An excerpt from Broken Promises, Broken Dreams, a collection of stories of Jewish and Palestinian trauma and resilience
Not long after Arafat took his final breaths in a hospital in France, his arch rival, Sharon, briefly sputtered and then sank into unconsciousness. Angry Jewish settlers were dragged from their homes in Gaza while the total Jewish settler population in West Bank continues to explode. Hamas won a democratic election to the Legislative Council, largely interpreted as a vote against corruption and ineptitude of Fatah, provoking a crippling international blockade. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rode to narrow victory with a plan to unilaterally make large Jewish settlement blocks in the West Bank permanently part of Israel.
