Middle East and North Africa

Palestinian Territories

  • Elections and Voting
    Shikaki: PA President Abbas Would Benefit From National Unity Government With Hamas
    Khalil Shikaki, the director of a leading Palestinian polling organization, says that although Fatah lost to Hamas in recent legislative elections in the Palestinian Authority, its leaders may still agree to join a national unity government.
  • Palestinian Territories
    More Opinions on Hamas’ Victory
    Rachel BronsonDirector of Middle East and Gulf Studies at the Council on Foreign RelationsRather than endorsing Hamas’ foreign policy objectives, Palestinians were clearly expressing enormous anger at Fatah’s corrupt practices, its inability to improve the local economy and the faltering security situation. According to a December poll, 86% of Palestinians believe Fatah is corrupt, 65% do not feel safe and secure, and 80% supported an extension of the cease-fire with Israel. Still, can a group sworn to Israel’s destruction moderate once in office? Certainly discrepancies between the Hamas charter and its campaign platform suggest moderation is possible, as do initial Hamas statements supporting an extension of the current cease-fire with Israel. But Hamas will immediately face grave challenges such as a bankrupt treasury, nervous international donors and, most importantly, a decentralized security force and the fact that groups such as Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades and Iranian-funded Islamic Jihad are well outside its control. How Hamas handles these three key issues will provide the best guide for whether we should expect moderation over time. Certainly Hamas’ past performance offers little cause for optimism. For the full text of the interviewee’s repsonses, click here.
  • Elections and Voting
    Bronson: Hamas Victory ‘A True Setback’ for Bush Administration’s Democracy Campaign
    Rachel Bronson, who heads CFR’s Middle East and Gulf Studies program, says the Bush administration’s expectations that as a Middle East country “democratizes” it would move away from terrorism seem to have backfired with the outright victory of Hamas in the parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories.“Here we have in Palestine a case where a terrorist organization has won without first moderating and everyone is confronted with incredibly difficult choices about how to move forward,” says Bronson, also a Senior Fellow at CFR.“I think this is a true setback for the Bush administration, and I think they know it,” she says.As to what to do about the situation, she counsels working with the Europeans, who are major aid donors to the Palestinians, and judging the new situation in the Palestinian territories by what Hamas actually does.She was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on January 30, 2006.In the aftermath of the surprising victory of Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, there’s been considerable discussion about the Bush administration’s policy of fostering democracy in the Middle East. Of course when you advocate democracy and free elections you have to run the risk that the people you favor don’t win. How would you evaluate this administration’s policy? Is it a disaster, as critics say, or are the Palestinian elections just part of “democracy?"Well, I think in the Middle East last week, the rubber certainly hit the road; the tensions in the Bush administration policy between democratization and counterterrorism were exposed. There’s been the hope in the Bush administration that as a country goes through the process of democratization it would move away from terror. Here we have in Palestine a case where a terrorist organization has won without first moderating and everyone is confronted with incredibly difficult choices about how to move forward.I think this is a true setback for the Bush administration and I think they know it. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is reportedly shocked and surprised by the outcome and wants some sort of accounting about how they got it so wrong. This definitely was not good news for the Bush administration. It was a step back. Democratization hasn’t so far worked, certainly in Palestine as the administration would have hoped. The hope was that as countries enter into the process, they become more moderate. Now we have to see if a party like Hamas, once it is into the process and in fact chosen to run the process over time it will become more moderate or not.Well, of course these elections preceded the Bush administration in a sense that the Palestinians had a parliamentary election in 1996; so it’s not a brand new thing for them. The new element is the fact that Hamas decided on its own to run, whereas it boycotted the 1996 elections. There was an opportunity for the Bush administration, when the elections were first scheduled for about six months ago and they were delayed because Abu Mazen (President Mahmoud Abbas) felt that he and Fatah didn’t have the momentum going into the election. Abu Mazen let time pass and didn’t fortify his position or the position of Fatah, the ruling party. The Bush administration really wasn’t paying attention at the time either and didn’t think through how to help fortify him or decrease support for Hamas. They were focused on Iraq and Iran and other issues. But there were moments of opportunity to galvanize the international community to present a unified message that parties that do not recognize their neighbor and do not renounce terrorism will not be engaged by the international community. That would have set the choices very starkly for the Palestinian people. They may still have voted the same way, but the statements that are coming out now from major European leaders like Italy, Germany, are somewhat late. These are things that could have been organized earlier.I just want to skip a little bit around the Middle East; there were elections in Egypt this year for the parliament and for the presidency and in both cases it was carefully managed by ruling secular party—[Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak’s party—although the Muslim Brotherhood’s independent candidates did surprisingly well. What about in other Arab countries? What do you find, including in Saudi Arabia, which is your specialty?I think the clear message is that elections do not make a democracy. They are the last step in a democratization process. What’s happening now is that we’re starting to get this cascade of elections to show that the region’s democratizing. But, as we saw in Egypt, a government can actually increase its power while presenting a façade of sharing power.   Mubarak still retains absolute power; he’s incredibly strong.  In Egypt’s elections, it is true that the Muslim Brotherhood gained parliamentary seats, but I don’t think anyone should feel comfortable about the state of democracy in Egypt.If you look at Saudi Arabia and you look at the Gulf, it’s actually more interesting what’s happening in countries there. Increased participation is happening at a much lower level, very slowly, certainly not making headlines, but it’s probably a more interesting and true sense of increasing participation. Saudi Arabia is an example. Since Crown Prince Abdullah became King, even before, we saw the municipal elections where many Shiites won in the eastern province, in Qatif for example…That’s an oil-producing province?Yes. And elsewhere, Sunni Islamists won strong representation. These weren’t candidates that the government necessarily wanted to win. The government has taken its time convening the municipal councils, but the victories were unexpected and important.  Also important, and more exciting for the US and reformers in the Kingdom, is that women ran for and won position on the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce. Women have now run for other positions as well, like key posts in engineering societies, and they will now run for and may win positions in Dammam’s chamber of commerce, also in the eastern province, where the oil is.Can women vote in Saudi Arabia?In the most recent municipal elections, they could not vote, but they have been voting in these other elections like the chamber of commerce and the engineering society. This is nowhere near the earthquake we’ve seen in Palestine, nor is it as headline-making as in Egypt, but they’re slow and steady and they’re probably more important because they penetrate more deeply. Saudi Arabia still is a monarchy and those rights can be taken away tomorrow and everyone knows it. That being said, I think it’s more in line with what the Bush administration wants in terms of democratization than what we’ve seen in Palestine.What about a country like Kuwait, which just had a rather remarkable change in government? I’m not sure of all the details, but I gather the leader who was supposed to be the new emir was incapacitated and the parliament voted him out of office.That’s right. Crown Prince Sa’ad had been incapacitated for a number of years and there was speculation of advanced Alzheimer’s; according to precedent and protocol, he was to become the next emir after Emir Jaber al-Sabbah died. Everyone knew Sheikh Sa’ad couldn’t effectively govern. Parliament advocated that prime minister Sabbah, who was effectively in charge of day-to-day operations in the kingdom become the new emir. He was from the same branch of the family as the emir, Sheikh Jaber.  Based on the rules of the constitution, parliament exerted itself and ultimately acted to remove Sa’ad. What’s enormously exciting and what people have to be proud of in Kuwait is ultimately it came down to the constitution and the parliament voting for the constitution to be upheld. Kuwait has had a much longer history of a strong parliament than the rest of the gulf but it’s sort of fallen by the wayside as they’ve had these very sick elders running the country. But at this moment of crisis the parliament relied on the constitution and deposed a sitting emir. In terms of rule of law and parliament, the Kuwaiti people should be enormously proud.Of course, Lebanon’s had elections forever, based on apportioning seats by groupings. Let’s go back to Palestine again. If you were asked by Condi Rice for your advice on the aid questions, how would you decide that? Congress has voted that the United States can’t give aid to a terrorist country, and Hamas is on the terrorist list, so it’s unclear at what point that law kicks in I guess.I think one of the reasons Bush called for Mahmoud Abbas to continue in his role as chairman of the Palestinian Authority was to buy time and provide an out if the U.S. or others want to continue aid. They can say the money was going to Mahmoud Abbas and not necessarily Hamas. It’s a fine line. I think at the moment the administration is  pursuing the right line, which is to set conditions about how the United States will engage with the Palestinian Authority, which is they have to renounce violence and acknowledge Israel’s existence.It will become increasingly important to judge Hamas by its actions. Rice is correct to invest time, now, while she is in London, to build a consensus among the Europeans, about how to proceed. Hamas is clearly nervous about a total denial of aid and is acknowledging that they are worried about it, so this is a very useful time to be united with Europe and to be pursuing a somewhat hard-line.What’s hard for us is that no one here and no one in Hamas itself expected that victory by such a large majority and I don’t know how many people know who will actually end up being the head of the government. There’s been speculation by your colleague, Henry Siegman, among others, that perhaps Hamas might pick an independent to lead the government who would obviously be sympathetic to Hamas. What do you think?I think that might be the way they go on key posts, such as minister of finance and prime minister. There are independents who won who had long been associated with Fatah but changed their affiliation to independent and were eventually backed by Hamas. They may serve as useful compromise candidates. I believe that Hamas not only faces a challenge of how to proceed vis-à-vis Israel, but how to tackle the myriad of enormous challenges that Fatah faced.The treasury is bankrupt.  What are they going to do with their security services? They have control over their own people, but the security services are made up mostly of Fatah supporters; how in the world are they going to reconcile them and organize them? What are they going to do with the Al-Asqa Martyrs’ Brigade? What are they going to do with Islamic Jihad, which they have no control over? In my view, the most likely scenario for violence in coming weeks is not that Hamas launches attacks against Israel. In some ways it’s in their interest to keep things quiet until they get their own house in order, but Islamic Jihad has no reason to stay quiet unless Iran is telling them to stay quiet.Iran now becomes a major player in what’s going on. If Islamic Jihad launches some sort of attack, which is  easy to imagine, Israel will certainly respond, especially given [acting Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert’s position going into a March election. He has to show that he’s tough on terror—and Hamas will most likely have to respond. In terms of the challenges Hamas faces, how it is going to manage their own internal security, I think, is the most daunting challenge.I guess the assumption has been that Hamas, being so organized, will be able to organize all this.They’re not going to be able to. I mean there are such deep rivalries. They can organize social services, but even then, their social services at the moment reaches out to 10 percent of the population. Of that 10 percent they reach, they do an excellent job but it’s still very small. They haven’t been in a position of power.And this is largely in Gaza?Yes. They’re also present in the West Bank, as we’ve seen in some crushing defeats in the recent election, but their real strength comes out of Gaza. So even in social service which they do well, they now have to take over a much larger body, which is this dysfunctional Palestinian Authority, which is stocked with Fatah. There’re deep, deep challenges that they’re going to have to resolve and it would be very useful to have the Egyptians and the Jordanians and the Europeans talking through with them how they are going to manage this. It’s so difficult to see how this ends well.
  • Elections and Voting
    After the Hamas Victory, What Next for Fatah?
    Kadura Fares is a close aide and adviser to imprisoned senior Fatah leader and cabinet member Marwan Barghouti, who lost his own parliamentary seat in the Hamas landslide that chased Fatah from power. Fares is regarded as one of the principal architects of Fatah’s ’young guard’ movement, who briefly formed the al-Mustaqbal or "Future" list before joining with Abu Mazen to form a united Fatah list for the January elections. Fares was interviewed from Gaza by Patrick Belton, a cfr.org contributor. Thank you for meeting with us. Why did Fatah fail?Lots of reasons. First, the structures of the movement are old. The last general conference was held in 1989, and the old leadership is selfish, and thinks their legitimacy extends forever. We tried to renew the movement and hold a general conference before the general election; they refused.Second, we pay the price of the ten years they were in office. They gave the people corrupt leaders, ministers and police officers. They dealt with the people badly.Third, Hamas tell people they have the truth, can do a lot of things at the same time because they have direct relations with God, so quickly they will be able to build the economy, end the occupation, kill the Israelis and end corruption all at the same time. But over 60 percent of Palestinians live under the poverty line. Hamas has not organized themselves for government. We have daily contact with the Israelis, over elections, water, sending people to hospital. What will Hamas do when day-to-day issues of this sort come up?Is this why Hamas is asking Fatah for a coalition?Yes.And will Fatah accept?No. Because they have their own agenda that is not our agenda.So you should give Hamas time to fail, then?I think. They have no experience in dealing with the daily life needs of Palestinian people.I can see how it will be in the interests of Fatah to allow Hamas to fail. But if you do this, are you not ignoring the needs and interests of the Palestinian people?They should say to the Palestinian people that the Fatah way is the best way. If they do this, we will join them in a coalition. I don’t want any party to use Fatah for their agenda.Will they oppress the Palestinian people’s freedom?I don’t believe that. They are too clever for that. Maybe they will take some cosmetic decisions.Such as?Maybe some steps at silly things: change every security officer...[or]...have more women in headscarves on the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation.Would they like to Islamicize Palestinian life?No, not Islamicize it. Lot of Palestinians are democratic, secular. They vote for Hamas to punish Fatah, not because they love Hamas. Hamas knows this and won’t attempt to Islamicize Palestinian life because they want to legitimize their political wing. What about their prospects for administrative change and reform?I don’t think they have a lot of time. There will be pressure from the Palestinian people, [who] will give them three, maybe four months to prove themselves. They will ask not only, "How have you furthered the resistance to our occupation?," but, "How have you improved our daily life?" Those with no work will ask, "Where is work?" Those who are teachers will ask where their salaries are.It is not enough for them to win, for them to then have answers for Palestinian people. They have been saying on television Fatah is the problem. Now they have power, legitimacy. Now we want to study from Hamas how they will solve Palestinian people’s problems.Their internal or external problems?They are linked. The economy is linked both to corruption and manufacturing policy, and the Palestinians’ ability to access the rest of the world.And will they negotiate with Israel?[For] that, they want Fatah to do the dirty work, and for [Hamas] to be the imam, the clean leader. We think they should take the clean and dirty work, both.And with Israel?They should agree to negotiate with Israel, to recognize the Israeli state.Will they?Hamas is a pragmatic movement. If they make these steps, they will lose a lot of the movement [that] will go to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A strong group within Hamas wanted only to be in opposition. I think [some] of their members and activists will leave and go to Islamic Jihad.They will find themselves exactly like Fatah. If I am a Hamas member, I would go to my leaders and ask, "You told me Fatah program is so bad, it is against our interests, our economy, our nationalism, our Islam. Now you do the same thing, but you say you are different because you have a green flag." They will be corrupt, but they need time to be corrupt.You said, at first Hamas will want to make cosmetic changes. You don’t think this will push them down an Islamic path? First headscarves on television, then to keep their supporters happy will reforms go on quickly, [like banning] alcohol in restaurants?At beginning, no. Maybe after two years, they find they don’t accomplish anything, then you find small steps, like closing bars maybe. Changing the syllabi of the ministry of education, maybe. But to change schoolbooks takes a lot of time, five or six years. Maybe they’ll use the old books of the Taliban. (laughs)What about their relations abroad, with Iran and Saudi Arabia? Hezbollah?With Iran, [they will] not [have] a strategic relationship. With Hezbollah, Iran is not happy that the Islamic movement will have so much success. They want to claim that only the Shi’a can win the war with Israel. Saudi Arabia wants Hamas to be part of its own circle of influence. But Hamas is clever enough, they speak a lot of time about resistance; now they will stop talking about resistance, because they are in power.So will Saudi Arabia continue to give them money?It is an easy thing to finance an organization, harder to finance a people. If Israel gives Saudi Arabia the impression it is all right to give them money, they will. If not, possibly not.What about Palestinian Christians, how will Hamas treat them?Unfortunately, many of them voted for Hamas. They were angry at us. In Taibeh, the village where they make the Palestinian beer, it is a Christian village, and one hundred people voted for Hamas. It would be funny if they should close the beer factory, that will suit them.But Hamas will be sensitive. There will be a lot of focus on how it treats Christians, it will be careful to give a good impression with such scrutiny. There is a history of good relations between Muslims and Christians in Palestine. In the time of Saladdin [the famed 12th century Muslim warrior who defended Jerusalem against the Crusaders], Palestinian Christians fought on the side of the Muslims; in the struggle against [Israeli] occupation, they have been part of the national movement. If Hamas makes this mistake [against Christians], Fatah will be happy to protest and protect them.What is Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas]’s way forward? How much power will he as president turn out to have relative to the cabinet and prime minister?I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. On the way forward, they will have twenty-one days from the final election results to prepare a government; if they cannot, they will have another two weeks; if they cannot then, Abu Mazen should call for another election.Is Abu Mazen angry?He has no feeling. He is very cold. (laughs) Many in Israel are blaming the European Union (EU) for Hamas’ participation in elections, [saying] the EU pressured the United States to lean upon Israel to have elections go forward. This is incorrect. Abu Mazen went to Washington and asked Bush to permit Hamas to take part.So Abu Mazen is a real democrat?Fatah is democratic, and Abu Mazen is part of Fatah. The Israelis killed Arafat, now they killed Abu Mazen also. In a year, he succeeded [in] removing one checkpoint. The Americans helped as well, on the TV sets, saying over and over again, "If Hamas succeeds, if Hamas succeeds." They were overbearing, and provided a nationalist backlash. This is a proud people, and responds badly to being told how it should vote.
  • Elections and Voting
    Siegman: U.S., Israel and EU Must Deal With Hamas If it Drops Harsh Policies Toward Israel
    Henry Siegman, CFR’s leading expert on Israeli-Palestinian affairs, says there are signs Hamas may be seeking ways to ease its policies calling for Israel’s destruction. Siegman says it is important that the United States, the European Union and Israel be ready to deal with Hamas, which is about to take over the Palestinian government, if such policy changes do, in fact, occur.“If they are told no matter what you do we’re not going to deal with you and we’re out to destroy you, the situation is hopeless,” says Siegman, who was in Israel for the Palestinian parliamentary elections. The results, he says, shocked everyone there and in the Palestinian Authority. He likens the situation now with that of dealing with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which originally called for Israel’s destruction but eventually entered into agreements with Israel in 1993.Siegman was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on January 27, 2006.The elections for the Palestinian parliament took place while you were in Israel earlier this week. The results obviously surprised most people in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. I assume they surprised you too.Yes, indeed. I was in Ramallah two days before the election and met with President Mahmoud Abbas [Abu Mazen] and with Khalil Shikaki, the most respected pollster in the West Bank. And while Shikaki was very worried—he was afraid that it would be much closer than his polls indicated—no one thought that Hamas would wind up with an overwhelming victory, taking total control, seventy-six seats out of 132, leaving everyone far behind. That was totally unexpected and came as a shock. It came as a shock to Fatah, which was certainly destroyed in the process. It came as shock to the small Christian minority in Palestine and of course also to Israel, to Israel’s acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, with whom I met before the election.It must have come as a shock to Hamas also. Yes. While they were very confident, they did not expect to win by those incredible margins.Does Hamas have a shadow government ready to take over?  They do not have a shadow government, and until very recently had not decided whether to join the government. But they will do so. By law, the president must turn to them as the largest party in the Legislative council to form the government.Who is likely to be the prime minister of this government?That’s a good question. It’s not clear at all. The conventional wisdom—and in the last few days so much conventional wisdom has gone down the drain that I hesitate to mention it—is that Hamas will not designate one of their leaders; they will propose someone who is not directly affiliated with Hamas, but a respected and more recognized person who would be sympathetic to them, to serve as the prime minister in this new government.Why would they do that?Well, they are aware that the international community is going to find it very difficult to deal with them until they undergo certain changes and soften their positions on three issues: One, the opposition to Israel’s existence; two, their continued resort to terror and violence. A major theme of their election campaign was that their violent "resistance" to the occupation was responsible for Israel’s departure from Gaza. And the third point is the retention of a separate independent militia. So they’re going to have to change those positions if the international community is to deal with them and if they’re to continue to receive large financial assistance without which the Palestinian government and society will collapse completely.To that end they understand that they would be better off with a prime minister who can relate to the international community and can deal with Israel because they are also going to be dependent on Israeli cooperation as well. If they choose a man of their own from within Hamas, the international community will find it very difficult to do business with him, at least initially, until it becomes clear that Hamas has abandoned their hard-line positions.Are there any names being bandied around?I have not heard any. In the week that I spent there, the principle that they are likely to put forward a prime ministerial candidate who is not a member of Hamas, was mentioned by all parties. But I did not hear specific names.Let’s talk a little bit about the history here. Is Hamas now in a situation similar to what the [Palestinian Liberation Organization] PLO was like in the late 1980s and early 1990s? The PLO at that time also refused to recognize the state of Israel and its charter was dedicated to its destruction.Those who argue that the elections were not necessarily an unmitigated disaster that will lead to a renewal of violence and to a total break in the peace process, make precisely that point. They point to the history of Israel’s relations with the PLO. The PLO had a charter that originally was no different than Hamas’ charter. That is to say it called for violent resistance to the occupation and declared it would never recognize the state of Israel and that its goal was to recover the territories, in other words to undo the state of Israel and destroy it. And yet, we know that all of that changed and it changed as a consequence of Israel reaching out to the PLO and to Yasir Arafat and engaging them in contact, which led to the Oslo agreements of 1993. The PLO Charter was not formally changed until a meeting in Gaza, which President Bill Clinton attended, when the PLO central committee removed the offensive language.I see. I thought Arafat had made some speech saying the right words and that led the U.S. to agree to deal with the PLO in the 1980s.That is true. But as far as Israel was concerned it was the official charter of the PLO that was so offensive and that was not changed until a couple of years into the Oslo Accord. The point being that only if you engage your adversary, as was the case with the PLO, can you hope to modify his position. It is necessary to hold out a political horizon that could begin to satisfy the more reasonable expectations of the organization and of the Palestinian Authority, which they will be controlling.Do you think this is likely to happen?I think it is possible. I think the more we indicate—and when I say “we”  I mean the United States and the international community—that if Hamas changes those unacceptable aspects of their political program the United States, the international community and Israel would relate to them, the more we would encourage them to do so. If they are told no matter what you do we’re not going to deal with you and we’re out to destroy you, the situation is hopeless.President Bush seemed to say the right words at his press conference on Thursday, saying they would have to change their policies for us to deal with them.Yes. Both he and the leaders of the European countries and the “road map” Quartet generally have used that language, saying, “With your present positions, we can’t deal with you. But if you were to change those positions, if you accept Israel, if you renounce terror then you are a legitimate party because you have been elected in a genuinely democratic election.” They have taken that position and that puts some pressure on Israel to do likewise.Still, in response to your question whether they are likely to change, Hamas began changing when they made the decision to participate in the election. Ismail Haniyeh, the most senior person elected to the PLC, said that there are now new rules of the game that Hamas is following; that this is not simply a tactical change, but a strategic reorientation from their earlier exclusive reliance on violence to politics and nation building. This imposes on them not only a change in direction but a complete reorientation to the other groups within the Palestinian community, because they will now be responsible for the welfare and well-being of the Palestinian people.The Palestinian Authority has its own security forces, which are run by Fatah. How is Hamas going to take over that security force?That’s a very interesting question. The security forces are not run by Fatah but by the Palestinian Authority. If Hamas runs the government, there are presumably several options they can pursue. One is to say they are keeping the militias, or that the militias will now be integrated into the government’s security forces. How will Fatah and Hamas get along?Hamas officials insist they intend to pursue an inclusive approach that will bring not only Fatah but all other smaller parties into the government. But there is a debate within Fatah whether it should do so, and  share the blame for Hamas’ failures. Some Hamas officials have said that while Hamas will not engage Israel on a peace process, they will allow Abu Mazen to do so.Of course, Israel is not interested in negotiating with the PLO, is it?Well, technically Israel would have to reach whatever agreement it does with the PLO not with the Palestinian Authority. It’s a narrow technical point. But I think the more important question is whether Israel is interested in proceeding with a peace process that tackles permanent status issues. The fact of the matter is that nothing much will change on the subject of peace negotiations because Ariel Sharon was totally disinterested in pursuing the peace process when Hamas was not in power. He ignored Abu Mazen, sought to dsicredit him, and the Road Map, for all practical purposes, became a dead letter.But hasn’t Olmert changed that position somewhat?Well, he changed expectations but he didn’t change reality. Nothing’s happened to reengage Israel and the Palestinians. It hasn’t taken place. And while Olmert’s rhetoric has been far less harsh than Sharon’s, he also has spelled out certain conditions for the resumption of the peace process—conditions that are not much different than the ones Sharon outlined: which is to say, the terror network and infrastructure had to be totally dismantled, that all kind of changes had to take place in terms of democracy, transparency, accountability and so on. Sharon always said these conditions would probably take another twenty years before they are met, and consequently another Palestinian generation would have to grow up before permanent status issues are discussed by Israel. There’s nothing in what Olmert has said that seems to change that.There’s campaigning going on in Israel for the March election in the Knesset which will produce a prime minister. You don’t expect anything dramatic to happen before then?Nothing will happen before the elections are over.It looks like the centrist party, Kadima, is in the lead?Olmert’s party enjoys a very significant lead in the polls. In the most recent polls, they are favored to win forty-four out of the 120 seats in the Knesset. And Labor has about twenty-one seats. So they are clearly in the lead and they are expected to form the next government. But because it is an election period and because [Likud leader Binyamin] Netanyahu and the right will attack Olmert and his party Kadima, nothing will happen before the elections and the Palestinians understand that. And nothing will be clarified about how Israel will actually relate to a government run by Hamas until after the Israeli elections. I think no one on the Palestinian side minds that because on their side it will take at least that much time for things to sort out and for everyone to get some clearer sense of how Hamas plans to govern.I guess in Israel and the rest of the world, people will be super sensitive of any acts of terrorism againstIsrael.Absolutely. Hamas has said they are prepared to renew the truce that ended last year for an indefinite period of time, provided Israel does so as well and does not target them. That’s an important commitment on Hamas’ part because there’s an important difference between a commitment made when they were outside the government and a commitment made when they are in the government. The latter will oblige them to deal with those groups that are violating the truce and I think they would be much more effective in disciplining those groups than Fatah was.The U.S. and the other “road map” countries are supposed to meet next week to discuss a common policy. It seems pretty clear what they’re going do, but what do you think?I think they will confirm the positions expressed individually by European Union countries and by President Bush. They will say they respect the outcome of the elections but will not deal with Hamas unless and until it disavows terror and recognizes Israel. In the meantime they will try to find indirect ways of getting a certain level of aid to the Palestinians to prevent a humanitarian disaster. I noticed on the wire services that Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League, says that Hamas must accept Israel too, in keeping with an Arab League agreement. This is based on a Saudi initiative put forth by King – then Crown Prince – Abdullah, which promised to establish formal relations between Israel and the Arab world once Israel and the Palestinians reach an agreement. The Saudi proposal also stated that if the Palestinians and Israelis agreed to a territorial swap in exchange for Israel’s annexation of the large settlement blocs, this would be acceptable.The former Mossad [intelligence] leader, who was also Sharon’s national security adviser,Ephraim Halevy, said several years ago in an interview that was published in Haaretz that Israel must fight relentlessly to destroy the Hamas terror wing. But at the same time Israel must encourage the evolution of Hamas into a political organization that is part of the Palestinian polity because, he said, there is no hope of a peace agreement with the Palestinians if Hamas is on the outside and opposes the agreement. There are people in Israel, and not just wild-eyed leftists and liberals, but hardline security people who have long recognized that the point will come Israel must not only accept, but encourage the kind of change in Hamas that may now be taking place.
  • Elections and Voting
    Implications of the Palestinian Elections
    This publication is now archived. IntroductionHamas’ surprise victory over Fatah in January 25 legislative elections raises many questions for the future of the Middle East. Experts are still trying to figure out the implications of the unexpected, and unprecedented, event. "This is a very complicating development for everyone involved: Palestinian Authority (PA) President] Abu Mazen [also known as Mahmoud Abbas], Fatah, Israel, the United States, and the Quartet [European Union, United States, United Nations, and Russia]," says Michael Herzog, a brigadier general in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Other experts agree. “The election results were nothing anyone anticipated,” says Rachel Bronson, senior fellow and director for Middle East and Gulf studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. How large was the margin of victory?Hamas won by a convincing margin. With 95 percent of the votes counted, Hamas had taken 60 percent of the vote and won 76 seats in the 132-member parliament. Fatah, the dominant force in Palestinian politics for forty years, won forty-three seats, and thirteen went to smaller parties and independents. While many experts had predicted a strong showing for Hamas, their huge win shocked the world. "People took into consideration a Hamas victory, but no one expected a landslide," Herzog says. Why did Hamas win?Experts say Palestinian voters were sick of the corruption and incompetence of Fatah, which has run the PA for the decade since it was founded. Fatah leaders skimmed off much of the billions in foreign aid the international community has given to the PA, leaving ordinary citizens living in desperate conditions. The 2000 intifada and its reprisals, both military and economic, from Israel devastated the PA economy, yet Fatah leaders refused to reform the Palestinian security services and crack down on suicide bombings and other militant attacks against Israel. Hamas, on the other hand, has steadily built a reputation as a clean, non-corrupt party that could deliver results. Its network of hospitals and schools provides social services to Palestinians that the PA did not, and a string of victories in local municipalities in 2005 showed Hamas members to be more effective administrators than the Fatah old guard. Is this the first time a U.S.-designated terror group has won a majority in an elected government?Experts say yes. The closest thing to a precedent, Herzog says, would be the Algerian elections of 1991. The Islamist fundamentalist group Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) looked as if it would win a sweeping victory, but was prevented from taking power. Subsequent government actions—including dissolving parliament and canceling the second round of the vote—set off a civil war that left 150,000 dead. Are there similar groups currently in world governments?In Lebanon, the U.S.-designated terror group Hezbollah has several elected members in government, including one minister. Members of Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein party joined the political process even as their armed wing, the Irish Republican Army, continued to threaten violence. But those politicians joined existing governments; the Hamas case is more complicated because the group won outright. "Hamas will form the government," Herzog says. "Others will have to join them." How will this affect relations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel?Israel has stated it will not deal with a Hamas government. "On a political level, I don’t expect any relations between Israel and Hamas," Herzog says. In addition, ongoing security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian security services will likely end "because if Hamas controls the government, they control the security forces," he says. What will happen to Israel’s practice of targeted killings?"The rationale behind targeted killings [of Hamas members] is the ticking bomb," Herzog says. "If there is an impending terror attack and there is no other way to stop it with arrests or any other action, the IDF will take him out." In addition, some targets—including Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and former leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi—were killed because they inspired and encouraged suicide attacks, Herzog says. Should a current Hamas politician do the same, "Israel will take whatever measures necessary to protect its security," he says. But Herzog also says Hamas will likely split into separate political and militant factions, and that Israel would probably hesitate before killing a PA politician. "I expect Israel will be more careful about individuals in government and concentrate on [militant] activists," Herzog says. How will the Hamas victory affect Israeli elections?"It might add some votes to the Likud party, but generally speaking, I don’t expect it to have a dramatic effect on Israeli politics in terms of taking away many votes from Kadima [the centrist, pragmatic party formed by former Likud Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shortly before his debilitating stroke]," Herzog says. He and Bronson both say the Hamas victory will likely strengthen Israelis’ desire for unilateral action. "Kadima is running strong based on unilateralism," Bronson says. "[Likud leader Binyamin] Netanyahu’s position is that Israel must wait for Palestinians to make concessions, which most Israelis consider futile." Instead, she says Israelis will likely follow acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into more actions the Israelis deem necessary for their security, such as withdrawing from certain areas of the West Bank and continuing to build the security wall. What is likely to happen to diplomatic relations between the Palestinian Authority and other countries?Experts say the situation is much more complicated now than when Fatah ran the PA. The United States is prohibited by law from negotiating with terrorists. As a result, Bronson says the United States will probably not deal with Hamas officially, but will likely use Abbas as a conduit to the Hamas government. "It’s clearly important for American policy for Mahmoud Abbas to hold onto his role," she says. The European Union, despite similar restrictions, will likely find a way to deal with the political wing of Hamas while shunning the armed militia wing—as they do with Hezbollah in Lebanon. "The Europeans are now actively reassessing their views on Hamas," Bronson says. "I think they will look for a way to cooperate, and the Palestinians will look for a way to keep European support." Hamas is dependent on international aid to realize its campaign promises to improve social services in the Palestinian Authority. What will happen to EU or U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority?Diplomatic experts say the United States is unlikely to cut off its aid—some $100 million last year—to the Palestinian Authority entirely. Instead, U.S. officials will figure out a diplomatically acceptable way to continue funding the area, particularly humanitarian projects. "People don’t want a humanitarian crisis to take place in the PA," Herzog says. He says Israel, despite its ban on dealing with Hamas, will continue its contact with low-level officials to distribute items like food and medicine to avert any potential humanitarian crises. Will the elections lead to violence?Experts say violence is likely, both among Palestinian factions and between Palestinian militias and Israel. First, Fatah members jealous of their turf will oppose handing it over to Hamas. "The young, violent Fatah activists who forced Abu Mazen to put them on the security services payrolls will likely resist with force," Herzog says. With Israel, some Hamas members have tentatively proposed extending a nearly year-long ceasefire. “Hamas is a politically astute organization,” Bronson says. “They tend to read the pulse of the Palestinian people very well.” Polls show most Palestinians favor a two-state solution and a cessation of violence with Israel. However, Bronson says that even if Hamas calls an extended ceasefire, it cannot necessarily prevent other armed groups like Islamic Jihad from attackingIsrael. Israel would respond immediately with force, since Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert—himself heading into elections himself in March—needs to show that he is tough on terrorism. Hamas would then respond to the Israeli response with more attacks. In many ways, Bronson says, the ball is inIran’s court. SinceTehransupports Islamic Jihad, it remains to be seen whether Iran will try to reduce violence by Islamic Jihad in order to help Hamas, or set them loose to bring more turmoil in the region, she says. Will Hamas be able to control its militants?"Hamas usually has very tight control over its militants," Herzog says. "If they decide on a temporary ceasefire, they’ll probably abide by it. But they may allow other groups—like Islamic Jihad—to carry out terrorist activity, or subcontract it to other groups, which they’ve done in the past." Bronson says the real security challenge for Hamas is how to integrate two separate armed forces: the Palestinian security services and Hamas’ militia. No one planned for what to do in this situation, she says, because they assumed Hamas would be the opposition party and Fatah would be trying to disarm its members. Now, "Hamas won’t disarm, but it has to decide what to do with the security services, which are dominated by Fatah," she says. Until those questions are settled, she says, it’s very hard to say how much control Hamas will be able to exert over the larger security situation. What will happen to Mahmoud Abbas?Abbas’ positions—normalization of relations with Israel, halting the intifada, and resuming peace talks—clash with the Hamas platform to such an extent that he may be forced to resign, experts say. Although the president appoints the prime minister, both the prime minister and the cabinet must be approved by a majority of the legislature, all but ensuring that Hamas, as the victorious party, will fill the prime ministerial post with one of its own members. If Abbas does resign, the PA has sixty days to appoint a new president.
  • Palestinian Territories
    The Palestinian Authority’s Government
    Palestinian voters will elect a new Legislative Council on January 25. cfr.org offers a brief primer on the workings of the Palestinian Authority government.
  • Elections and Voting
    Satloff: Hamas Likely to Gain Considerable Strength in Next Week’s Palestinian Parliamentary Elections
    Robert Satloff, an expert on Arab and Islamic politics, says the parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories next week are expected to give the Hamas party—which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel even while running an extensive social welfare network for Palestinians—"at the low end, a quarter, at the high end, just under half of the vote."Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says that "there’s a great deal of internal upheaval within the Palestinian Authority [PA] generally and within the ruling party, Fatah, specifically." He says "in Gaza, and to only a slightly lesser degree in the West Bank, anarchy now reigns. The rule of law has, for all intents and purposes, disappeared."He was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on January 19, 2006.The elections for the Palestinian parliament take place January 25. Could you give us an overview right now about the respective roles of Hamas and Fatah?There’s a great deal of internal upheaval within the Palestinian Authority, generally, and within the ruling party, Fatah, specifically. It’s important to describe the context first. In Gaza, and to only a slightly lesser degree in the West Bank, anarchy now reigns. The rule of law has, for all intents and purposes, disappeared. Even President Mahmoud Abbas admitted in an Al-Jazeera interview this week that he may have issued political orders to impose civil order over the last year, but they’ve largely been ignored by security forces that are either unwilling or incapable of implementing them. So there’s a huge degree of disorder. Within that context, the ruling party, Fatah, had itself been ridden with internal conflicts. Some of these conflicts are generational, some of them are political, some of them have to do with good, old-fashioned local politics with factions trying to get better slices of the pie. It’s not necessarily that the younger generation is more moderate. It is not necessarily that the older generation is more corrupt. There are cleavages that run throughout the party. Last month the party even went through a formal cleavage, and for a number of days, some of the leading lights of the party broke away, and formed their own separate party.Who led that breakaway faction?Well, at the top of the list of that faction was a man named Marwan Bargouti, who is currently serving five life sentences in Israeli jail for his role in the terrorist attack that led to the death of five civilians. Marwan Bargouti is widely recognized as the founder of the Tanzim, which is one of the armed wings of Fatah youth. Tanzim really means "organization." It’s not a catchy title, but it’s the organization of young Fatah. Now, after much to-ing and fro-ing, led by the president, Mahmoud Abbas, who’s also the head of the Fatah party, that breakaway group was convinced to come back to the fold with some concessions and different placements of people on candidates’ lists, the usual politicking back and forth. The end result is that, to Palestinian public opinion, it was a visible message that not only had the overall system broken, but the political parties that represented the overall system itself had come apart. Now they’re trying to portray an image of unity in the run-up to the election, but clearly that image is severely tarnished by what has occurred.Talk about Hamas, now.Hamas was born in the first intifada in 1987-88. Hamas was originally the West Bank and Gaza branches of the international [fundamentalist group] Muslim Brotherhood, the local branches of which wanted to get engaged in the violent confrontation against Israel without risking the Brotherhood’s status, a movement that controlled schools and mosques and the religious hierarchy in local Palestinian society, and so to create this self-protection mechanism they created a new organization called Hamas. Hamas has developed over the last eighteen years militarily, politically, and economically, into an organization which has a very efficient—but not nearly as large as some people think—social-welfare network through something called Dawa, which literally means "the call." This is social and economic outreach to people to bring them into the larger Islamic fold. Hamas has a very important military component, which is the essential raison d’etre of the organization, which has undertaken numerous terrorist attacks against Israelis both within the Green Line [the line that demarcates Israel from the Palestinian territories seized in the 1967 war] and outside the Green Line in the territories. Hamas did not participate as a political party in the one previous Palestinian legislative election in 1996. There were really two reasons for that. One, because they didn’t want to, and two, the system didn’t allow it. At that time, Palestinian legislative elections were governed by the Oslo Accords, which specifically banned political parties that have either racist intent or that espouse violent means to political change. Hamas didn’t want to legitimize the Oslo process by participating in an election under its rules. Now that has changed. The second uprising has come and gone. Oslo, in most practical senses, is no longer the governing set of rules, even though it exists in a certain political and diplomatic sense. Hamas also sees the weakness in Fatah, and senses that its moment has now arrived to make a claim for the real leadership of the Palestinian movement, something that it wasn’t really able to do so long as [former PA President] Yasir Arafat, even a weakened Arafat, was still alive. Hamas will do well in these elections. "Well" is a matter of some debate, but I would say somewhere between, at the low end, a quarter, at the high end, just under half of the vote. So we’re talking a sizeable vote. Hamas is very powerful in Gaza [and] strong, though less powerful, throughout the West Bank. It will be a major force to be reckoned with if it isn’t brought into the government by President Mahmoud Abbas.Talk a bit about the relative strength of the Palestinian political entities. Mahmoud Abbas was elected last January, just about a year ago, in a multi-candidate race. He received 62 percent or so of the vote, running on a platform that was based on the idea that violence is inimical to the Palestinian cause. Now ironically, the Palestinian political system was compelled to undergo a change in the late Arafat era, when the United States and the international community pressed upon Arafat a change in basic Palestinian law, which forced him to appoint a prime minister who would be empowered with some executive authority.The whole idea of that was to limit the authority that Arafat had, and to allow a different leader, the empowered prime minister, to have more freedom, more ability to govern. The first Palestinian prime minister was Mahmoud Abbas, and he was in 2003, for several months, that empowered prime minister. As it turned out, he resigned because Arafat in the end found ways to undermine even the greater authority that Abbas had. So now as president, Abbas himself is in the same situation that Arafat was, namely that he doesn’t have the authority that the president of the Palestinian Authority once had. He, too, will have a somewhat powerful prime minister he will appoint. That prime minister is traditionally the leader of the largest party. It doesn’t have to be, there are some candidates out there. But the key blind card, really, is how well Hamas does and whether Abbas decides that in order to form a government he needs to bring Hamas within the tent and thereby pay whatever price he has to pay internationally and politically for trying to incorporate this extremist group.Is there a clear leader of Hamas?No, there is no single clear leader. The head of the Hamas movement is named Ismail Haniyeh. The leaders of Hamas over the last number of years have progressively been killed in targeted action by the Israelis. A lot of the Hamas candidates are not themselves associated with terrorist acts, even though they may support the Hamas mission to destroy Israel. Hamas has tried to run recognized civic leaders—doctors, lawyers, dentists, pharmacists, academicians, etc.—to underscore their anti-corruption message.Tell us more about Haniyeh.Ismail Haniyeh is a professional Hamas activist. He is one of the few who has been associated publicly with Hamas almost since the beginning. Hamas in general tries to find independents who are sympathetic to the Islamist message but that may not have been activists in movements for many years, and they put a lot of these people on their electoral list. Now the vote will be divided between national lists and district lists, where some of the elected candidates will come from individual districts, and some will represent the proportional vote that parties get in the overall Palestinian election, which is a recent innovation.And how many people altogether in the parliament?I believe the number is 132. Talk a bit about the election process. Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Palestinians could vote in Jerusalem. Is this a significant move?I think it’s important to make three different distinctions, to divide the Palestinian territories into three types of areas. One is Gaza, where there are no Israelis, no Israel soldiers, no Israeli settlers; all the rules are set by Palestinian authorities in whatever manner they see fit. The second is the West Bank, outside of Jerusalem. This is an area in which Israel maintains its role as the military authority. In September, Ariel Sharon said Israel would not facilitate Hamas candidates running in areas under its control. He was referring principally to the West Bank, obviously not to Gaza. Israel has since relented on this issue, and is not putting up any special roadblocks to Hamas candidates or to the election throughout the West Bank. This was the result of considerable pressure from the United States and Europe. Now, before he fell ill, Ariel Sharon put down a marker in terms of Jerusalem. He said he was putting down his foot in Jerusalem, that Palestinians were not going to be allowed to vote because Hamas cannot come into Jerusalem, Jerusalem being Israel’s capital, separate and apart from the West Bank according to Israeli law. And of course, the Palestinians claim part of Jerusalem, too. Now since he suffered his stroke, there’s been a considerable exchange between the United States and the Israelis, and the Israelis have since modified their position and have said Palestinians can vote in Jerusalem as they voted in the past, namely in Jerusalem post offices, rather than in separate election booths. But the Israelis say Hamas candidates can neither campaign in Jerusalem, nor can their names appear on the ballot in Jerusalem. It remains to be seen the extent to which the latter two prohibitions are carried out in practice, but there was a unanimous decision taken by the inner Israeli cabinet to accept the idea that Palestinians will be allowed to vote in Jerusalem. Whether there will be a Hamas candidate on the list is still up in the air?What is somewhat unclear is whether the ballot that will be posted in Jerusalem will include Hamas candidates. I think the answer is probably not.Now has Hamas been engaged in terrorist activities in recent months? Or have they abided by a ceasefire of sorts?Earlier in 2005, Hamas and Fatah, under the auspices of the Egyptians, reached an understanding, whereby there would be something called a tahdiye. A tahdiye is less than a ceasefire, it’s less than a truce; it’s the Arabic word for "a calming down." In previous years there had been truces, but this is formally less than that. Hamas has by and large kept to its tahdiye commitment, because what it gets in exchange for that commitment was a promise from Abbas that the elections would be held under a certain set of rules with Hamas fully participating. That was the essential deal. On those instances when Hamas has violated tahdiye commitments, it was partially because an even more radical group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad—which has not committed itself to the calming down—has decided to "out-extreme" Hamas and they launched their own attack on the Israelis. Hamas, not wanting to appear that they can’t keep up with the jihadists, had also followed suit, and then things calmed down. But generally, Hamas has kept to its tahdiye commitments. It is important to note that no Hamas leader has ever suggested that Hamas has moderated on its strategic objective, in any sense, whether through a truce offer, or tahdiye. The strategic objective, the destruction of Israel, remains very clearly the Hamas goal.It looks like, from what you’ve said, that Hamas will get a very significant proportion of the new parliament. Will that moderate Hamas’ policies at all, do you think?It’s important to differentiate between tactical flexibility and strategic objective. I think Hamas, for example, if they are invited into the parliament, into the cabinet, is likely to say yes. I think they may even keep the tahdiye for a certain amount of time, the objective here being to take firmer control, at least to be able to block any other initiative without their assent with the Palestinian government. So I think one’s definition of moderation is the key issue here. If Mahmoud Abbas says, "I want you guys to disarm," Hamas will say never. But if Mahmoud Abbas says, "I want Hamas to fold its military units into the Palestinian national military units and you can keep your weapons as independent brigades within the Palestinian security forces," well, then Hamas may say yes. But then I don’t think that this, by any stretch of the imagination, is what anybody expects disarmament is all about. So really, this question of moderation will be tested by how Hamas acts after the election. Well, now the pressure will be heavy on Abbas, I guess, not to let Hamas into his cabinet for fear the Israelis won’t deal with him, right?Yes. It won’t only be the Israelis. Last month Europeans also warned against doing this and threatened that international assistance to Palestinians will be at stake. But there are so many other ways for Hamas to have authority, it’s sort of silly. You could have Hamas be the No. 2 in every ministry, you could have Hamas be the speaker of the parliament, you could have Hamas be the deputy head of every agency, and they’d exert much more authority than if they were ministers. But we have to recognize that this is a fundamental challenge to everything we thought the Palestinian Authority was all about. And my other view is that all of us who are interested in the success of this process, have failed in the last period of time to do everything we could to prevent the emergence, or the takeover in many respects, of Palestinian politics by this extremist movement.What could "we"—I assume you mean the United States and Israel—have done?Well, there are a number of things we could have done. One, it is true that we could have invested greater energy in the success of the nationalists, or the non-Islamists. Two, we could have laid down conditions for participation in legitimate politics, much the same way as we laid down conditions for our recognition of the PLO [the Palestine Liberation Organization, the main umbrella organization of the Palestinian national movement]. I mean, we’re going to certify Hamas as legitimate political players without having them meet the tests that we forced the PLO to meet twenty years ago, namely recognition of Israel, renunciation of terror, and commitment to diplomacy as the means to resolve this conflict. I mean, we’re going backwards twenty years in how we’re dealing with major Palestinian political players.
  • Palestinian Territories
    Hamas’ Role in the Palestinian Elections
    This publication is now archived. IntroductionHamas is expected to poll strongly in Palestinian parliamentary elections scheduled for January 25, 2006. Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, has done well in three rounds of local elections this year and is expected to make further inroads against Fatah, the dominant Palestinian political party headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel, which opposed Hamas’ participation in the poll, had threatened to prevent the elections by leaving roadblocks and checkpoints in place during the campaign and preventing Palestinians in Jerusalem from voting. However, under pressure from the United States, Israel has mostly backed away from these threats. That decision is "very important," says Alon Ben Meir, a professor of international relations at New York University. "It signifies Israel’s willingness to see that if Hamas joins the political process, it’s conceivable [Hamas] might also moderate their positions." How serious a political threat does Hamas pose to Fatah?Considerable, experts say. In local elections, Hamas has posted strong results—winning 74 percent of the municipal election vote in the city of Nablus, for example. Palestinians are dissatisfied with the performance of Fatah, which has run the PA since it was established in 1995. Under longtime leader Yasir Arafat, corruption and cronyism ran rampant, and Palestinians saw little improvement in their lives or prospects. Arafat’s death in November 2004 and the election of Abbas as president in January 2005 seemed to indicate the arrival of a new era; yet since then, Fatah has been rent by internal divisions. A younger generation of Palestinian leaders urged the longtime Fatah chiefs around Abbas to step down in favor of a new generation. This restive younger group split from Fatah in mid-December and united behind jailed leader Marwan Barghouti—one of the most popular Palestinian leaders—to form another party, al-Mustaqbal (the Future). After intense negotiations that included personal appeals by Abbas, al-Mustaqbal members agreed December 28 to reunite with Fatah and run one slate of candidates—with Barghouti and other faction leaders at the top—in order to maximize Fatah’s chances of success. What are Hamas’ goals?Hamas is seeking to join the political process but not become the ruling party, experts say. "Hamas wants to have a strong showing, so they’re in a place to influence the debate, but not to win a majority, so they’re not responsible for the failures of the PA," says Nadia Hijab, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Palestine Studies. Ben Meir says the fact that Hamas is even participating in the election suggests the group may be willing to moderate its positions to reflect public opinion. Polls show the majority of Palestinians are weary of violence and want to return to peace talks with Israel. In such a climate, "Hamas is moving toward joining the political process to ensure its survival as an organization," Ben Meir says. If Hamas joins the Palestinian Authority—itself a product of the peace process created by the 1993 Oslo Accords—"implicit in that is the acceptance [by Hamas] of a two-state solution," he says. While the group still opposes Israel, they are becoming more pragmatic. Ben Meir says a Hamas leader recently told him, "Our goal is still to destroy Israel. But we can delay it for one hundred years." What is Hamas’ platform going into the elections?Hamas won seats in local elections this year in large part because it is viewed by many Palestinians as being honest, in contrast to the pervasive corruption of long-serving Fatah administrators. Abbas has tried to crack down on corruption by firing dozens of Arafat loyalists, but much more needs to be done, experts say. Hamas has also established a comprehensive network of schools and hospitals that provide services to Palestinians that the PA does not. Mahmoud Khalid al-Zahar, a prominent Hamas leader, told al-Jazeera the group also advocates:Cutting all ties with Israel, and instead strengthening relations with Arab countries through contacts in Egypt and Jordan; Building an independent Palestinian economy;Building an effective education system;Reconstructing the Palestinian infrastructure; and Establishing an efficient healthcare system. Has Hamas made the transition from an armed protest party to a political one?Not entirely, say experts, who note that Hamas seems to be following a strategy used by many armed resistance groups in the past, including the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland and Hezbollah in Lebanon, who used both the ballot box and the gun. The political wing of these parties would negotiate in the political arena, experts say, but the armed wing would continue to threaten or even use violence as another means to reach the party’s goals. Hijab says the evolution of Hamas from an armed militant group to a political party is following the pattern of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, or PLO, headed by Arafat before the PA was created. "Hamas seems to be going on the same route," she says. Will Hamas be disarmed?Not right away. Abbas has moved cautiously on U.S. and Israeli demands to disarm militants. After meeting U.S. President George Bush in Washington October 20, Abbas promised the disarmament would happen after elections. Abbas has been trying to establish PA control over armed militants by co-opting them into the Palestinian Security Services, which he is also trying to reform. The PA announced in October that it would set up five new training camps for members of the Fatah-linked militant group al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Al-Aqsa members will be trained as police officers in Ramallah, Nablus, and other cities in attempts to deter them from terrorist activity. Experts say this approach will likely be used with members of Hamas as well. "Abbas can only move as fast as he feels safe, and his safety net depends on the security service reform and how loyal they are to him," Ben Meir says. What is the state of the ceasefire?Shaky. The nearly year-long ceasefire with Israel declared by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in early 2005 will expire December 31, and there are no plans to renew it. Abbas has urged both sides to extend the fragile peace and has repeatedly appealed to militants to cease the rocket attacks on Israel that bring brutal Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reprisals against Palestinian towns and refugee camps. But the armed groups refuse to halt their attacks. "Renewing the truce will give [Israel] an opportunity to attack the resistance," an Islamic Jihad leader told the BBC December 28. Are these elections particularly significant?Yes, experts say. "It’s important for the democratic process of the Palestinians," says Adrien Wing, the Bessie Dutton Murray professor of law at the University of Iowa and a former legal adviser to the Palestinian Authority. It’s been nearly ten years since the first—and so far, only—Palestinian Legislative Council was elected in January 1996 as a product of the Oslo II or Taba agreements. Fatah won a majority of seats. That council was supposed to serve until the end of the transition period in May 1999, but the start of the second intifada, and the subsequent Israeli military presence in many of the Palestinian territories, caused the elections to be indefinitely postponed. They were rescheduled for July 2005, but Abbas put them off again; he wanted Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza to happen in August and help him build support for Fatah before the vote. Daniel Levy, an Israeli policy adviser who helped negotiate the Geneva Accord, says any more delays would anger Palestinians. The elections are needed to legitimize the reforms Abbas is undertaking and affirm that Palestinians support his strategy of peaceful, nonviolent negotiations toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "The Palestinian street thinks violence worked" to drive Israelis out of Gaza," Levy says. "Abbas must show otherwise." In addition, Abbas is under tremendous pressure to deliver real improvements to Palestinians’ quality of life. "All Palestinians want elections," Hijab says. "It’s the one area of their lives they can control. They’re fed up with the frozen state of the legislature." How strong is Abbas?His reforms are widely supported and he is gaining personal popularity. An October opinion poll from Birzeit University showed Abbas’ approval ratings at 45 percent in Gaza and 40 percent in the West Bank after the Gaza withdrawal. Eighty-two percent of Gaza residents support Abbas’ attempts to improve security and end lawlessness, and 83 percent of the residents—74 percent of all Palestinians—support a truce with Israel. Even though Hamas was credited for forcing Israelis out of Gaza with violence, the group’s popularity dropped after the withdrawal. "The Palestinian public does not want the resumption of violence under any circumstances," Ben Meir says. How is the United States supporting Abbas?In a lukewarm fashion, experts say. These experts criticize the Bush administration for not making the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one of its top priorities, saying it is hurting prospects for peace with its lack of attention. "Unless this administration gets seriously active in a decisive way, things will not move in the way we need them to," Levy says. Experts also say the United States is not doing enough to pressure Israel to fulfill its obligations—including halting the building of new settlements—under the Road map peace plan. "How can [the United States] speak of a two-state solution if you don’t put your very considerable weight behind the road map?" asks Hijab. Is Israel supporting Abbas?Sharon is not actively subverting Abbas, experts say, but his administration is doing other things—continuing construction of the separation barrier, expanding West Bank settlements, not releasing Palestinian prisoners, and continuing its much-despised system of checkpoints and road closures—that weaken and undermine Abbas’ reform efforts. James Wolfensohn, the special envoy sent by the Quartet—the United Nations, Britain, Russia, and the United States—to work on the disengagement process, wrote in an October 16 letter that Israel is refusing to give up control over checkpoints and border crossings in Gaza and "almost acting as though there has been no withdrawal," the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. In his defense, some experts say Sharon—who recently split from his Likud party, suffered a stroke, and is preparing to contest early Israeli elections in March 2006 as the head of his new party, Kadima—can’t make any major moves before consolidating his own power base. Still, many experts say the Israeli public is clamoring for peace, and will not allow Sharon to undermine it. According to an October 23 Haaretz editorial, "Abbas’ intention to achieve calm through democratic means is deserving of trust and support at least for a limited period. Israel’s role at this stage is not to disturb." What are the prospects for peace?Not great at the moment, but showing some small improvements, experts say. But "the Palestinian elections don’t have anything to do with peace," Hijab says. "That has to do with Israel ending its occupation of the West Bank, and the United States and Europe making sure that happens." Analysts say both sides know the shape of a final settlement, but are delaying the process of getting there. "At this point, it’s very clear what a negotiated two-state solution would look like," Levy says. Others see reason for optimism. "I absolutely feel that, even with all the obstacles and problems, the Arab world is very slowly concluding that Israel is a reality they must reckon with," says Ben Meir, adding that this is a critical attitude shift in key areas in the Gulf region, North Africa, and Egypt. "So yes, I think the prospects are good, but not this year or next year," says Ben Meir. "Perhaps in three to five years. But no one knows."