Word: arafat
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...Then we went through a period of almost two years of kind of very tough violence with the - you remember the Dolfinarium and then the Passover massacre, when it was very clear that Yasser Arafat's leadership was going to do nothing, and then a kind of crucial decision by the Administration to say Arafat's done and the Palestinians need new leadership. That took some time to work through...
...read the Palestinians the riot act. Before there was to be any pressure on Israel to move forward on the peace process, the Palestinians would not only have to dismantle Hamas and other groups mounting terror attacks, they would also have to complete a thorough reform of their institutions - Arafat would have to cede much of his executive power and control over funds and the security forces to the democratically elected legislature and a cabinet headed by its chosen Prime Minister. Palestinian democracy, as well as security crackdowns, would now be a precondition for peace...
...good story, even if it ignored the fact that Israel and the U.S. had actually helped put in place the autocratic structure around Arafat, in the belief that this was key to his ability to deliver a peace agreement. There were certainly no complaints about Arafat's autocratic control over the security forces and his disregard for the rule of law and human rights when he was rounding up masses of Hamas activists in 1996 following a campaign of bombings by the organization inside Israel. And far from complaining about his personal control over PA funds, Israel was in fact...
...Even when Arafat died, and was replaced as President by Abbas after an election that was hardly competitive (Hamas didn't run), the U.S. continued to press for democratization, insisting that the PA go ahead with new legislative elections despite Israel's misgivings and warnings from the Fatah leadership that elections would weaken their position. And sure enough, Hamas took the opportunity to contest its first-ever PA elections, which it won handily as the electorate repudiated Abbas's party for its rampant corruption and its failed political strategy...
...paint U.S. policy on Palestinian democracy as consistent requires a bottomless well of chutzpah. Worse, the attempt to install Abbas as the new autocrat is no more likely to bring peace than having Arafat in that role did. Arafat fooled himself and his people over what the Israelis would offer at the conclusion of the Oslo process; the Israelis fooled themselves over what Arafat, or any other Palestinian leader, would be prepared to accept. Just as Israeli democracy restrains the government from making the concessions necessary for peace, so does the uncorked genie of Palestinian democracy restrain Palestinian leaders from...