Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad (AP)
For a brief but critical moment, the circumstances favoring political reform in Palestine seemed more propitious than they ever had in any Arab context. There was a well-formed reform agenda, a strong and expert group of Palestinian activists supporting the changes, a vocally supportive international community, and a Palestinian leadership that–while resistant–was so dependent on international assistance for funds, political support, and even physical protection that it scrambled desperately to demonstrate its fealty to the reform cause. And… the accomplishments of that reform period were substantial and real. But the success of the coalition created the political conditions for its own dissolution: it lead to clean elections, the victory of Hamas, and the shattering of the reform agenda.
Arab reform advocates and their international supporters can derive five lessons from the Palestinian experience: the need to align agendas, the peril of short-term goals, the peril of personalizing reform, the long-term nature of the reform project, and the need to engage Islamists. Read more>>