(Jerusalem Post) Barry Rubin - The Palestinian election due to be held in ten weeks will set the framework in which the PA enters serious negotiations with Israel. Five years ago the Palestinian leadership rejected a chance for both peace and a Palestinian state and instead plunged the area into four years of bloody, terrorist war. Now it has another chance. If the nationalist Fatah is defeated - or seriously challenged - by Hamas, the chance of getting a state could be set back by decades. Nationalists would be too intimidated to make the compromises needed to achieve peace. Hamas itself would believe it can take over, making it more violent against Israel and aggressive toward other Palestinians. The writer is director of the GLORIA Center of the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya.
2005-04-26 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive