The week of August 7th, Fatah, the de facto ruling party in the West Bank and internationally recognized leader of the Palestinian people, met in Bethlehem for its first party congress in 20 years. The conference was intended to rejuvenate the organization and to prove it is better capable to govern than its bitter rival, Hamas. Alas, if life for a Palestinians were not difficult enough, the Fatah congress has instead highlighted the improbability of real change coming to the Territories any time soon.

There are only two realistic alternatives for Palestinians wishing to express their desires at the ballot box. One choice is Hamas, an organization seemingly more interested in prodding Israel into war than achieving any lasting peace, and which has been pushing a "virtue campaign" in Gaza that has seen its security forces used in ways similar to Iran's Morality Police. The other choice is Fatah, an organization long criticized for being corrupt and ineffective, and that is for some Palestinians already discredited due simply to its closer ties with Israel.

Though the need for a Fatah rejuvenation is readily apparent, the experience has been far from a renewal. The first news coming out of the meeting was that Hamas had banned 400 Gazan Fatah delegates from attending. If anything, this inauspicious start was a foreshadowing of the general arc of the meetings. Although numerous fault lines became apparent among Fatah's various factions, the main schism that appeared was between the so called "old guard" of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his allies, and the younger generation whose lives have been shaped by the first and second "intifadas" against Israel. Meanwhile, some exiled Fatah members in attendance repeated a recent allegation that Abbas colluded with Israel to assassinate Yasser Arafat. These divisions were only exacerbated by Abbas's decision at the last minute to add 700 additional delegates of his own choosing to the list of congress invitees.

Unsurprisingly, these developments spell more trouble for the Palestinian people. On the issue of greatest importance to the region, accord between Israel and Palestine, Palestinians will either be represented by a party bent on Israel's destruction or one crippled by corruption and infighting. The lack of a credible negotiator means more security concerns for Israelis and a further and further off dream of economic development and statehood for the Palestinians. Such a climate is ideal for breeding desperation and extremism on both sides.

What can be done to arrest this cycle? When will Palestinians be offered a real and pragmatic alternative to Hamas and Fatah? The person who comes up with the answers to these questions is a shoe-in for a trip to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. However, until the time comes when Palestinians have credible leadership, there are some things that Fatah can do to advance the safety and prosperity of the Palestinian people, as well as potentially rejuvenating its image.

The first thing Abbas and Fatah must do is to drop claims that Benjamin Netanyahu's government is "extremist", and come to the negotiating table. While Netanyahu does not as openly and unequivocally support statehood as Palestinians would like, the prior Israeli President from Netanyahu's party unilaterally pulled all troops and Jewish settlers out of Gaza. What Netanyahu believes is something that most pragmatic Israelis do; that a poor, underdeveloped Palestine will continue to be a security risk for Israel whether or not it is a separate state. Thus, his stated goal is to aid in the economic development of the Palestinian Territories in order to remove the aspect of desperation which often leads to extremism. Fatah should be willing to work with Netanyahu to bring about this goal, as the stability it creates would both better the lives of individual Palestinians as well as making Israel more comfortable with pulling back their troops.

Second, Abbas and Fatah need to be willing to accept a piece-by-piece road to independence. Currently, they will only consider proposals which set guidelines for an end result of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. However, such all-or-nothing approaches more often than not to lead to nothing. Finding agreement on such emotionally charged and complicated issues as the division of Jerusalem and the Palestinian "right of return" will take a long time and an enormous amount of political capital to achieve. Yet there are other issues, such as where other borders will lie, division of water rights and removal of far flung Jewish settlements, which are more simple to achieve and can be beneficial to Palestinians right away. If such a piecemeal approach is used effectively, and it gets to a point where a stable and self-sufficient Palestinian state is no longer a far off dream, it will be much easier for politicians on both sides to use the political capital required to resolve the toughest issues.

Palestinians should not have to believe that the only way to a better life is through violence or emigration. Whether through Fatah, Hamas or some other political creation, Palestinians need to be offered a pragmatic and viable way forward, otherwise, the cycle of desperation and violence will continue, with no end in sight.

Robert Rose is a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, a law student at George Washington University, and a co-founder of The PULSE Review.