20. For Mish‘al’s speech, see “Political Office Leader Khalid Mashal Speech: No Way We Will Bend to U.S., Israeli & Fateh Pressure to Be Subservient to the Zionists—Fateh Leaders in an Uproar,” Palestine News Network, April 22, 2006. For Fayyad’s statement on American pressure, see Fayyad interview in Journal of Palestine Studies 39, no. 1 (Autumn 2009): 58–74. For de Soto’s report, see Alvaro de Soto, “End of Mission Report,” May 2007. A week before Mecca, de Soto wrote, “the U.S. envoy declared twice in an envoys’ meeting in Washington how much ‘I like this violence.’” In my July 2010 interview with Welch, he told me: “I did say that. But what I also said was, ‘Were there no violence, the good guys would already have capitulated.’” At the end of April 2007, a Jordanian newspaper published leaked US documents outlining a strategy to collapse the national unity government, bolster Fatah, and eliminate Hamas’s new security force. Hamas officials would later say that these plans, together with the arrival from Egypt of troops trained under Dayton, prompted them to go on the offensive in Gaza in late spring. See Rose, “The Proof Is in the Paper Trail”; International Crisis Group, “After Gaza,” Middle East Report, no. 68, August 2, 2007, p. 11; and comments by Mahmoud Zahar and Fawzi Barhoum in David Rose, “The Gaza Bombshell,” Vanity Fair, April 2008.
21. For the Hamas attack on USSC-trained troops, see Ibrahim Barzak, “Hamas Kills 7 in Gaza Border Clash,” Associated Press, May 15, 2007. For Dayton’s testimony, see “U.S. Assistance to the Palestinians,” Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 110th Congress, May 23, 2007. For Sourani’s quote (“just a few days”), see Paul McGeough, Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas (New York: The New Press, 2009), p. 381.
22. The Abrams quote (“the project was needed”) comes from an interview with the author, June 2010. For dissenting views about the Dayton mission within the Bush administration, albeit from officials who did not have much influence over the policy they criticized, see quotes in Rose, “The Gaza Bombshell.” This article also quotes UN ambassador John Bolton (“Having failed to heed the warning not to hold the elections, they tried to avoid the result through Dayton”) and the Middle East adviser to Vice President Cheney, David Wurmser: “What happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen.”
23. Welch’s quotes (“the best Palestinian Authority government in history” and “a lot cleaner to do in the West Bank”) are taken from an interview with the author, June 2010. For details of the PA’s campaign in the West Bank, see International Crisis Group, “Ruling Palestine II: The West Bank Model?” Middle East Report, no. 79, July 17, 2008, p. 4.
24. Mohammed Najib, “Palestinian Officers Graduate from Jordanian Special Ops Training Course,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, May 2, 2008.
25. Ghaith al-Omari’s quote (“nationalist, respectable endeavor”) comes from an interview with the author, June 2010. For the poll on the attack in Dimona, which was supported by 77 percent of Palestinians surveyed, and the attack in Jerusalem, which was supported by 84 percent, see “Palestinian Public Opinion Poll, no. 27,” Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, March 24, 2008.
26. For the report in Yediot Aharonot, see Nahum Barnea, “Last Chance,” Yediot Aharonot, September 19, 2008. See also “Shocking Details of PA-Israeli Security Meetings,” Palestine Times, September 29, 2008; Jon Elmer, “A Prescription for Civil War,” Al-Jazeera, February 8, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/12/2009121311331278355.html.
27. For the events in Hebron, see B’Tselem, “Hebron: Willful Abandonment by Security Forces,” December 10, 2008; Ethan Bronner, “Israeli Troops Evict Settlers in the West Bank,” The New York Times, December 4, 2008. For Olmert’s quote (“pogrom”), see “Olmert Condemns Settler ‘Pogrom,’” BBC, December 7, 2008. For the disappearance of the Palestinian security forces, see Jared Malsin, “Witnesses: Israeli Police, Soldiers ‘Deeply Involved’ in Settler Attacks,” Ma’an News Agency, December 7, 2008; Tony Karon and Aaron J. Klein, “Israeli Settler Youth on the Rampage in Hebron,” Time, December 5, 2008. The statements from the former governor of Hebron and the NSF commander of Hebron are taken from interviews with the author, Hebron, April 2010.
28. For actions by the West Bank security forces during the Gaza war, see Robert Blecher, “Operation Cast Lead in the West Bank,” Journal of Palestine Studies 38, no. 3 (Spring 2009): 64–71; “Squaring the Circle,” p. 10. For Dayton’s quote (“a good portion of the Israeli army”), see Keith Dayton, “Peace Through Security: America’s Role in the Development of the Palestinian Authority Security Services,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Program of the Soref Symposium, Michael Stein Address on U.S. Middle East Policy, May 7, 2009. The quote from Ben-Zur (“in Israeli Arab cities”) comes from an interview with the author, Tel Aviv, April 2010. For Lieberman’s quote (“Abbas himself called and asked us”), see Merav Michaeli, “Lieberman: Israel’s Gestures to Palestinians Met with ‘Slaps in the Face,’” Haaretz, May 13, 2010.
29. For Dayton’s quote (“new men”), see “Peace Through Security.” For the PA’s formal complaint, the refusal of senior PA officials to meet Dayton, and the quote (“owing to tensions”), see Mohammed Najib, “Palestinian Authority Seeks Changes in Security Training,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, August 5, 2009; and “Palestinian Authority to Opt Out of U.S. Training Programme,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, March 17, 2010.
30. For the poll on the PA’s legitimacy and the large demonstrations against the PA, see “Palestinian Public Opinion Poll, no. 31,” Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, December 22, 2008; “Massive Hamas Demonstrations Denounce Beitawi Shooting as ‘Assassination Attempt,’” Ma’an News Agency, April 19, 2009. For the strafing of Beitawi’s car, see Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, “Car of PLC Member Fired Upon by Unknown Persons in Nablus,” September 4, 2008. For Beitawi’s chairmanship of the Palestinian Islamic Scholars Association, see Matthew Levitt, Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 102. For the PA’s ban of Beitawi’s sermons and the arrest of Beitawi’s sons, see “Hamas Sheikh Banned from Delivering Sermons,” Ma’an News Agency, August 16, 2010; “PA Night Raids Target 2 Leaders,” Ma’an News Agency, September 12, 2010; “Source: 20 Hamas Leaders Detained, Funds Seized,” Ma’an News Agency, July 31, 2010. The Beitawi quote (“corruption and coordination with the Israelis”) comes from an interview with the author, Nablus, April 2010. Beitawi died in 2012.
31. For the funeral and protest, see “20,000 Attend Funeral for Slain Nablus Fatah Men,” Ma’an News Agency, December 26, 2009; “Squaring the Circle.” For video of the cartoon, which depicts a Palestinian officer offering a white dove to an Orthodox Jewish settler who has murdered Palestinian children and drunk their blood, see “New Anti-Semitic Animated Film Vilifies the Palestinian Authority—PA Security Forces Help Stereotypical Blood-Drinking Jews,” Middle East Media Research Institute, January 1, 2010.
32. For Abbas’s statement, see “U.S. Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority,” Congressional Research Service, January 8, 2010, p. 30. For Qaradawi’s quote (“stoned to death”), see “Qaradawi Slams Abbas,” Al-Ahram, January 21–27, 2010; “Sheik Al-Qaradhawi Suggests that Mahmoud Abbas Should Be Stoned to Death and Is Rebuked by PA Minister of Religious Endowments,” Middle East Media Research Institute, January 7, 2010.
33. For the quote by the critic of the PA, Bassem Eid (a former senior researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem who then founded the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group—which focused on violations of human rights by the PA until it was shut down in 2011—and later became a prominent opponent of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement), see Bassem Eid, “Jericho’s Stasi,” The Jerusalem Post, June 24, 2009. For the assertion by Mamdouh al-Aker (“a police state”), see “Palestinian Group Accuses Hamas, Fatah of Abusing Human Rights,” Reuters, May 27, 2008. For the accusations of torture, see Human Rights Watch, “Internal Fight,” July 29, 2008. “Hamas and Fatah Split Their Differences,” Jane’s Foreign Report, March 12, 2009. The NSF shared responsibility for malpractices of other security forces: one of its officers was always the “local area commander” in each governorate, with overall security responsibility. Regarding NSF authorities for arrests, Jari Kinnunen, the lead police adviser of EUPOL COPPS, the European Union Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories, told me, “All of the Palestinian security services are making arrests. But not all have the authority to do so.” Interview with the author, Ramallah, April 2010.
34. On the relative legitimacy of the two governments, see, “Palestinian Public Opinion Poll, no. 27,” Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, March 24, 2008; and “Palestinian Public Opinion Poll, no. 31,” Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, March 5–7, 2009. For corruption rankings, see “Global Integrity Report 2008, West Bank,” Global Integrity, 2008.
35. Civilians were regularly tried in military courts, and the PA dissolved elected municipal councils controlled by Hamas. See “Palestinian Authority, Amnesty International Report 2010”; and “The Detention of Civilians by Palestinian Security Agencies with a Stamp of Approval by the Military Judicial Commission,” Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights, December 2008.
36. Shawan Jabarin’s statement on routine torture comes from a phone interview with the author, July 2010. On feelings of security in Gaza and the West Bank, see “Palestinian Public Opinion Poll, no. 31” and other polls by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. On the Ministry of Religious Affairs dictating sermons, see, for example, “PA Dictates Content of Friday Sermons,” The Arab American News, February 1, 2010. On press freedom, see Reporters Without Borders, “Press Freedom Index 2007,” https://rsf.org/en/worldwide-press-freedom-index-2007; and “Press Freedom Index 2008,” https://rsf.org/en/world-press-freedom-index-2008. On Freedom House’s rating, see “Palestinian Authority-Administered Territories, Freedom in the World 2010,” https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2010/palestinian-authority-administered-territories?page=22&year=2010&country=7964.
37. Sam Bahour’s quote (“window dressing”) comes from an interview with the author, Ramallah, April 2010. For the violent breakup of a protest by PA security forces, see “PA Forces Assault Press and Rights Workers at Anti-talks Protest,” Ma’an News Agency, August 28, 2010.
38. For Hamas’s boycott of municipal elections, see “Hamas to Boycott W. Bank Elections,” The Jerusalem Post, May 24, 2010. Shikaki’s quote (“further weaken Hamas”) comes from an interview with the author, Ramallah, April 2010. For the PA’s cancelation and denial, see “Controversy over Elections Decision Continues,” Ma’an News Agency, June 11, 2010. At Fatah headquarters in Ramallah in April 2010, Muhammad Madani, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, told me the elections were not meant to help Fatah, all of whose troubles, he stressed, were over. Interview with the author, April 2010. The Jabarin quote (“Hamas followers were questioned”) comes from an interview with the author, July 2010. Shikaki’s quote (“more accurate reporting”) comes from an interview with the author.
39. For Dermer’s report, see “Trip Notes on a Return to Israel and the West Bank.” Ghandi Amin’s quote (“no hope for the Fayyad plan”) comes from an interview with the author, Ramallah, April 2010.
40. For the State Department’s 2011 request that the USSC receive its largest ever appropriation—$150 million—as well as a comparison to USSC budgets in previous years, see “Palestinian Authority: U.S. Assistance Is Training and Equipping Security Forces.” For the statement by Mustafa Barghouti (“It’s shameful. The people cannot live with two occupations at once”), see Andrew Lee Butters, “Casualties of War: Palestinian Moderates,” Time, January 10, 2009.