The win by Hamas is the death knell for Palestinian national asprations. Hamas is an Islamist organization with a military wing that will not seek peace. What does this mean? Continued war. Once the terrorism and attacks on Israel continue, and they will, Hamas can now be held directly responsible and be dealt with legitimately.
The big losers are the Palestinian people in general, and Christian Palestinians specifically.

"By way of deception ..."
Hamas Wins Big in Palestinian Elections
Radical Islamic Group Secures 76 Seats, Fatah 43; Prime Minister, Cabinet Resign

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 26, 2006; 1:00 PM



RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jan. 26 -- The radical Islamic group Hamas won 76 seats in voting for the first Palestinian parliament in a decade, election officials announced Thursday evening, giving it a decisive majority in the 132-member body and the right to form the next government. The long-ruling Fatah movement won 43 seats.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and the rest of his Cabinet resigned, effectively acknowledging Hamas claims of a legislative majority before election officials released the results in a news conference.

"This is the choice of the people," Qureia told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "It should be respected."

The Hamas victory ends end the governing Fatah party's decade-long control of the Palestinian Authority. It also severely complicates Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' policy of pursuing negotiations with Israel under a U.S.-backed peace plan known as the roadmap, which conflicts with Hamas' platform in several key respects.

Hamas officials in Gaza City, where their victory was greatest, said the group has no plans to negotiate with Israel or recognize Israel's right to exist. Europe, Israel and the United States classify Hamas, formally known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, as a terrorist organization.

At a news conference in Washington Thursday, President Bush([search]) called for Hamas to renounce its platform demanding the destruction of Israel.

Abbas, who is president of the Palestinian Authority, must now appoint a prime minister to form a cabinet approved by the parliament. If invited to do so, Hamas would be able to assemble a cabinet free of other parties, although its leaders said before the vote they would seek a coalition government if given the opportunity.

In Ramallah, supporters of Hamas raised their flag over the Palestinian parliament and clashed with Fatah loyalists inside the building, the AP reported. A crowd of about 3,000 Hamas backers outside cheered as Hamas colleagues on the roof thwarted Fatah attempts to lower the Hamas banner.

Hamas' victory contradicted two exit polls released after the polls closed Wednesday that projected Fatah with a slim margin of victory, though not a parliamentary majority. Polling has underestimated Hamas' showing in recent municipal elections but never to this extent.

"We knew that Hamas had this strength," said Ghassan Khatib, the Palestinian Authority's planning minister who does not belong to either party. "Having them inside the council, abiding by its laws and regulations, hopefully will be better than having them outside. Now competition will be based on legal politics, rather than outside the law in the streets."

Election officials reported no serious problems Wednesday either as the result of Israeli security measures or inter-factional rivalry that had threatened to disrupt voting in several cities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestinian elections officials said 77 percent of the 1.3 million registered Palestinians voters cast ballots on a brisk day, far surpassing the turnout in last year's presidential race.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who led an international observer team from the National Democratic Institute, told the Associated Press Thursday that the elections were "completely honest, completely fair, completely safe and without violence."

The only apparent violation in election rules, reported by an observer from that team earlier in the morning, was the active political campaigning that occurred throughout the day. Palestinian election law requires campaigning to end 24 hours before the start of voting. But because all parties appeared to be violating the rule, the observer said, "at this point it doesn't appear to be a serious impediment to the election." The observer declined to be named because of the preliminary nature of his evaluation.

The atmosphere was celebratory during voting Wednesday in the West Bank city of Ramallah where cars bearing the green banner of Hamas and the black-and-white kaffiyehs of the governing Fatah party jammed the streets. Each party appeared to have well-organized efforts to insure their supporters made it to the polls.

The last parliamentary voting in 1996 led to a Fatah-dominated legislature, which has now been expanded by 50 percent. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah, postponed the elections in July 2005 in order to secure an election law more favorable to his party.

At the al-Bireh Girls Secondary School, Hamas supporters set up a card table with a bound voter-registration list and laptop computer loaded with a database of all voters and their assigned polling stations. Hamas activists running the help-booth said they were helping anyone who had questions, not just those who supported their movement.

"I saw Hamas closer to the people, closer to the feelings and problems of the people," said Hassan Hamudah, 44, a Hamas supporter who works for the Palestinian Water Authority. "They are honest men. The others have made many promises, but we have only seen corruption."

Hamas has built its popularity over the years through patient political organizing, charity work, and an unyielding position regarding Israel, which it refuses to recognize. The secular Fatah movement is suffering from generational divisions and a reputation for corrupt, ineffective government. The executive branch will remain under Abbas, who before the vote threatened to resign if Hamas moved after elections to block his program in the legislature.

As the main faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization, Fatah joined Israel in the 1993 Oslo accords and the U.S.-backed roadmap signed in 2003. The plan has been frozen during the last years of the Palestinian uprising, but each side has pledged to return to its staged framework culminating in the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

It remains unclear how much influence Hamas could exert over a future peace process since it is not a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, although its apparent victory could hasten talks to bring the group inside the organization that represents Palestinians inside and outside of the occupied territories. Hamas has pledged to maintain its military wing, whose dismantlement Israel says is a pre-requisite for beginning peace talks under the roadmap.

"Israel can't accept a situation in which Hamas, in its present form as a terrorist group calling for the destruction of Israel, will be part of the Palestinian Authority without disarming," Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) Wednesday, according to the prime minister's office.

Hamas supporters say the party will concentrate first on political and education reform before moving onto issues of peace and diplomacy. Israeli and U.S. officials warned that its presence in government could undermine diplomatic initiatives and undermine foreign aid.

President Bush, in an interview Wednesday with the Wall Street Journal, lauded the democratic trend that produced the Palestinian elections but said Hamas would not be a suitable partner for diplomacy until it renounced its call for the destruction of Israel.

"A political party, in order to be viable, is one that professes peace, in my judgment, in order that it will keep the peace," Bush said. "And so you're getting a sense of how I'm going to deal with Hamas if they end up in positions of responsibility. And the answer is: Not until you renounce your desire to destroy Israel will we deal with you."

In a school adjacent to the El-Amari refugee camp, Ahmad Safi cast his vote for Fatah, an affiliation indicated by the black-and-white kaffiyeh across his shoulders against the cold.

"Historically, this is the movement that has given the most to the Palestinian cause," said Safi, 42, who works for the Fatah-run Interior Ministry and spent a dozen years in Israeli prisons.

Cars decked in banners and posters of Hamas green, Fatah yellow and the red of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine clogged the street in front of him. Many of the parties rented collective taxis to ferry their supporters to the polls.

"They are secular and democratic," he said of Fatah. "The proof of this is that we are now in pluralistic elections."

The Israeli police([search]) presence was heavy in East Jerusalem where roughly 6,000 of the 120,000 Palestinians eligible to vote in the city were expected to cast ballots. Olmert agreed to allow the voting to proceed in the city, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital, but prohibited the participation of Hamas.

Palestinian election officials extended voting in East Jerusalem for two hours, saying long lines caused by Israeli security measures prevented many from casting ballots on time. In a statement issued after polls closed, Hamas officials accused Fatah of rigging the vote in the city.

At the post office on Salahudeen Street near the Old City's Damascus Gate, members of the governing party's youth movement chanted "Your Blood Is Fatah" from the steps and passed out lists with the names of the party's local and national candidates.

"It's good that all factions are participating in this," said Omar Bazian, 56, a Fatah supporter from the Old City. "Never mind losing some power, this is a vote for the future."

Beyond Israel's separation barrier in the town of Abu Dis, a cluster of Hamas flags flew from the dome of a mosque along the wide, worn avenue into town. The 24-foot-high wall itself, sealing what was once the main road from Jerusalem to Jericho, is covered with candidate posters and graffiti, including "This Wall Must Fall" in English.

"We're telling people Islam is the solution," said Radi Johar, 29, who was passing out Hamas candidate pamphlets in the dirt street outside a crowded polling station. "We are victorious, whether we win or not, since we are raising the flag of Islam."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012600372_pf.html

Analysis: Hamas history tied to Israel
 http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?StoryID=18062002-051845-8272r