The Palestinians’ new prime minister faces a nightmare

VIOLENCE WASPAPA again raging in Israel and the Palestinian territories. America had an ambitious plan to end it, with the support of Arab countries who offered to normalise ties with Israel. But America felt that it could no longer work with the ageing, isolated Palestinian president. Peace would require new blood, and so America pushed the Palestinian leader to name a technocratic prime minister who would reform the corrupt Palestinian Authority () and build a state-in-waiting.This sounds like today—but it was also the case in 2003, when America ran out of patience with Yasser Arafat during the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising. His choice for prime minister was none other than Mahmoud Abbas, who went on to become president himself in 2005 and is today in the 19th year of a four-year term. The is still corrupt; statehood has never been so far away. And now, amid the carnage in Gaza, an exasperated America wants Mr Abbas to choose his own reform-minded prime minister.