ABSTRACT
By the time Hamas was voted into power, a clear international consensus on the concept of a two-state solution as the best option for peace in the Middle East had emerged, as embodied in the Roadmap of April 2003. This new official stance, coupled with the fact that many Israelis, Palestinians and international bureaucrats believed that the Oslo process had always been about creating such a state, have entrenched the perception a posteriori that international support to Palestinian institution-building had been devised with precisely that intent in mind. As noted by one USAID official:
From 1993, the US assumed that the outcome of final negotiations will be a state although we were cautious of saying that, as a final status issue, this will depend on negotiations between the parties. But we did not see any other good alternative. So we supported Palestinian institution-building with this objective in mind. Bush’s speech in 2002 got us out of the closet. We can now talk about it more openly and we no longer have to be so careful with language, although the PA (not PNA) and the Palestinian Council (not PLC) remain the official line.
