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ABOUTBy the Coalition of Women for Peace – 23 March 2011
www.whoprofits.org/articlefiles/WhoProfits-PrivateSecurity-G4S.pdf
A dramatic change is taking place in the form of Israeli control in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), whereby, in addition to soldiers and security officials, one begins to notice the growing presence of private security personnel. A number of Israeli security companies operate in the oPt, taking over some of the tasks that were traditionally executed by the army. Private companies provide a wide range of services to civilian and military occupation structures, including supplying circumferential security systems to settlements, maintaining security equipment in checkpoints, employing security personnel at checkpoints and securing construction sites of settlements and the Separation Wall. The variety of operations of private security companies illustrates, perhaps most lucidly, that the Israeli occupation today is sustained not only by state military forces, but also by a multitude of commercial and economic forces, whose activities in the oPt are interwoven into the establishment of control itself.
Read The Case of G4s: Private Security Companies and the Israeli Occupation (pdf)
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{ 1 comment }
I’ve long been troubled to imagine what the phrases “national security”, “private security personnel”, and “security forces” are intended to mean. I can imagine that “security forces” might mean “army”, “local police”, “secret police” (such as USA’s CIA), “national police” (such as USA’s FBI), as well as non-governmental folks such as “militias”, “hired thugs”, “hired gangs”, “night club bouncers”, “guards” (for buildings), “prison guards”, etc., but I really don’t know, not being able to read the minds (if any) of the MSM folks who parrot these phrases.
Can armed Israeli settlers be considered (by anyone) as “security forces”? The private guards whom they hire? The IOF — at times when it refuses or otherwise fails to intervene in conflicts between settlers and Palestinians? Are armed criminals “security forces” when they guard the criminals’ hideout (e.g., from other criminals or from police)? Are the armed Israeli settlers “security forces” considering that they are present in the occupied territories (as residents) illegally and are thus, in a sense, “criminals”? Can a person be both a “criminal” and a “security force person”? Are the Gazans who shoot rockets at Israel “security personnel”? How about the Israeli soldiers who shoot rockets at Gaza? Are Israel’s and the USA’s (and others’, no doubt) assassins “security personnel” when doing their very important work of assassination, even if they reduce the feelings of personal safety and security of people who suspect they are targets of assassination?
Or is all this just too clear to require discussion?
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