Time to look past Arafat

Dallas Morning News: Yasser Arafat turned 75 earlier this month, but there were no celebrations at his besieged West Bank compound. There is nothing to celebrate. The Palestinian Authority is in tatters, chaos reigns, the authority is collapsing under corruption, and rising conflict among armed factions portends a future civil war. Chairman Arafat has reached the end of the road.
That doesn't mean he will go soon. Arab leaders tend to be carried out of office on stretchers or in coffins, and Mr. Arafat is a ruthless survivor. Still, the worsening crisis in Palestinian society means that there can be no meaningful progress toward peace and stability with Mr. Arafat in power.
A recent independent Palestinian poll found that overwhelming numbers of Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank believe the authority is corrupt and must be reformed, but only 40 percent believe it actually is reforming. And no wonder: Separate 2003 investigations by the International Monetary Fund and the Palestinian Authority's own finance minister found that Mr. Arafat has socked away between $800 million and $1 billion intended for his own desperate, impoverished people.
Thugocracy
United Nations and European Union officials are fed up with Mr. Arafat, as are more and more Arab leaders. Because Mr. Arafat has run his government like a thugocracy, he has cultivated neither any successors nor the civil institutions from which they would emerge peacefully. When the Israelis finally leave Gaza, there will be a risk of a violent power struggle between Islamists and Arafat loyalists.
A Palestinian civil war serves nobody. Outsiders have limited means to affect events within Palestinian society, but Ramallah-based pollster and journalist Khalil Shikaki makes a good case that elections before the Gaza pullout could provide a legitimate and relatively stable Palestinian government as a bulwark against anarchy and lay the groundwork for resuming the peace process with Israel.