As the war in Gaza continues to intensify, the Palestinian Authority has been conspicuously quiet. Since its establishment in 1993, and particularly since the Second Intifada, in the early 2000s, the PA has been losing credibility not only diplomatically but also among the Palestinian people. Hamas rushed to fill the subsequent vacuum in ideas, politics, and security. Today the Palestinian people are paying the price. Any political arrangement made after this war in Gaza needs to focus not just on the future of the coastal strip but also on rehabilitating the PA. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the Palestinian people have been presented with two competing, irreconcilable visions of their future. One, posited by the Palestine Liberation Organization—a secular, though by no means democratic, group and the parent of the Palestinian Authority—envisioned a diplomatic process leading to a Palestinian state side by side with Israel. The other, promoted by Hamas, a designated terrorist group and a member of the larger Muslim Brotherhood network, called for the establishment of a Palestinian state …

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