Keith Dayton Reports on Palestinian Security Capability, and the Need for Palestinian Statehood

The New York Jewish Week interviewed Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton  and found:

In his first interview with U.S. media, Dayton told The Jewish Week last Monday that creating "law and order" in the West Bank is "the first step" to building a Palestinian state committed to human rights. He said his goal over "the next year or two" is to help train a total of 10 battalions (500 men each) of organized policemen, formally known as gendarmes, and to improve the Palestinian judicial system with the help of European counterparts.

"Nothing we are doing will jeopardize the security of Israel," Dayton asserted. On the contrary, he believes the program will ease Israel's military burden in the West Bank.

The team's reason for being, and goal, is to train the Palestinians to police the West Bank so as to reduce crime and terror in cities like Jenin, Nablus, Bethlehem, Ramallah and parts of Hebron, where it is now deployed, and allow Israel gradually to withdraw its military presence, leading to increased security in the territories and trust between Israel and the PA, paving the way for a Palestinian state.

Advocates of the program, including some of Israel's leading military officials, hail it as a breakthrough - even miraculous - in stabilizing the West Bank.

Speaking earlier this month at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Soref Symposium, Keith Dayton said that Palestinian statehood was in the national security interest of the United States:

First, as I just said, I profoundly believe that it is in the national security interest of the United States to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

Second, I am one of those who firmly believes in a two-state solution: a Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside the state of Israel is the only solution that will meet the long-term needs of Israel and the aspirations of the Palestinian people. This has long been the policy of our national leadership, and I share it.