Hamas won a stunning 76 seats, compared to only 43 for Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party. Analysts, backed by pre-election polls, pointed to a narrow victory for Fatah. And while many had expected Hamas to fare relatively well in Thursday’s vote, no one, including Hamas members themselves dreamt that the long-standing terrorist organization would wind up with a landslide election victory.
The legislative elections were the first of their kind since 1996, when former PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat was the dictatorial ruler of the Arab population living in disputed Israeli territory.
Hamas, an Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement,” was founded by Islamic militant extremists in the Gaza Strip in 1988, shortly after the start of the first intifada. Between the first and second intafadas, Hamas was responsible for 180 murders through terrorist violence. After the start of the current second intifada, known commonly as the Oslo War, beginning in September 2000, Hamas brutally murdered another 377 in Israel.
One of the primary clauses of the extremist Islamic organization’s charter states, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.”
Prior to the elections, Hamas had achieved growing popularity, particularly in the newly vacated Gaza strip. Hamas and others maintain that Israeli military withdrawal and civil expulsion were a result of years of armed attacks against Israel, both inside and outside the Gazan Jewish communities of Gush Katif.
Fatah, Israel, the United States and the international community at large were all concerned that Hamas would wind up with a significant portion of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, further hindering the efforts of already ineffective Fatah chief, and Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Abbas. Abbas had been both unable and unwilling to disarm the internally popular Hamas faction since the death of Arafat.
However, now that the proud terrorist organization has won a shocking legislative majority, politicians and analysts alike are again left guessing both the immediate and long-term future of the unstable Israeli-Arab conflict.
While the election results will without doubt change the Arab political landscape, much will continue to remain the same as before the election. As their terrorist record proves, Hamas was operating unchecked for nearly two decades, and Palestinian leadership with or without Hamas has been unable to strike a lasting peace accord with Israel.
The Hamas victory does however point out two striking realities. Firstly, the Palestinians were quicker than both Israel and the international community to realize that Fatah is an ineffective and incapable political party that cannot bring about any semblance of regional stability or improvement to the lives of its constituents. Yet even more importantly, the election results prove that the popular worldwide mantra claiming that the majority of Palestinian civilians seek peace with Israel, is patently false.
Palestinian sympathizers pushing for the creation of yet another Arab state in the region, this time between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, have stated for years that only a handful of radical extremists are preventing a hopeful civilian majority from reaching peace with Israel.
If this were accurate, the Palestinian voting public would have democratically pushed Hamas far away from political prominence.
However, by supporting Hamas to a strong majority in legislative elections, the majority of Palestinians clearly support a Hamas platform committed to maintaining an armed struggle against Israel. Furthermore, Palestinians are not put off by Hamas’ brutally violent track record of terror and the Israeli reprisals that follow, or by the relative lawlessness that prevails in Hamas’ territorial strongholds.
In effect, the voting Arab public has used democracy against the Western world to show that Islamic fundamentalism and chaotic rule are the Palestinian’s preferred system of government.
By supporting Hamas to such a strong degree, the Arab voting public has exposed the duplicitous ruse proffered by PA Chaiman Abbas. Following in the footsteps of Yasser Arafat, Abbas approaches the Western World as diplomat speaking in peaceful overtones despite his anti-Semitic, terrorist roots.
Abbas earned his doctorate with a thesis denying the Holocaust, and was a mastermind of the 1972 Olympic massacre in Munich, which resulted in the murders of 11 Israeli athletes. Furthermore, while Abbas speaks of negotiations and full recognition of Israel’s right to exist to dignitaries worldwide, his state sponsored media continues to promote the creation of a Palestinian state over the entire State of Israel, and calls publicly for the extermination of the Jewish people.
But it is not Abbas’ terrorist past or media incitement that troubles the Arab public. This is evident from the voters support for Hamas. What Palestinians object to are the international calls for peace and negotiation from a terrorist, wearing the suit of an elder statesman.
Over the past several months, Abbas has been telling the world community that he is politically weak, unable to crack down on factions of extremists. Yet Abbas’ true weakness amongst Arab voters is his focus on diplomatic involvement with the international community, when his promises of improving the lives of his constituents following Arafat’s oppressive rule go unfulfilled.
With Hamas now holding a majority of the Palestinian council’s legislative seats, it is uncertain how much longer Abbas can hold onto his position as PA chairman. The subsequent resignations of Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and the remainder of Abbas’ ministerial cabinet further weaken the faltering chairman’s position.
Regardless of who holds the chairmanship, the future policy of the PA remains very much in question. Violent outbreaks at the PA parliament building in Ramallah immediately following the election point to increased political chaos for at least the short term. If and when the dust settles, the rival factions of Fatah and Hamas will be forced to establish their goals for the next chapter in PA history.
Will the Palestinians seek to create an autonomous nation for themselves in piece meal, through a combination of Israeli withdrawals and negotiations, or will armed factions resume full-scale violence against Israeli civilians?
PA actions will undoubtedly have an effect on Israel’s policy. Israel continues to maintain military dominance over the Palestinian public, with enough intelligence and deterrence ability to prevent terror and respond appropriately in the wake of a terror strike. Yet, since the conclusion of the large-scale ground invasion Operation Defensive Shield three years ago, Israel has acted with severe military restraint against militant Arab terrorists.
This restraint was due in part to diplomatic pleas by Abbas, and insistence by the State Department on the U.S. backed ‘Road Map’ which calls for a complete cessation of violence as a pre-cursor to negotiations leading toward the fulfillment of a two-state solution.
Now that stated terrorists maintain a governing majority in the PA, Israel may be less likely to withhold military force as a meaningless attempt to strengthen PA leaders. And the Israeli defense establishment is anxiously awaiting the State Department to uphold its policy against any dealings or negotiations with terrorist entities. Hamas currently sits squarely on the State Department’s list of banned terror organizations.
Political platforms in Israel will likely change over the upcoming days and weeks to deal with Hamas’ stunning legislative victory. Members of both the Israeli right and left have agreed in the hours following the PA elections that Hamas cannot be a partner in peace negotiations.
Following 12 years of failed negotiations and peace efforts resulting in the losses of thousands of Israeli lives, the Israeli right-wing will seek a national policy shift that will end current peace initiatives. Leaders will call for an unleashing of the Israeli military against terror organizations that now clearly have the backing of a civilian majority.
The right will claim that the only way to achieve peaceful coexistence is to completely disable terrorist groups and infrastructure, and insist at all costs on a cessation of incitement within the Palestinian media and school system.
Those on the Israeli left including the state operated media, who have been convincing the Israeli public that a two-state solution is the only way to ensure a Jewish majority in a democratic state, will insist that peace initiatives should go forward regardless of the PA’s legislative body.
Without a peace partner for negotiations, leftists and even those on the Israeli center, will insist upon further unilateral withdrawals as a means to peace. Parties will insist on the expulsion of nearly 100,000 Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, commonly referred to as the West Bank, similar to the eviction of Gush Katif communities this past summer.
The only argument amongst this political demographic will be the precise route of the new Israeli border, currently being built as a separation barrier with the stated intention of preventing suicide attacks. Suggested courses for the new border vary at most by a few miles at certain points along the route.
But the question remains, if any initiatives, including wide-scale unilateral withdrawals will bring Israel any closer to peaceful existence with a Palestinian public that has democratically elected to its internationally recognized legislative council a gang of terrorist thugs, with the destruction of Israel and eradication of the Jewish people as its self-proclaimed purpose.
Following Hamas’ legislative victory, and with less than two months until Israeli legislative elections, two peoples with different goals and a severe disdain for each other must once again chart their paths on a collision course toward peace or renewed violence.
And, Israelis may finally discover that the Arabs who have rejected statehood time and again since the formation of the Jewish nation in 1948, don't want to stand side-by-side with Israel after all.
The legislative elections were the first of their kind since 1996, when former PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat was the dictatorial ruler of the Arab population living in disputed Israeli territory.
Hamas, an Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement,” was founded by Islamic militant extremists in the Gaza Strip in 1988, shortly after the start of the first intifada. Between the first and second intafadas, Hamas was responsible for 180 murders through terrorist violence. After the start of the current second intifada, known commonly as the Oslo War, beginning in September 2000, Hamas brutally murdered another 377 in Israel.
One of the primary clauses of the extremist Islamic organization’s charter states, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.”
Prior to the elections, Hamas had achieved growing popularity, particularly in the newly vacated Gaza strip. Hamas and others maintain that Israeli military withdrawal and civil expulsion were a result of years of armed attacks against Israel, both inside and outside the Gazan Jewish communities of Gush Katif.
Fatah, Israel, the United States and the international community at large were all concerned that Hamas would wind up with a significant portion of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, further hindering the efforts of already ineffective Fatah chief, and Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Abbas. Abbas had been both unable and unwilling to disarm the internally popular Hamas faction since the death of Arafat.
However, now that the proud terrorist organization has won a shocking legislative majority, politicians and analysts alike are again left guessing both the immediate and long-term future of the unstable Israeli-Arab conflict.
While the election results will without doubt change the Arab political landscape, much will continue to remain the same as before the election. As their terrorist record proves, Hamas was operating unchecked for nearly two decades, and Palestinian leadership with or without Hamas has been unable to strike a lasting peace accord with Israel.
The Hamas victory does however point out two striking realities. Firstly, the Palestinians were quicker than both Israel and the international community to realize that Fatah is an ineffective and incapable political party that cannot bring about any semblance of regional stability or improvement to the lives of its constituents. Yet even more importantly, the election results prove that the popular worldwide mantra claiming that the majority of Palestinian civilians seek peace with Israel, is patently false.
Palestinian sympathizers pushing for the creation of yet another Arab state in the region, this time between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, have stated for years that only a handful of radical extremists are preventing a hopeful civilian majority from reaching peace with Israel.
If this were accurate, the Palestinian voting public would have democratically pushed Hamas far away from political prominence.
However, by supporting Hamas to a strong majority in legislative elections, the majority of Palestinians clearly support a Hamas platform committed to maintaining an armed struggle against Israel. Furthermore, Palestinians are not put off by Hamas’ brutally violent track record of terror and the Israeli reprisals that follow, or by the relative lawlessness that prevails in Hamas’ territorial strongholds.
In effect, the voting Arab public has used democracy against the Western world to show that Islamic fundamentalism and chaotic rule are the Palestinian’s preferred system of government.
By supporting Hamas to such a strong degree, the Arab voting public has exposed the duplicitous ruse proffered by PA Chaiman Abbas. Following in the footsteps of Yasser Arafat, Abbas approaches the Western World as diplomat speaking in peaceful overtones despite his anti-Semitic, terrorist roots.
Abbas earned his doctorate with a thesis denying the Holocaust, and was a mastermind of the 1972 Olympic massacre in Munich, which resulted in the murders of 11 Israeli athletes. Furthermore, while Abbas speaks of negotiations and full recognition of Israel’s right to exist to dignitaries worldwide, his state sponsored media continues to promote the creation of a Palestinian state over the entire State of Israel, and calls publicly for the extermination of the Jewish people.
But it is not Abbas’ terrorist past or media incitement that troubles the Arab public. This is evident from the voters support for Hamas. What Palestinians object to are the international calls for peace and negotiation from a terrorist, wearing the suit of an elder statesman.
Over the past several months, Abbas has been telling the world community that he is politically weak, unable to crack down on factions of extremists. Yet Abbas’ true weakness amongst Arab voters is his focus on diplomatic involvement with the international community, when his promises of improving the lives of his constituents following Arafat’s oppressive rule go unfulfilled.
With Hamas now holding a majority of the Palestinian council’s legislative seats, it is uncertain how much longer Abbas can hold onto his position as PA chairman. The subsequent resignations of Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and the remainder of Abbas’ ministerial cabinet further weaken the faltering chairman’s position.
Regardless of who holds the chairmanship, the future policy of the PA remains very much in question. Violent outbreaks at the PA parliament building in Ramallah immediately following the election point to increased political chaos for at least the short term. If and when the dust settles, the rival factions of Fatah and Hamas will be forced to establish their goals for the next chapter in PA history.
Will the Palestinians seek to create an autonomous nation for themselves in piece meal, through a combination of Israeli withdrawals and negotiations, or will armed factions resume full-scale violence against Israeli civilians?
PA actions will undoubtedly have an effect on Israel’s policy. Israel continues to maintain military dominance over the Palestinian public, with enough intelligence and deterrence ability to prevent terror and respond appropriately in the wake of a terror strike. Yet, since the conclusion of the large-scale ground invasion Operation Defensive Shield three years ago, Israel has acted with severe military restraint against militant Arab terrorists.
This restraint was due in part to diplomatic pleas by Abbas, and insistence by the State Department on the U.S. backed ‘Road Map’ which calls for a complete cessation of violence as a pre-cursor to negotiations leading toward the fulfillment of a two-state solution.
Now that stated terrorists maintain a governing majority in the PA, Israel may be less likely to withhold military force as a meaningless attempt to strengthen PA leaders. And the Israeli defense establishment is anxiously awaiting the State Department to uphold its policy against any dealings or negotiations with terrorist entities. Hamas currently sits squarely on the State Department’s list of banned terror organizations.
Political platforms in Israel will likely change over the upcoming days and weeks to deal with Hamas’ stunning legislative victory. Members of both the Israeli right and left have agreed in the hours following the PA elections that Hamas cannot be a partner in peace negotiations.
Following 12 years of failed negotiations and peace efforts resulting in the losses of thousands of Israeli lives, the Israeli right-wing will seek a national policy shift that will end current peace initiatives. Leaders will call for an unleashing of the Israeli military against terror organizations that now clearly have the backing of a civilian majority.
The right will claim that the only way to achieve peaceful coexistence is to completely disable terrorist groups and infrastructure, and insist at all costs on a cessation of incitement within the Palestinian media and school system.
Those on the Israeli left including the state operated media, who have been convincing the Israeli public that a two-state solution is the only way to ensure a Jewish majority in a democratic state, will insist that peace initiatives should go forward regardless of the PA’s legislative body.
Without a peace partner for negotiations, leftists and even those on the Israeli center, will insist upon further unilateral withdrawals as a means to peace. Parties will insist on the expulsion of nearly 100,000 Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, commonly referred to as the West Bank, similar to the eviction of Gush Katif communities this past summer.
The only argument amongst this political demographic will be the precise route of the new Israeli border, currently being built as a separation barrier with the stated intention of preventing suicide attacks. Suggested courses for the new border vary at most by a few miles at certain points along the route.
But the question remains, if any initiatives, including wide-scale unilateral withdrawals will bring Israel any closer to peaceful existence with a Palestinian public that has democratically elected to its internationally recognized legislative council a gang of terrorist thugs, with the destruction of Israel and eradication of the Jewish people as its self-proclaimed purpose.
Following Hamas’ legislative victory, and with less than two months until Israeli legislative elections, two peoples with different goals and a severe disdain for each other must once again chart their paths on a collision course toward peace or renewed violence.
And, Israelis may finally discover that the Arabs who have rejected statehood time and again since the formation of the Jewish nation in 1948, don't want to stand side-by-side with Israel after all.