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Indeed, the evidence suggests that Sharon’s visit was merely a pretext for an uprising that had been planned long in advance. Imad al-Faluji, the Palestinian Authority (PA) minister for communications, put it plainly during a speech in Gaza in December 2000 (reported by the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Ayyam): “The PA had begun to prepare for the outbreak of the current intifada since the return from the Camp David negotiations, by request of President Yasser Arafat…and not as a specific protest against Sharon’s visit...
Life after Arafat will be just as bleak. Because of Arafat’s authoritarian style of governance, no Palestinian leader has had a chance to shore up much support within the Palesinian Authority and few are well known outside of Palestinian Authority (PA) circles. As a result, Arafat’s death/assassination will likely create a power vacuum in the Occupied Territories. Moderate leaders will rush to fill it, but so too will Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Moreover, the fragile coalition of Palestinian groups that make up the PA will likely dissolve, as key figures vie for power. Some...
...opposition to Oslo kept Hamas from challenging Arafat in the 1994 elections for the PA. It did, however, challenge and resoundingly defeat Fatah in many student council elections in the West Bank and Gaza. Still, there was always dialogue between the PA and Hamas, and periodic uneasy, silent agreements between them. In 1996, Hamas unleashed a wave of deadly bombings that killed 60 Israelis in eight days, prompting Arafat to clamp down heavily - some 1,000 Palestinians were arrested and the PA even ousted Hamas from some of its mosques. Later, the organizations appear to have negotiated a modus vivendi...
...While the intifada has made Hamas a de facto ally of Fatah and the PA in the day-to-day battles against the Israelis, the Islamist group remains resolutely opposed to any attempt to restore the crippled peace process. Their latest wave of suicide bombings are designed in part to sabotage U.S. efforts to broker a cease-fire, and the resulting international pressure on Arafat has set him on a collision course with Hamas...
...publicly challenged Arafat's calls for arrests of Hamas leaders, and his security forces plainly have little enthusiasm for the task - particularly when they're being confronted by thousands of angry demonstrators. Hamas has been the primary beneficiary of the alienation of many Palestinians from the corruption of the PA, the failure of the peace process and of Arafat's declining political authority over the 14 months of the second intifada...