Many Palestinians feel isolation will endure

HIZMA, West Bank -- Awad Dhiab, Omar Salahuddin, and Mohammed Saleh sat one recent morning in the tiny, bare municipal office where Saleh works as town secretary, contemplating the possible demise of the Hamas-led Palestinian government and wondering whether it would bring this town's 6,000 people what they want: jobs, roads, schools, and, more than anything, the freedom to travel to Jerusalem, just a couple of miles away but increasingly out of reach behind Israeli security barriers.

Ahmed Khatib, the deputy chairman of the municipal council, walked in, listened a bit, and offered an answer. "The new government will make cosmetic changes," he said. "If now we wait at a checkpoint for two hours, maybe under them it will be one hour."

Most of Hizma's problems started before the Hamas government came along, the men concluded during a morning of conversation with a reporter. And while its departure would remove some of the new, acute difficulties that came with an international economic boycott of the militant group, they expect most of their troubles to remain after it's gone.

Their attitude -- expressed by municipal workers and residents on official business who drifted in and out of the conversation in Saleh's office -- helped explain the sense of detachment and hopelessness that many Palestinians describe even as their leaders say they are closing in on a breakthrough compromise. Hamas and the rival Fatah faction have been negotiating intensely to end eight months of internal stalemate and escalating confrontation with Israel that began when the all-Hamas Cabinet took office in March.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that his government would resign to make way for a new government of politically unaffiliated technocrats, or for a unity government including members of the rival Fatah faction, if that would end the sanctions that have crushed the already struggling Palestinian economy.

Hamas, which is listed as a terrorist group by the United States and has killed more Israelis in suicide bombings than any other group, won a surprise victory in January in its first foray into electoral politics, taking control of the Palestinian legislature. The United States, Europe, and much of the rest of the world cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority over the group's refusal to renounce violence or recognize Israel, and Israel stopped handing over the $50 million a month in taxes it collects on Palestinians' behalf.

Now, Hamas and Fatah have agreed tentatively on a candidate for prime minister, Mohammed Shabir, a West Virginia-educated former president of the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip. A new government may be enough for Europe to end the sanctions, and Arab countries have already said they will release funds to the Palestinians. But US and Israeli officials say they won't end their boycott until the new government explicitly recognizes Israel and repudiates violence, something Hamas says it will not do.

So it could turn out that not much money will trickle town to Hizma. Under the boycott, the funding Hizma gets from the Palestinian Authority for trash collection, maintaining the water and electrical systems, and other services dropped from 140,000 shekels, or $32,500, to 50,000 shekels, or $11,600.

A new government is "better than nothing," said Khatib, a longtime Fatah supporter in a gray cardigan and close-cropped beard who also administers Hizma's mosques. "It won't end the boycott, but it will alleviate it." Also, he said, a unity Cabinet could ease internal violence among Palestinian militant factions.

Salahuddin, 58, a taxi driver wearing a traditional white headcovering over jeans and a leather jacket, said he hadn't even kept up with the negotiations. "I don't care much about it," he said.

Like Dhiab, he hadn't bothered to vote in the January election because, he said, "I don't trust anyone."

The men blamed both Hamas and its opponents for the crisis.

Dhiab, 50, a chicken farmer with a red-checked keffiyeh wrapped around his shoulders, said Hamas tried to establish what he sees as the right kind of government -- one that "follows religion and is not corrupt" -- but that the world didn't want it to succeed.

Ahmed Abdelkarim, 50, a municipal council member, said he supported Hamas but thought its officials should have formed a government of technocrats from the beginning, rather than trying to hold office themselves.

Saleh, 35, an accountant with a master's degree in English, said Hamas and Israel had both missed a huge opportunity to make peace. If Hamas could have made progress toward agreements with Israel's right-leaning parties, moderates on both sides would have "come along right away."

But Hamas didn't even carry out what little of its reform program it could have implemented, he said, and Fatah ended up looking like a US stooge as it pushed for Hamas's failure. Now he's disillusioned with everyone. A longtime Fatah supporter, he said he would now vote for Hamas.

"Not because I like Hamas," he said. "But Fatah implements the policies of the West."

The past eight months have only shown how powerless the Palestinian government is, no matter who's running it, he said. "Everything is in the hands of Israel and the United States. The Palestinian Authority just orbits them. If they decide to end the Authority, they can do it in one minute."

The Palestinian Authority was created in the 1993 Oslo Accords as the governing body for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israeli occupied since the 1967 Middle East war and where most Palestinians hope to establish a state. But progress has lagged as Israel continues to build settlements in the territories and Palestinian militant groups continue to attack Israeli civilians.

Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip just over a year ago but has reinvaded numerous times to try to stop militants from firing crude rockets into southern Israel, where an Israeli woman died in such an attack Wednesday. Nineteen Palestinian civilians were killed in northern Gaza by an errant Israeli shell last week.

Palestinians had hoped the Authority would eventually evolve into an independent state. Instead, more than a decade after its creation, it has proved increasingly impotent, the men said. Hizma residents have watched the Authority stand helplessly as Israel builds a barrier, part fence and part wall, that it says is needed to keep out bombers. Palestinians worry that the barrier will prove to be de facto border. It has already reduced access to Israel for workers and others and its route dips into West Bank land, including 1,000 acres that belong to Hizma, officials there say.

Hizma now finds itself fenced off from neighboring Palestinian towns and from Israeli settlements. A concrete wall separates it from Jerusalem. Fewer and fewer residents are allowed to pass through the newly reinforced checkpoint, which resembles a toll booth. Hundreds used to work in Jerusalem, but now almost none have permission; 52 who worked for the Jerusalem city government were given early retirement because they could no longer reach their jobs, the men said.

"People can get to Jerusalem from Hawaii, but not from here," said Salahuddin, the taxi driver. "I'm 58 years old and I can't go to pray in Jerusalem. I want to go to pray, not to destroy Israel."

Unemployment is skyrocketing. Education is out of reach for many. "Our sons are in ignorance," Salahuddin said.

Hizma needs new roads, more electricity, an ambulance, and another school, said Mufeed Abu Khalil, the council president. Overcrowding now forces 250 children to travel to the next town.

Still, he boasted, "We have 35 doctors, 200 teachers, and 600 students in the university. We are the best village in the West Bank."