US Must Bolster Fatah to Defeat Hamas

In the wake of Fatah's collapse in Gaza, and the subsequent takeover by Hamas, the US and its Mideast allies should focus on cleaning up corruption-tainted Fatah and making it more responsive to the Palestinian people, argues Dennis Ross in the New Republic. That is the only hope for a victory over the Islamic extremists of Hamas.

While the U.S. needn't give up on brokering a lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, that goal must be postponed, Ross believes, adding that President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice must concentrate on the intense competition between the rival Palestinian groups and the need to bolster the secular Fatah.   (More Hamastan stories.)