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The Day After Israeli Victory
(Wall Street Journal) Editorial - While Israel focuses on winning the war against Hamas, the U.S. has been pressing for commitments on what will come next. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the way forward to peace "must include the Palestinian people's voices and aspirations at the center of post-crisis governance in Gaza." The rush to empower "the Palestinian people's voices" after Israel left Gaza in 2005 saw Gazans elect Hamas in 2006. The Palestinian Authority hasn't held another election in the West Bank, knowing Hamas could win there, too. Could the PA even hold Gaza? Hamas overpowered it in 2007, throwing its members off buildings. The PA has since decayed. The Soviet-trained PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, who blames the Holocaust on Jews, has been unwilling to clearly condemn the Oct. 7 massacres. A wing of his Fatah party even claims to have taken part. Mr. Blinken also has a tendency to talk as if the peace process can soon return to regularly scheduled programming. After Oct. 7, it can't. It matters that Palestinians elected an Iran-backed terrorist group that used the territory Israel had given up to commit a proto-genocide against Jews. Until there is substantive change among Palestinians, it is futile to demand that Israel empower them to do it all over again in central Israel.