If the US can't fix it, it's the wrong kind of democracy.
Without Arafat, a Middle East peace settlement is in fact far less likely.

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Meanwhile, pressure for democratic reform of pro-western dictatorships remains striking by its absence. The presidents of Egypt, Pakistan and Uzbekistan are free to carry on torturing and jailing their opponents without the inconvenience of the democratic reforms demanded of the Palestinians and others... The Palestinian problem is instead primarily one of colonisation and occupation - and the denial of self-determination and refugee rights. Those are the issues, rather than democracy, that the US and its allies have to address if they want to draw the poison of the conflict. But that is manifestly not what Bush and Blair have in mind when they call for Palestinian democratic reform. Instead, as elsewhere, they mean the promotion of politicians and institutions which will entrench western-friendly policies: in the Palestinian case, those prepared to crack down on the armed groups, sign up to Israeli terms for a limited bantustan-style statehood and abandon wider Palestinian national aspirations. Hence the effort Britain, the US and Israel have put into cultivating and building up local leaders - such as Muhammad Dahlan, Arafat's former head of security in Gaza - who they hope will play such a role. Of course, this has nothing to do with democracy or reflecting Palestinian opinion: it is the very opposite. Indeed, when it comes to new elections to the Palestinian legislative council, the only shift is likely to be towards greater radicalism, if the Islamist Hamas movement decides to take part.. Many of those who have been rubbishing Yasser Arafat's record so enthusiastically, and crowing about the opportunities offered by his death, fail to grasp the pivotal nature of his leadership. Only he drew support from all sections of the Palestinian people - in the occupied territories, the diaspora and Israel itself - and had the authority to make a comprehensive agreement stick. That is also why the US and Israel tried so hard to destroy or marginalise him in the name of "reform" when he refused to do so on their terms. What it surely means now is that the chances of a settlement have receded: if Arafat didn't believe he could win Palestinian support for the kind of deal likely to be on offer in the near future, then certainly no other Palestinian leader can.

One reason why the Anglo-Saxons claim they want "democractic reforms" from Palestinians is that a)no one can seriously oppose "democratic reforms" without looking bad b)it sounds good, yet you don´t have to define any clear demands, which the Palestinians could claim to have fulfilled and which would make it´s future use in extortion unpossible. And why then Egypt, Pakistan, Uzbekistan etc don´t have to listen to these kind of demands that are made to an oppressed people in a occupied land? Because the leaders of those countries are loyal collaborators. The only thing that they have to fear is a total US success in it´s plans for the Middle East and Central Asia, and the chance of that has already gone. The Americans need them. They can´t make these kinds of demands to them. If their regimes would fall, there would be no loyal servants of US ready to take over. The countries would become enemies of the US.