Hamas wins sweeping election victory in Palestine

[Cadaverous Pallor]

There are many stories on this, here's one.

The basics as I understand them - The old party, Fatah, has been the one and only power for decades. The Palestinian people were majorly pissed because there is general lawlessness and lack of public services as well. Fatah was known to be horribly corrupt, and bloody infighting has become readily apparent in the new Gaza since the Israelis pulled out.

Hamas is, as most of you know, a known terrorist organization that continually sets off car bombs in Israel. Their charter pushes that Israel has no right to exist. They're a heavily armed militia.

What I didn't know is that Hamas is also a charitable organization of sorts. They set up health care and other social services in Palestinian territory - often, the only such services offered in those areas.

Exit polls revealed that most people voted for Hamas because they were voting against the old party. This way, Hamas pulled in all the moderate votes. Most of the populace does not support Hamas' hard line, and most support the peace process.

So what now? Hamas is going to come under immense pressure from the rest of the world to recognize Israel, disarm, and work towards peace.

The short version of my opinion is that I think they'll split up into political and violent factions so that they can talk peace and kill Israelis at the same time....

Thoughts?

[scaeagles]

I think they will end up in a Sinn Fein/IRA type relationship. There will be the political wing and the terrorist faction that will have a symbiotic relationship, just as you have suggested.

Any election results praised by the leadership of Iran are scary to me.

The attacks against Isreal will continue. It will not take long for Isreal to link those attacks to Hamas. I believe this is a severe setback in any sort of peace process in the region. What is going to contribute immensely to the situation is who takes over for Sharon in Isreal. I beleive the Hamas victory with the Palestinians will pave the way for Natanyahu (or however the heck you spell his name) to take power, and he has always taken a very hard line with Palestinians and has no patience for a process taking place while state sponsored bombings are taking place.

[Alex]

Most of the Islamic terrorist groups also perform charitable works. Al Qaeda did it as well.

It helps burnish the image of "see, we're good reasonable people driven to horrible extremes by the injustices of the world."

I don't expect it will have much of an effect on Hamas. Some of the leaders may fall in love with political power but if that happens to the detriment of the goal of destroying Israel you'll just have a fracturing of the movement ending up with a political party that claims it can control the terrorist party so that they can sit at the bargaining tables but really be unable to do much.

In other words, exactly what the Palistinians already had.