Hamas victory fuels uncertainty
Militant group faces choices
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Hamas's surprising landslide victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections upended Middle East politics yesterday, making the militant group that has long sworn to destroy Israel a principal player in Palestinian governance.
The entire Palestinian Cabinet resigned even before election officials confirmed that Hamas had captured 76 of 132 seats. Fatah, the longtime ruling party founded by Yasser Arafat, won just 43 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, with the remaining 13 going to smaller parties and independents, according to nearly complete returns.
The Hamas victory ended the dominance of the secular Fatah movement that for decades led the Palestinians' quest for statehood, and signaled the rise of an Islamist movement that Israel and the United States consider a terrorist organization. The outcome also throws into turmoil the future of already troubled peacemaking efforts.
As Hamas members embraced and marched in the streets to celebrate, the group -- as well as Israel and the international community -- faced complicated questions about how an organization that has defined itself through violent opposition, including dozens of suicide bombings against Israelis, will use its newfound authority. Hamas will now have to transform itself from defiant outsider to incumbent faster than even its leaders expected.
The victory gives Hamas control of Palestinian security forces even as it maintains a separate military wing that it adamantly refuses to disarm. It raises questions about how a new cabinet will deal with Israel -- whether on peace or day-to-day issues such as exports and work permits -- when Israeli officials say they will not talk to Hamas until it renounces violence and drops its demand for a Palestinian state that encompasses not just the West Bank and Gaza, but all of Israel itself.
The parliament approves the cabinet of the Palestinian Authority, the governing body for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The cabinet and other major changes must be approved by a two-thirds' vote, requiring Hamas to work with other parties. Hamas leaders said yesterday that they would reach out to other Palestinian factions, especially Fatah. Fatah leaders, who until now have enjoyed near-total control of the authority, said they were weighing whether to accept Cabinet positions under Hamas.
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who will keep his post under Palestinian law, had threatened last week to resign if he was blocked from pursuing negotiations with Israel. But he said last night that he was ''strongly committed to implementing the political program for which I was elected."
''This is based on the path of negotiations and a peaceful settlement to the conflict with Israel," he said in a televised speech.
Abbas said the Palestine Liberation Organization, which he leads, could continue negotiations with Israel, representing Palestinians in place of a Hamas-dominated government.
Ziad Abu Amr, who won a seat in Gaza City as an independent candidate with Hamas backing, said that if Abbas remains in office, the authority president could harness Hamas's mandate to advance his agenda of reforming the inefficient Palestinian Authority and fighting corruption.
''This is Abu Mazen's golden opportunity to launch a serious reform program with Hamas's full backing," said Abu Amr, who often acts as a go-between in the authority's negotiations with militant factions, using Abbas's nickname.
Israeli leaders convened an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss the possible repercussions of the election. In a statement afterward, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared, ''The state of Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian administration if even part of it is an armed terrorist organization calling for the destruction of the state of Israel."
President Bush said the United States would not deal directly with Hamas as long as it seeks Israel's destruction.
''If your platform is the destruction of Israel, it means you're not a partner in peace," he said. ''And we're interested in peace."
In the West Bank city of Ramallah, about 3,000 Hamas supporters marched through town and raised their party's green flag over the Palestinian parliament. Fatah backers tried to lower it, sparking 30 minutes of stone-throwing.
In Gaza, Hamas supporters in green baseball caps gathered near party offices. At the house of Sa'id Abu Siyam, one of the winning candidates, boys passed out baklava and coffee warmed over a bed of red-hot coals. A carload of well-wishers pulled up and fired their AK-47s into the sky.
Siyam is one of several Hamas leaders who hinted during the campaign that the party might moderate its stance and consider negotiating with Israel or integrating its militants into the Palestinian security forces -- positions rejected by other, more hard-line Hamas leaders.
Now, he said, the party must discuss those issues internally and with other factions. He did not rule out negotiating with Israel if it ''recognizes Palestinian rights," but said Hamas would insist on keeping open the option of returning to attacking Israel, though it has largely upheld a unilateral truce for nearly a year.
''We will mix resistance with politics," he said, contending that as the longtime ruling party, Fatah maintained a militant wing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, that carried out suicide bombings against Israel alongside Hamas even as Fatah led official dealings with Israel. Around the corner, a crowd of boys and teenagers who had worked as Hamas volunteers gathered around Mohammed al-Bayah, 51, campaign manager for the Nasser neighborhood of Gaza City, who attributed the victory to their ''Islamic education" and discipline.
''All our lives we have worked for this victory," he said, beaming.
Some voters were horrified, fearing Hamas would try to impose its vision of an Islamic state.
''We should emigrate," said Ilias Jubran, 60, a Christian from Ramallah, where his factory that produces a traditional Arabic liquor called arak has twice been burned by arsonists he assumes are Islamists trying to enforce a ban on alcohol. ''This is not a normal society."
But Nabil Islim, whose Gaza City shop sells see-through red camisoles and leopard-print silk slips, said he voted for Hamas to support reform and was not worried that it would impose social restrictions.
He said Hamas reforms will build a stronger Palestinian society that can better stand up to Israel. He first denounced negotiations, but then said they could succeed if conducted by a stronger Palestinian Authority.
''The former government was weak," he said. ''They ran after the Israelis, but the Israelis didn't respond to them. Now I am sure the Israelis will run after Hamas." As for the lingerie in his store, he added, ''Hamas people buy the most."
Analysts were divided over whether the Hamas victory would destroy all prospects for a peace agreement or create a newly legitimate Palestinian government that would be more hostile but better able to deliver on any eventual deal. Shalom Harari, a reserve brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces who spent 20 years advising Israel's defense ministry on Palestinian affairs, said Israel is better off if groups like Hamas share authority. ''It's better to have these people inside than outside," he said.
Other analysts said the Hamas victory means that there is no viable Palestinian partner for Israel to negotiate with for peace, which will push Israel to further separate from the Palestinians and pursue unilateral moves such as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza last summer. ''This election shows that the Palestinian sentiment is for war, not for peace, and it confirms Sharon's approach," said Doron Ben-Atar, a Middle East history professor at Fordham University in New York. ''Israel must act unilaterally."
Palestinians fear that such unilateral moves will allow Israel to draw the borders of a future Palestinian state without consulting them. The Hamas victory could also strengthen Israel's right wing at the expense of Kadima, the new centrist party formed last year by Sharon before he suffered a devastating stroke.
Abu Amr, the negotiator and a former Cabinet minister, said the Hamas victory was driven by anger at Fatah's nepotism and ineffectiveness.
Ali Jarbawi, a political science professor at Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah, who has predicted that frustration with Israel and the Palestinian Authority will soon spark another Palestinian uprising, said the vote revealed deep support for Hamas policies such as using violence.
Although he was one of the few analysts to predict that Hamas would do as well as Fatah in the election, he was shocked by the group's outright victory. ''This is an earthquake," he said.
Abu Amr said one of the toughest issues is Hamas's military wing. Retaining the option of violence, even if it is not used, is popular with Palestinians, he said. Yet he believes Hamas cannot be ''the custodian of the rule of law" and also have a militia.
It is about time for Hamas to be tested by the burdens of office, Abu Amr said.
Thanassis Cambanis reported from Jerusalem. Correspondent Sa'id Ghazali contributed from Ramallah. 