There can be no Palestinian state without Palestinian police

Ruadhán Mac Cormaic: The EU is helping to rebuild a police force on the West Bank

Ruadhán Mac Cormaic

EUPOL COPPS, the European Union’s police and justice mission, based in Ramallah, comprises more than 100 serving police officers from around Europe, including several from Ireland. Photograph: EUPOL COPPS

EUPOL COPPS, the European Union’s police and justice mission, based in Ramallah, comprises more than 100 serving police officers from around Europe, including several from Ireland. Photograph: EUPOL COPPS

The police jeep emerges from the traffic-choked streets of central Nablus and picks up speed as we climb towards the city limits. Squashed into the vehicle are four officers from the Palestinian Civilian Police (PCP) and your columnist, who has been allowed to join the patrol dispatched this afternoon from the central Nablus barracks – a station that serves a population of almost 300,000 in Nablus, its refugee camps and the city’s hinterland, in the heart of the West Bank.

What the sergeant wishes to show me is a spot that isn’t marked by a sign, let alone a checkpoint. A couple of kilometres from the city centre, the jeep pulls in at the side of the road, next to a school. Two of the officers step out for a smoke, while the sergeant places a radio call to the operations centre to ask if we can go any further. A short while later, the voice appears on the crackly line. “No co-ordination. Return to barracks.”

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