Palestinian Reform Redux

“Mark Twain wrote that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Anyone observing the current unraveling in the Israeli-Palestinian arena would grasp Twain’s tragic meaning. The breadth and scale of the current crisis in Gaza may be distinctive, but not the crisis itself or the context or even the players. What comes next will determine whether we are witnessing “déjà vu all over again,” in the sage words of Yogi Berra, or something altogether different, for better or worse. 

“Twenty-two years ago, with the Second Intifada in full throttle and Yasser Arafat under siege in his Ramallah compound, President Bush called “on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror…to build a practicing democracy.” A little more than two years later, Arafat was dead and within months Palestinians went to the polls and elected Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen) president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), an election Bush described as “a tribute to the power and appeal of democracy.” …”