Challenging the Palestinian Authority is Hamas, the Islamist militant  group that controls the Gaza Strip, which is home to 1.5 million  Palestinians. Hamas opposes peace efforts and is considered a terrorist  organization by the United States and other nations.Critics of  Prime Minister Fayyad's program argue he is operating in an  authoritarian, rather than a democratic, context because of the division  of Gaza and the West Bank.

Professor Nathan Brown teaches  political science and international affairs at George Washington  University.kensington ugg boots He said, "The political split between the West Bank and Gaza  is so severe, that you cannot even have any kind of democratic  procedures. When you move outside the realm of administration you find  real serious political diseases.kensington ugg boots The political party system is basically  disintegrated. It does not really exist in any healthy form anymore.ugg bailey button Palestinian politics, if you compare it to the 1990's, is in a state of  serious decay."

Brown argues that even if there is a peace  agreement within the next year,ugg bailey button boots the Palestinian political system is so  broken there would be no way to ratify or implement it. "Why are we  pretending that there is a viable diplomatic process? You have got no  parliament, you have got a PLO that is dead, and you have got a  president whose term is expired. He has no authority to negotiate this  agreement and certainly to implement it, even if he had the authority to  negotiate it. What you have got to do is fix the Palestinian political  system first."