Otherwise there is little hope that a stable peace can ever be achieved. New York Times columnist, Thomas L Friedman, in a recent article pertaining to the Arab League emergency summit meeting held in Cairo on October 21st, called attention to the troubling absence of democracy anywhere in the Middle East. Israel, by contrast, whatever may be its faults, is a functioning democracy in which a wide range of political interests and ideological convictions are represented. This diversity of political voices will have a crucial moderating influence on the dialogues that will follow the establishment of Palestinian statehood. The Palestinian Authority, by contrast, is essentially a political monolith where Yasir Arafat makes all the key decisions largely in response to the whims of radical and extremist elements, both within and outside Fatah, who occupy center stage.
Moderate voices are nowhere to be heard in the present political environment.
This absence of countervailing moderation, as Friedman says, pervades the Arab Middle East. Egypt is a one-party state run by a benevolent dictator. On the periphery, and always factors in Middle East affairs, are Iraq and Saudi Arabia, where democratic institutions are a furtive dream, and Iran, where they are no more than a flickering ember. This is where the United States comes in. Clearly America lacks the capacity to transform the entire Middle East region into a democratic wonderland overnight, given the power of radical nationalism and ethno-religious fundamentalism in the Arab world.