What fuels the growing influence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad?
Among the more important factors are the nepotism, corruption, incompetence, and anarchy that permeate the Palestinian Authority. And it’s an authority that periodically makes grandiose pledges, like they’re going to stop terrorism or they’re going to recompense people who are harmed. It’s a joke. It never happens. Hamas and Islamic Jihad offer an alternative to this terrible disappointment. The ordinary Palestinian hopes for decent government and greater stability and a better economic future. A second big factor is the regional reawakening of Islamic militancy, which might be traced back to the Khomeni period in Iran in the late 1970s and has been on the upswing for 20 or 30 years. The alternatives they tried have all failed. Things might change if they experienced an economic upturn and a sense of personal safety and opportunity and education all things that much of the world just presumes are natural rights. Islamic militancy is fed by the desperate failure of other ideologies that
