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Source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/452989.html
Utter Chaos and Its Aftermath
(Ha'aretz) Danny Rubinstein - The events in Gaza attest to the crumbling of Arafat's regime. During 1994-2000, when the peace process was ongoing and the Palestinian leadership had sufficient means to build apparatuses for the state in the making, it instituted reprehensible governing methods. In 1995, Palestinian intellectual Edward Said wrote: "Arafat is building in the territories a government that is a combination of Lebanon's chaos and Saddam Hussein's tyranny in Iraq." PA economic monopolies (on fuel, cement, and more) became a regular money machine for squeezing the population dry. The distribution of franchises and assets to cronies was also common. It would not be much of an exaggeration to state that the PA failed to establish a judicial system. Most conflicts and disputes did not reach court because the rival sides settled on their own, through power brokers, like arbitrations among mobsters.