281. Do the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip live in a democracy?

Using as a reference the continuous studies by The Economist (2017), the representation pattern for the countries in the Middle East is a dictatorship or totalitarian regimes. Israel’s (position 31) neighbors in the Middle East rank as follows: Turkey 97, Lebanon 102, Palestinian Authority 110, Iraq 114, Jordan 117, Kuwait 121, Egypt 133, Qatar 135, Sudan 151, Iran 154, Saudi Arabia 159 and Syria 166. All these Muslim countries are hybrid (they have elections but not democracies), or are terrible dictatorships. For a democracy to exist, there are specific needs: 1) democratic culture, 2) post-industrial revolution countries to create a middle class, 3) post-French Revolution countries to elevate the unalienable qualities of the human being. The eminence in Middle East affairs, Bernard Lewis, understood the limitations of imposing a democratic regime in the region when it has not gone through the three factors named above. In its place, he proposes a representative parliament of Jamula (clans-tribes). Palestinians live in a dictatorship in Gaza under Hamas. It must be considered that the concept of democracy is negative for an Islamist, as it represents western Yahaliya, foreign to the nature of Islam. What right does a human being have to dictate laws when there is a sole law, the Shaarya? There is no other Constitution than the law of Allah!, an Islamist would say. The situation of the Palestinian Authority is that they have elected their president (2005) and since then, Mahmoud Abbas holds the power illegitimately (his period should have lasted 4 years). The latest serious Parliament election was in 2006, with victory for Hamas. However, the PLO rejected granting them the means to govern the Palestinian Authority in a civilized way, and it all ended in a coup in Gaza (2007). Since then, the Prime Minister (who should be the administrator of the Palestinian Authority) changes quickly and unstably.