XPost: or.politics, seattle.politics, ca.politics
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from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/palestinian-authority-gaza-hamas/675695/

How the Palestinian Authority Failed Its People
Make Palestinian governance better instead of leaving a vacuum for Hamas
to fill.

By Ghaith al-Omari
Palestinians use slingshots to throw stones toward Israeli soldiers
during a demonstration in Ramallah, the West Bank, on October 18, 2023. Palestinian demonstrators in Ramallah, on the West Bank, on October 18,
2023 (Thomas COEX / AFP/Getty)
OCTOBER 19, 2023, 1:30 PM ET

As the war in Gaza continues to intensify, the Palestinian Authority has
been conspicuously quiet. Since its establishment in 1993, and
particularly since the Second Intifada, in the early 2000s, the PA has
been losing credibility not only diplomatically but also among the
Palestinian people. Hamas rushed to fill the subsequent vacuum in ideas, politics, and security. Today the Palestinian people are paying the
price. Any political arrangement made after this war in Gaza needs to
focus not just on the future of the coastal strip but also on
rehabilitating the PA.

Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the Palestinian people
have been presented with two competing, irreconcilable visions of their
future. One, posited by the Palestine Liberation Organization—a secular, though by no means democratic, group and the parent of the Palestinian Authority—envisioned a diplomatic process leading to a Palestinian state
side by side with Israel. The other, promoted by Hamas, a designated
terrorist group and a member of the larger Muslim Brotherhood network,
called for the establishment of a Palestinian state from the River
Jordan to the Mediterranean—in other words, the destruction of Israel—to
be achieved through violence. Diplomacy, terror, governance, charities, political organizing, messaging: The opponents used all tools at their
disposal to advance their objectives both on the ground and in the
hearts and minds of Palestinians.

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Graeme Wood: What is Israel trying to accomplish?

In the days immediately following the signing of the Oslo Accords, the
PA held a clear advantage. Oslo itself gave the Palestinian people hope
for achieving freedom after 25 years of occupation. The establishment of
the PA saw Palestinians governing themselves on parts of their land for
the first time in living memory, and PLO leaders, who had symbolized the Palestinian cause for generations, returned to live among their people, generating a sense of pride.

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