“In most parts of the Arab world, extremism is on the rise, moderation is sagging and the future seems darker and darker. Despite the expectations raised by the Arab Spring, most countries in the region are less enlightened, less stable or less calm than they were.

Only in one area have things looked different. Only one place in the Arab world has generated more and more good news in the past five years. Under Salam Fayyad’s leadership, the West Bank has seen prosperity since 2007 as it has never seen before. Law and order have been restored. The economy has burgeoned by up to 10 percent a year. The relative normalization has spread gradually from Ramallah to Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus, Jenin, Qalqilyah and Tul Karm.

After the first intifada’s chaos years, Yasser Arafat’s corruption years and the second intifada’s nightmare years, a kind of calm has prevailed. Radicals have become pragmatists, terrorists have become entrepreneurs and a love-of-life ethos once again stands at the center of life. The Palestinian prime minister has performed an economic miracle in the West Bank, with far-reaching implications.

The importance of Fayyad’s project is not merely economic or local. Throughout their history, the Palestinians have never had a national leadership that did them good and improved their quality of life. Neither Haj Amin al-Husseini nor Ahmad Shukeiri nor Arafat saw to their people’s everyday well-being. Their liberation movement fiercely fought the British, the Zionists and the Israelis but did not nurture the Palestinians themselves. It did not act for the education and health systems or build infrastructure enabling a life with dignity.”

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