Hamas Comes to Power: Breakthrough or Setback

摘要

The preeminent Islamist organization in Palestine -Hamas- stunned the world on January 29, 2006 by winning an absolute majority in free, open, and peaceful parliamentary elections in Palestine. In final tallies, Hamas gained 74 out of 132 seats. But what is this supposedly shadowy organization. Hamas is many things: a religious, social, and political movement, a guerrilla and terrorist force. Poised now to assume the ragged reins over the limited, constrained and contorted 'national authority' in Palestine -whatever the scope and extent of 'Palestine' may presently even be- Hamas faces a host of new decisions that come down to the key question: which faces of the movement will now dominate. For the United States, this development in effect sweeps away all the shards of a moribund 'peace process' that has dragged along over the past twenty years. From a Palestinian point of view it has brought them almost nothing -indeed worse than nothing since both parties in Israel have used this time to build ever more permanent 'facts on the ground' that constantly weaken the prospects for any genuine Palestinian sovereignty in the future. Ironically, all this comes at a time when Israel itself may be coming to acknowledge the failure -and dangers- of its past approaches to the problem, including the use of massive violence in response to the Palestinian armed struggle.