West Bank, Gaza, eyes changing Arab world

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Could the Arab Spring pass over the Palestinians? With the peace process going nowhere, the threat of new violence increasing and the Palestinians badly divided, people in the West Bank and Gaza are surveying the rapid changes in the rest of the Arab world -- and growing impatient with stagnation at home.

In Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, officials are quietly working on a plan: Going for statehood without agreement with Israel, bypassing the moribund peace process. First mooted last fall, the notion precedes the Arab revolts but has been lent even greater urgency by them.

In Gaza, ruled by the rival Hamas movement, a current is emerging from the ground up: people are beginning to question four years of life under an Islamic militant group that has opposed peace efforts, ruled with an iron fist and tried to enforce a strict religious lifestyle. Although revolt seems unlikely for now, the crowded coastal strip has experienced a series of demonstrations with youths calling for national reconciliation between the two Palestinian territories.

Despite the stirrings, Palestinians in both areas have not risen up in great numbers as in Egypt, or caused riots that turned deadly as in Syria.

But that could change, especially if the statehood hopes fizzle -- or if the Arab revolts come closer to home, perhaps engulfing the neighboring kingdom of Jordan, whose majority is Palestinian and from where revolutionary sentiment could easily spread to the West Bank.

"I believe that change is coming to our part of the world. We need as Palestinians to catch the moment," said Saed Issac, a 22-year-old law student in Gaza. "It's time for national unity first, to elect new leaders, and to work hard to achieve our task to end the occupation."

Issac was referring to Israel's control over Palestinians' lives -- which Palestinians feel applies not only to the West Bank, where power is shared in a complex arrangement dating back to the 1990 autonomy accords, but also in besieged Gaza, even though Israeli settlers and soldiers pulled out five years ago.

In Israel, many eye the changes in the Arab world warily, fearing freedom could unleash more hostility -- and that is doubly true when it comes to the Palestinians.

"Sooner or later, the Arab revolt will reach [the Palestinians]," wrote columnist Ari Shavit in the Haaretz newspaper.