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Article: More than a change of uniform. (Palestine Liberation Army) (Current Affairs: Palestine)
- Article from:
- The Middle East
- Article date:
- July 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 IC Publications Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Palestinian police have taken up positions in the Gaza Strip and Jericho. For many of the senior officers, the change from being members of a self-styled liberation army to becoming workaday policemen is hard to take. For newly recruited younger ranks, however, it is just another job.
"We went from being peasants to revolutionaries to policemen," is how one Palestine Liberation Army PLA official described the metamorphosis from being a "liberation fighter" to a policing "traffic controller". Over 6,500 members of the PLA are to take over security and public order under the Palestinian self-rule of Gaza and Jericho. These are men who, ever since they can remember, ...