission helped launch a network of female police officers - who make up only 3.6% of the force - to support women to join the police and develop a career. Ms Apostolova would like to develop similar networks for women judges and prosecutors.
Many challenges to be met
The work is complicated by the fact that elections have not been held in the country since 2006, with the last one, scheduled for 2021, having been cancelled because the Palestinians were not allowed to hold the vote in East Jerusalem. Moreover, the division of powers is not clear. “The Palestinian Authority must regain the trust of the people”, Ms Apostolova said, questioning what kind of trust can be expected from a population when no elections have been held for years.
The legislative function is carried out by the President, through decrees. To try to bring some “check and balance, where now there is not”, according to Ms Apostolova, the EU has proposed software so that ministries can publish all the legislation that is to be enacted and thus allow, among others, other ministries, but also the public, to consult the proposals.
Moreover, the institutions do not always have a well-defined role and the entities are multiple: in addition to the civil police, Palestine has about ten bodies with a law enforcement role. The Palestinian Civil Police also face a hierarchical imbalance with many commanders compared to the number of police officers on the ground. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)