Certainly, more than half of the Palestinians, if you can believe the polls, either support Islamic terrorism or fail to support it on purely pragmatic grounds - support goes up when they think it's winning, and down when they think it's not bringing good results. That's particularly true in Gaza, where 65% in a recent poll supported Al Qaeda attacks in the US and Europe. The support in Gaza for terrorism dropped below 50% only for attacks in Jordan. Translation: Hey, those are OUR relatives! Not there!
However, many Palestinians just wanted to vote the buggers out, and Hamas was the only alternative to Fatah. I can understand that.
Furthermore, this is a case where I think "worse is better." Hamas ran as reformers and they won outright. Great, now they have to produce results, they can't just carp. Furthermore, being Islamist nutcases, they are sure to institute Shari'a, which will lower their popularity among the Palestinians, who are not that pious. However, in the present circumstances, they want law and order on the streets and will put up with anybody who says he can deliver it.
Also, I think this finally buries the stinking corpse of Oslo, even in precincts where it's been a walking zombie for years, such as the New York Times and the BBC. Even the BBC cannot hide the fact that the Palestinians just voted in a terrorist group whose avowed aim is the destruction of Israel. We can't hear anymore that the PA is a moderate institution, and all would be well if Israel only gave more concessions to strengthen it. Hamas now is the PA, and the PA now is Hamas.
Hamas until now has been a pretty honest bunch of terrorists. If they stay honest, great. Everybody knows where they stand and not even the Euros will be able to pressure Israel very hard to give concessions. The hardest course will be if Hamas learns to lie like Arafat and pretend they are secular democrats now. They just hired a professor at Bir Zeit U (aka Terrorist U) to tell this message to the world, but not even the BBC is buying at this moment.
The important question is: was this the last Palestinian election, or will there be another one? If the outside pressure can be kept up enough so that this election is not a case of "one man, one vote, one time," then by all means, let the Palestinians vote in Hamas and see how they like the consequences. Let the Egyptians vote in the Muslim Brotherhood while they are at it. The only way to tank Islamist popularity is to give them their shot at governance. The trick is to make sure that the population gets a chance to vote them out, once they are good and sick of mullahs trying to run their lives. |
