A Ray of Hope in Palestine?

A Ray of Hope in Palestine?

One of the reasons I support the democracy project in the Middle East is the idea that most peoples (broadly speaking), given the chance to choose their leaders, will not elect governments that support terrorism and aggressive war. Another is that, if any voting public does support these things, democracy gives the public a way to stop them when they tire of them. Any war stops when someone's will to fight ends: the Soldiers', the military leadership's, the civilian leadership's, or, in a democracy, the voting public's.

So far, the results in Iraq and Afghanistan have been hopeful in this regard. The depressing counterexample has been the Palestinian Authority. Given the chance to form whatever political parties they pleased, and vote as they liked, the Palestinians threw virtually all their support to Hamas and Fatah, terrorist parties both. Yesterday, James Taranto linked to this story about a new Palestinian party, one that supports Israel's right to exist, and does not demand the "right of return." This party is explicitly Islamic, and may draw support that secular centrists cannot.

I haven't seen much commentary on this yet, and of course this new party hasn't been tried in elections, but I call it a ray of hope.