Help Palestinians Nurture Democracy

When Yasser Arafat announced recently that he intended to reform the Palestinian Authority and hold elections in the next six months, some eyes rolled. But friends of peace should put aside understandable disappointment with Arafat and encourage both elections and the creation of a political climate in which elections are possible. The nascent Palestinian democracy must be nurtured, not abandoned as stillborn.

Despite the failings of the last six-plus years, a future Palestinian state still holds the promise of being the first viable Arab democracy, an exception to the assortment of monarchs and dictators who are America’s allies in the region.

No one seriously opposed Arafat in the 1996 general election in which he became chairman--or president, depending on who is talking--but perhaps that was because of his early success in negotiating the beginnings of a Palestinian state.

The circumstances of occupation have hindered the democratic process, and law enforcement has ranged from spotty to nonexistent. Few inside or outside the occupied territories doubt allegations of corruption.

Yet the fact remains that Palestinians have had the opportunity to participate in the selection of their own leaders. And while they may not be perfectly satisfied with the results, that has not led to a rejection of democracy but rather to renewed calls to make democracy work as it is supposed to.

Exposed at close quarters to Israel’s complex parliamentary system, the Palestinians understand democracy better than citizens of most Arab states. With an educated and increasingly committed diaspora, they stand a good chance of constructing democratic institutions as soon as tensions begin to lift.

Right now, Palestinians may be furious with Israel, and vice versa, but they still want the democratic structures that Israel has. Israel, for its part, knows that a functioning Palestinian democracy would be the best guarantor of its own security.

But will elections lead to significant gains for Hamas or other hard-line organizations? This is a microcosm of a more general question about democracy in the Muslim world.

Since the 1990 elections in Algeria, it has been conventional wisdom that elections in Muslim countries may be counterproductive for promoting moderation because they may lead to the election of Islamists who oppose U.S. interests and reject peace with Israel.

In the short term, some extremists may be elected. In the long term, though, participating in electoral politics is more likely to moderate Islamist positions than to exacerbate rejectionism. Islamist politicians want to win elections and participate in pragmatic governance. Islamists in Egypt and Jordan do disagree with many of their governments’ moderate policies, but they do so in tones that are increasingly informed by the aspiration to become conventional political players, not revolutionaries in waiting.

Two decades ago, it would have seemed hopelessly naive to imagine elections happening in Iran, which is still embroiled in an internal contest between those who would export terror and those who seek reform. Yet Iran’s fitful and incomplete experiment with comparatively free elections has influenced the rise of democratic rhetoric and strategy throughout the Muslim world, just as the Iranian revolution inspired transnational dreams of violent Islamic revolution.

The key to facilitating real democracy while combating extremism is to exercise caution. Palestinian elections should occur not today or tomorrow, and perhaps not even in six months, but after passions have begun to cool.

The result may not be exactly the democracy that the United States or Israel wants, but achieving democracy at all would be an important victory for peace, security and freedom. Instead of dismissing the Palestinians’ tentative democracy, we should be helping to build it.

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Noah Feldman is an assistant professor of law at the New York University School of Law. He is writing a book on Islam and democracy, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.