While the overwhelming victory of Hamas candidates in the Gaza local elections may have disappointed Mahmoud Abbas, it must not be taken as a vote overturning his triumph in the election for the Palestinian leadership or his efforts to find a negotiated end to the Middle East conflict. It was a vote for what Hamas has come to mean to an overwhelming majority of Palestinians: Not just resistance to occupation but also its charity work for the needy. Of all the militant Palestinian groups, Hamas has paid the most attention to the welfare of the great mass of the Gaza population who have suffered from the Israeli occupation, mass unemployment and terrible poverty. Bank accounts linked to Hamas have been targeted by the Americans on the grounds that they are used to fund terrorism, but in truth the organization has concerned itself as much, if not more, with its social agenda. The Palestinian authorities have often failed to organize the safety nets necessary to ease suffering in Gaza and Hamas leaders were quick to fill the vacuum. There has, as a result, been a local groundswell of support for the group and this has been manifested in Hamas winning 77 of the 118 council seats in the local Gaza election.
It does not however mean that the endorsement would have been the same for a Hamas candidate for the Palestinian leadership, had Hamas chosen to field one. It refused to have anything to do with that election because it remains opposed to any association with the Oslo agreement. Had a Hamas candidate won the leadership, there could have been no chance of renewed peace negotiations because not only would the new leader have had no realistic mandate to get back to the negotiating table, but the Israelis would have seized the chance to refuse to talk with extremists.
Therefore, it is highly likely that many of Gaza’s voters were happy to cast their ballots for Mahmoud Abbas at the start of this month, but saw no contradiction in voting the Hamas ticket this week. At a purely local level Hamas is clearly seen as having more to offer to the people in terms of welfare and social services than does the state. This is therefore a challenge to the new Palestinian administration to do a whole lot better with its local Gaza services, which it has neglected.
Whatever Hamas hard-liners may say about their rejection of any option but war, by just taking part in an election, they are admitting that there is another way to achieving their goals other than what they have pursued so far. Herein lie seeds for peace. Whatever deal that is finally hammered out between Palestine and Israel will at some point need endorsement from the electorate. If on that day Gaza votes “yes”, Hamas extremists will be hard-pressed to reject democratically expressed opinion.
For now, while Mahmoud Abbas may be disappointed by the poor performance of his Fatah group, the strength of Hamas’ Gaza showing strengthens his negotiating hand: It shows that unless a just peace is reached, the well-springs of Palestinian anger and violence will gush forth again.
