GAZA CITY, 27 January 2006 — With its capture of at least a third of the vote in Wednesday’s parliamentary election, the Islamist group Hamas has cemented its place in the heart of the Palestinian political establishment and fundamentally altered it.
But the group now faces dilemmas it has never confronted before. Hamas will have to decide whether to enter into a parliamentary alliance with its archrival, Fatah, and whether to take Cabinet positions in a new government controlled by Fatah. Most importantly, it must decide whether to formally renounce its stated goal of Israel’s destruction and open the way for negotiations with the Jewish state.
With roots in the rubble-strewn streets and teeming mosques of Gaza Strip refugee camps, Hamas has always harbored deep mistrust of the secular-minded ruling Fatah movement. The group’s very name, an Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement, was a deliberate rebuke to all who sought accommodation of any kind with Israel.
At times during the last decade, Hamas’ enmity toward Fatah has rivaled its hatred of Israel. Many rank-and-file Hamas activists, along with the organization’s senior leaders, have served time not only in Israeli jails, but in Palestinian Authority prisons.
Hamas by no means speaks with one voice on these crucial questions, even when the same person is doing the talking. In recent days, views aired by Hamas candidates and officials have ranged from conciliatory to studiedly vague to utterly unyielding.
“Never!” snapped Mahmoud Zahar, a senior figure in the group, when asked Wednesday whether Hamas would recognize Israel. But Zahar, one of the few members of Hamas’ upper echelon to escape assassination by Israeli forces over the last 2 1/2 years, also said this week that negotiations with Israel were not “taboo,” especially if conducted through a third party.
Over the last two decades, Hamas built a formidable following by trading on its perceived standing as an outsider, even an underdog. Being part of the Palestinian power structure will inevitably change that dynamic.
“It’s good that the people are with us,” Imad Afana, a Hamas election observer, said as he watched his refugee-camp neighbors waiting patiently to cast ballots Wednesday. “But we cannot pretend that the result will not be complicated for us — very, very complicated.”
Governance of the West Bank and Gaza, as the Palestinian Authority has long since discovered, is a messy affair. Hamas honed a reputation for fiscal integrity while administering its far-flung network of schools, clinics and charities, but playing any significant role in the sprawling, ineffectual Palestinian bureaucracy carries the risk of taint.
“You are about to enter the Palestinian Authority; we warmly greet you,” senior Fatah candidate Mohammed Dahlan rather sardonically told Zahar during a televised debate earlier this week. Then came the zinger: “It’s time for you to become acquainted with the suffering of being in government.”
The Palestinian election campaign bared fault lines within not only Hamas, but Israel. Impassioned debate has broken out over whether the Jewish state can possibly have any political dealings with a group whose suicide bombings wrought carnage on commuter buses and in crowded cafes and markets.
But former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a senior figure in the centrist Kadima Party that is expected to win Israel’s March 28 elections, argued that Israel should realize that pragmatic self-interest may have changed Hamas’ agenda.
“We are not fighting against a name — we are fighting against a situation,” Peres told Israel Radio this week. “If the situation changes, then what difference does a name make?”
The Bush administration, too, appeared to be giving itself room to maneuver. While the United States considers Hamas a terrorist organization and refuses any direct dealings with it, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Tuesday refused to rule out negotiations with a Palestinian government that included Hamas ministers. Hamas is reluctant to tip its hand about disarming, and for now, the group plainly intends to have it both ways.
“The Europeans and Americans are telling Hamas to choose between having weapons and being in government,” said Ismail Haniya, the top Hamas candidate. “But we say we will go for arms — and Parliament.”
