Under the coordination mandate given to General Ward as an outcome of the London Conference in March 2005, SAI has provided independent third party support for the proposed deployment of Palestinian security elements across parts of the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank. Assuming Israeli forces proceed with the unilateral disengagement from those territories announced by the Government of Israel, the deployment should commence in August 2005.

The aim of SAI’s work is to promote the peaceful resolution of conflict, in accordance with internationally accepted legal principles. In the absence of a conventional international intervention acceptable to the stakeholders in the disengagement process, SAI has adopted an independent third party role, as it recognizes a coordinated deployment would constitute a discrete accomplishment in the development of a mature security sector for Palestinians. Such a development in turn is a prerequisite for the Palestinian people’s support of their representatives’ startup efforts to end the long-running and tragic conflict between Israelis and Palestinians through a negotiated end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories.

In order to provide this and other peace support activities, SAI has established the International Transitional Assistance Group based in Jerusalem. ITAG is headed by Jarat Chopra, one of SAI’s managing partners, a veteran of 12 international intervention missions, an experienced participant in numerous peace negotiations in the context of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and a professor of international law at Brown University in the USA.

SAI’s ITAG team is a hybrid that includes representatives from SAI’s core staff, international and local consultants with experience in security, politics, civil society, and media, secondments from the armed forces of several nations, and support and administrative staff. The careful selection of team members, when combined with stakeholders’ confidence in the group and its mission, has given ITAG the capacity to:

• provide raw data to clients
• identify many of the blocks to an effective security sector development
• advise the right people on how to negotiate the blocks as identified
• mobilize and direct international support

Updates on the work of SAI’s ITAG team can be found on this website, together with documents and materials the team has produced. For more information, please contact Ric Curnow at SAI-ITAG’s Jerusalem office on +972 2 532 8353 or +972 546 983 328.