Strategic Assessment

On June 17, 2007, two days after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, Abu Mazen appointed a commission of inquiry to investigate the failure of the Palestinian Authority (PA). A reading of the commitee’s report yields a complex situation assessment and one that in rare candor comments on the failure of the Palestinian Authority in the fight against Hamas and on the status of its institutions in general. From Israel’s perspective, the understandings arising from the report are not encouraging. In order for the Palestinian Authority to be a partner in a permanent arrangement and not just a partner in a “shelf” arrangement, it must implement a series of substantial reforms in the government and the military. In addition, it must successfully overcome the ideological crisis afflicting it and see fit to renew the face of the Fatah movement, or alternately, create other organizational pipelines for mobilizing popular support and cultivating a new leadership. It is too early to say whether the Palestinian Authority is indeed heading in this direction, but the indications at this stage are not promising.