Miss Geller made some curious remarks in this interview:
Then in May 2009 came the revelation that the United States and allied military, under the command of Lt. Keith Dayton, was training 1,500 Palestinian troops.
Would American-trained Palestinian troops one day go into battle against the forces of American ally Israel? It was possible.
This is quite curious. Now, yes, USSC for Israel and the Palestinian Authority Lt. Gen Keith Dayton is indeed training Palestinian troops.
But look at what Jim Zanotti's CRS report from October 8, 2008 had had to say:
Since Hamas gained control of
the Gaza Strip, Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, the U.S. Security Coordinator, has helped with the
training of about 400 Presidential Guardsmen and about 1,000 National Security Forces
(NSF) troops (training for the second of five special NSF battalions planned for the West
Bank began in September 2008) at the International Police Training Center just outside
Amman, Jordan. Most reports agree that law and order have improved where the PA
forces have been deployed, but uncertainty remains (particularly among some Israeli
officials) over the willingness and ability of the forces to incapacitate militants
Now, if I recall correctly, a dude named George W. Bush was president of the United States at the time. I believe he was elected and served as a Republican.
Now, during that dude Mr. Bush's time in office, there were indeed significant concerns over the effectiveness of those forces
As security coordinator between Israel and the PA, US Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton was responsible for training and financing equipment used by the Presidential Guard, Abbas's elite force that was in charge of the Rafah and Karni crossings. During last week's fighting in Gaza, the forces proved their ineffectiveness and together with the rest of the Fatah military and political wing, failed to demonstrate a real opposition to Hamas.
"Dayton's plan completely failed," a senior defense official said. "The Presidential Guards which he was responsible for were easily run over by Hamas."
But the Bush administration didn't listen to Israel; since then, the IDF has had more mixed feelings about the PA security forces trained by Dayton:
Overall, the forces have been successful in cracking down on Hamas as well as other terrorist groups in the West Bank, a senior officer in the IDF Central Command said on Thursday.
"The problem is that now that they are doing a good job they have a lot of self-confidence and think they can venture into areas they are not allowed into," the officer explained.
The article references a PA security officer who was found in Area C just north of Efrat at a junction; from my reading of the map, that would just about be where the border will presumably be based on a plan mostly aligned with the partition fence.
So, how is Miss Atlas gonna shrug this one off?
