From the Department of Told You So. (hat tip: LGF).
American-run programs that train Fatah militias were instrumental in the “success” of the Palestinian intifada that began in 2000, a senior Fatah militant told The New York Sun.
“I do not think that the operations of the Palestinian resistance would have been so successful and would have killed more than one thousand Israelis since 2000 and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without these [American] trainings,” a senior officer of President Abbas’s Force 17 Presidential Guard unit, Abu Yousuf, said.
Here’s the punchline.
Under an agreement signed this month by Secretary of State Rice and Palestinian Arab Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Force 17 officers are slated to take course work and conduct VIP protection exercises under the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
The new training program aims to help the Palestinian Authority “deliver security for the Palestinian people and fight terrorism, build confidence between the parties, and ultimately help to meet the security needs of Palestinians and Israelis alike,” a State Department press release said.
Only I’m not laughing.