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Rabbi Shmuel Chaim Naiman's avatar

Beautiful and fascinating, as always. You're got really great stuff!

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Francisco J. Bernal's avatar

This is a fascinating article, Alex, and I think it also helps explain why the Palestinian Authority has struggled. Not just because of Israel, but because of the way it came to be.

Arafat didn’t descend from throne village nobility, but the system he built reproduced their internal logic. Fatah, especially under his leadership, operated through networks of loyalty, patronage, and familial influence that closely resembled the qura al-karasi. His alliance with old Jerusalemite families like the Husaynis wasn’t incidental. It anchored Fatah in a lineage of informal, clan-based power.

After Oslo, the PA didn’t grow into a modern bureaucratic state. It ossified into something else, a halfway regime where ministries became fiefdoms, security services were split along factional lines, and proximity to Ramallah’s inner circle replaced institutional competence (funnily enough, the scriptwriters of Fauda did a better job showing this reality, than we could ever do). This is less a sovereign government in waiting than a custodian of limited autonomy. Elections don’t happen not because of sheer authoritarian impulse, but because the system itself is designed to reward stagnation. Hamas existing is just a convenient excuse.

Israel's role matters, of course. But the deeper pathology lies in how the PA mirrors the very structures it was supposed to transcend. It rules parts of the West Bank like a subcontractor, not a state. And in that sense, Ramallah has become its own kind of throne village. One with better internet, as someone once said.

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