Word: intifadas
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...Authority. But long before George Bush and Ariel Sharon were pressing to democratize the PA, the Palestinians themselves were trying to reform the corrupt, authoritarian government run as a personal fiefdom by Yasser Arafat. It was many of those very advocates for good, transparent governance who began the current intifada, which close observers of Palestinian politics interpreted at its outset as a challenge to the politics-as-usual of Arafat and his inner circle. And those advocates have ideas that are profoundly different from Sharon's about what democratizing the PA would entail...
...emergence of strong power centers to challenge him, Arafat has created nine different Palestinian security structures, each with its own budget and chain of command, and each ultimately answerable to him. When the militant grassroots of his own Fatah organization began to organize armed militias to wage the intifada, Arafat sought to bring those, too, under his wing - often to the chagrin of his security chiefs, whose own ability to maintain control was increasingly diluted by a plethora of unofficial armed formations operating with a nod and a wink (and regular cash infusions) from the PA leader...
...While it's hard to find a Palestinian politician today that isn't calling for reforming the PA, the big question remains how. The intifada and the Israeli invasion of the West Bank has disrupted and fragmented the PA, which has strengthened Arafat's own hand. Not only has Sharon's siege restored Arafat's political standing in the eyes of his own people, it may have also deepened the extent to which any institutional changes in the PA require his endorsement. But democratizing the PA necessarily weakens Arafat's own power, and with the Israelis having made clear that...
...Sharon's insistence that a democratic PA is a precondition for negotiations may also be something of a hedge. After all, most surveys of public opinion in the West Bank and Gaza find a majority of Palestinians implacably opposed to cracking down on those who have fought the intifada, and disinclined to accept the terms of new cease-fires with the Israelis. A more democratic Palestinian leadership would naturally be more responsive to the concerns of its constituency, and therefore possibly even more difficult for the Israelis to deal with than Arafat. Even before the latest intifada, the Palestinian public...
...Israeli onslaught, and that its security chiefs abandoned their men. Those pushing hardest for reform in the PA are also, in many instances, among the most strongly resistant to the idea that its security forces should be rounding up the Islamists and other radicals at the forefront of the intifada. Palestinian democracy is no more a guarantor of peace with Israel than Egyptian or Jordanian democracy would...