The reference here is to a powerful clan leader by the name of Mumtaz Dughmush who is protected by his clan and by influential elements within the well-armed and highly resourceful Preventive Force.
Critics of Muhammad Dahlan, Fatah's strongest Gaza leader and its closest figures to both Israel and the United States say in private that he could secure Johnston's release because of his commanding position over the Preventive Force and his business links with the Dughmush clan.
In 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, declared that France's refusal to support the American invasion was a choice between "two visions of the world" -- America's "swift and preventive" force and France's patient diplomacy.
Keohane, RO; Buchanan, A, Justifying Preventive Force: A Reply to Lee, Ethics & International Affairs (2005).
One of the men, Jibril Rajoub, who has built an independent power base as head of preventive security forces in the West Bank, was reported to have met with Mr. Arafat tonight and accepted the order to resign.
Israeli bombing raids last year flattened the compound that houses Mr. Atari's Preventive Security forces.
Ammar Abu Motlek, 25, studied computers but found a job with the preventive security forces of the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas gunmen ambushed a police jeep containing their own fighters, who had been arrested by Fatah's Preventive Security forces.
It ranged from incredibly specific -- the desk of a particular Palestinian officer -- to the more general destruction of the headquarters of the preventive security forces of Muhammad Dahlan.
Yet Mr. Rajoub has been particularly close to the Americans, locking up Islamic militants and keeping his Preventive Security Forces from joining the suicide bombers.
