They voted for Hamas, but were surprised by its victory

NABLUS, West Bank -- Muayad Abu Ghazaleh, 36, is the ultimate Palestinian swing voter. A lifelong backer of Yasser Arafat's Fatah party, he grew so disgusted with its cronyism and corruption that in parliamentary elections on Jan. 25 he cast his ballot for Hamas, never suspecting the militant group would actually win.

What he wants from Hamas now, he said, is good government, plus something that the group's charter says it can never deliver -- a peace deal with Israel.

Swing voters such as Abu Ghazaleh -- who doesn't share Hamas's vision of Islamic rule and unending war with Israel -- handed Hamas its surprise victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections. Now those voters are confronting the confusing reality of the day after.

Many say they voted with specific and sometimes contradictory hopes -- for a government that won't let Israel push it around but will ultimately make peace -- that they now have to square with Hamas's uncompromising record. While these voters say they believe Hamas will turn more pragmatic as it moves from violent outsider to governing party, Hamas leaders so far have not given any indication that they plan to abandon their more fiery tenets.

In Nablus, the West Bank's largest city, a week after the vote, a surprising number of newer Hamas supporters said they believe the group's tough stances and strict discipline make it more likely than Fatah to bring home a fair and lasting deal and an independent Palestinian state.

The catch, of course, is that Hamas has traditionally rejected talks with Israel and vowed to destroy it, while Israel refuses to deal with Hamas until it renounces violence and recognizes the Jewish state -- in other words, until it changes the policies that up to now have defined Hamas.

But to Abu Ghazaleh, a beefy man who owns a tiny shop crammed with blue jeans and Harley Davidson belts, that impasse is all talk. Echoing many Hamas voters, he expects Hamas and Israel to find ways to talk to each other -- and believes Hamas will bring results.

''When you negotiate you have to be strong. Your head should be held high," he said. ''You cannot negotiate with Israel while bowing your head. If you give compromises for free, you will not get anything."

Hamas leaders have proffered a new formula as evidence that they are becoming more moderate: If Israel withdraws from the entire West Bank, Hamas will agree to a ''long-term truce." If Israel doesn't agree, Hamas leaders say, they will eventually resume their attacks.

To the government of Israel and many Israeli analysts, voters counting on Hamas to moderate its positions are deluded. Israel, they point out, will not hand over territory for a mere truce in place of a permanent peace. They interpret the vote for Hamas, the pioneer of suicide bombings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as an endorsement of the group's hardline tenets -- a call to arms not just against Israeli policy, but against Jews.

Abu Ghazaleh insists his vote did not mean that.

''We want peace," he said. ''I have children. I want to live. I don't want the Israel Army to come in here. The extremists [in Hamas] are very few. I love Jews and Israel, I just don't like their politicians."

From a crowd of stockbrokers at the Hadaf brokerage house to the vegetable market where shoppers picked through piles of tomatoes, Nablus voters said they mainly wanted Hamas to reform Palestinian government, punish corruption, create jobs, and reach an agreement with Israel.

Israeli and Palestinian critics question whether Hamas has any incentive to listen to such voters after winning 74 of 132 legislative seats, a solid majority that gives it the first crack at forming the next Palestinian Cabinet.

Such worries are giving some Palestinian voters buyer's remorse -- and suggest the pressures mounting on Hamas.

Ameed Zakaria, a lifelong Fatah member who dresses in the uniform of Palestinian secular nationalists -- leather jacket, jeans, no beard -- broke from the party to manage the campaign of a Hamas-backed independent candidate. He wanted Hamas to win a solid opposition bloc; the competition, he felt, would shock Fatah into reforming corruption, while the burdens of office would make Hamas more pragmatic.

''I want Hamas to get into the heart of the event, rather than shouting from the sidelines," he said. ''They will have to admit reality. It's not good for Hamas to keep saying, 'We want Palestine from the river to the sea' " -- its demand for a Palestinian state that would not only include the West Bank and Gaza but also replace Israel on the map.

But when Hamas won outright, taking five of the six district seats in Nablus, Zakaria began to fear for the secular order -- and for the prospects for a pragmatic deal with Israel.

''They use religion for political purposes," he said last week.

Yasser Mansour, who ran Hamas's Nablus campaign and won a parliament seat, now spends much of his time offering reassurances. Nearly half of Palestinians are independents without strong loyalties to Hamas or Fatah, he said. ''These are the people who gave us the victory."

Hamas will respect their positions, he said, but offered few specifics. Many of them, he acknowledged, oppose Hamas's main goal of establishing a society governed by Islamic law. Hamas will not impose religious rules on people, he said, but will try to ''convince them."

He offered an ambiguous example: ''Let's say all but 50 of the women in Ramallah start covering their hair. We won't impose it on them -- but they will change their minds because they will feel more comfortable."

And another: The Koranic injunction to cut off the hands of thieves, he said, doesn't apply ''when there is starvation in the land" -- so Islamic law won't be imposed until Palestinian social, economic, and political problems are solved.

As for peace, he said, Hamas ''cannot recognize Israel," but is willing to talk to Israelis about practical matters, from utilities and travel permits to the possibility of Israel pulling out of the West Bank, which it captured in the 1967 war along with Gaza.

''If they want to deal with us on how to end the occupation, then fine," Mansour said.

Ihad Abu Salhiyeh, a stockbroker with a Fatah background, voted for a Hamas candidate he thought would fight corruption and deliver a state in the West Bank and Gaza.

''If the world won't negotiate with them, they should resign," he said, anxiously watching a red monitor at the Hadaf brokerage as the Palestinian stock market crept upward for the first time since the Hamas victory drove it down.

Randa Abu Rabiee, a doctor and devout Muslim who does not cover her hair, split her vote for Nablus's six district seats. Though she is close to many Fatah officials, she said, she voted for two Hamas members, two from Fatah, and two independents. Now she's waiting to see if Hamas is ''a disaster.

''Now they have to be responsible for all of us, because they are the government now and we are the citizens," she said. ''If they are really heroes, they have to bring peace -- for us and for the Israelis -- without bloodshed. This is the only way to be able to negotiate peace with the Israelis, when all of us have seats in the government."

Even Numaan Khosrawi, a brokerage manager who voted for a secular party and calls himself ''a good drinker," was bullish on Hamas.

''I bet my life they will do something for Palestine," he said. ''The blah-blah-blah [of fruitless talks] is over. They will sign something."

But if they start trying to control Palestinians' lifestyles, he added, ''it will be their grave."