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Source: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007932
The Promise of Liberty
(Wall Street Journal) Fouad Ajami - It wasn't a pretty choice that the Palestinians were presented with: the secular autocracy of plunder and pretense represented by Arafat's inheritors on the one side and the cruel utopia of the Hamas hard-liners on the other. This was where Palestinian history led. The Palestinians had never been given the gift of political truth. Zionism had built a whole new world west of the Jordan River, but Palestinian nationalism had insisted that all this could be undone. What exactly was the difference between the masked men of Hamas and the masked men of Fatah's Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade? Two convicted terrorists, Marwan Barghouti and Abu Ali Yatta, headed the Fatah list. And all in all, the Palestinian electorate voted for 14 members of parliament now in prison. The Palestinians claimed that they were ready for a great compromise with Israel, yet voted for men and women steeped in historical denial.