Palestine and Saudi Arabia and the Limits of Democracy
This chapter extends the analysis to Palestine and Saudi Arabia. In 2002, the road map for peace adopted by the European Union, United States, Russian, and the United Nations called for the necessity of Palestinian reforms in moving the peace process forward. The United States was vocal about the need for the Palestinians to reform their system of government and pushed for Palestinian elections in the early years of the new millennium. However, the United States was hoping that a pro-Fatah alliance would emerge and neglected to state publicly that it would nullify any outcome that was not favorable to its own interests. The Palestinians learned the hard way that the United States would indeed punish the entire population for exercising democracy the wrong way. The case of Saudi Arabia mirrors in many ways the experiences of non-oil-rich states captured in this manuscript. Significant segments of the Saudi public recognize the importance of the Saudi regime in maintaining close alliances with the United States.