Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hamas Wins Election

I don't see this is the beginning of the end of the world. Let's face it, everything going on in the middle east is about folks taking and holding power. All the retoric is just to keep the poor nearly starving folks off focus of their terrible conditions and those responsible for keeping them there.

Once in political power, and having a desire to keep that power, a radical war mongerer is most often much more temperate in their actions than in their speaches. Having the Israeli army kick Palenstinian ass, and target their leaders with missle attacks is really not what the Hamas leaders want. They'll keep up the rhetoric to keep their credibility, but don't be suprised if their actions don't match their words.

Looks like Hamas is going to have to put up or shut up. Now they have to show if they have any leadership ability or are they all just armed thugs. I'm voting for the armed thug part. kwg

They've been running hospitals and other civic organizations for years, in addition to their more dubious activities. They have to be less corrupt than Fatah. Now they have to put up, or shut up. That old Chinese curse about living in interesting times, seems to have taken root.

Here are my two or three cents on the matter.

1. While Hamas is an organization that supports terrorism, make no mistake about their leadership and intellectual capacity. They have provided enough leadership in their local communities to gain a solid majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament, and their ranks include many doctors and engineers. I expect the Hamas-led parliament to make great strides toward improving infrastructure and quality of life in the Palestinian territories as long as they can resist succumbing to the same corruption that marked the Fatah government.

2. The Fatah government came out of a terrorist organization -- the PLO. Terrorist organizations can to a certain extent come into the mainstream, and I expect that Hamas will follow a path similar to the one that the PLO/Fatah Party did.

3. The Palestinian people, who for many years (decades) felt they didn't have a voice, have now elected their choices for Parliament. When you consider the amount of corruption in the Fatah government, there were probably some voting irregularities in favor of the Fatah government, which makes the Hamas victory even more amazing.

Despite Hamas' terrorist leanings, the Palestinian people having their voices heard lets off some steam in the pressure cooker on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank. You can't underestimate the influence of the feelings of disenfranchisement on the young men and women who get involved with terrorism. If there's another way a person can make a difference in the world besides blowing himself up on a bus or at a crowded outdoor cafe, then hopefully he will choose the constructive political path rather than the destructive terrorist path.

Also, with the voice of the Palestinian people being reflected in the election and the corrupt Fatah government being tossed, it should give the Palestinian government more credibility around the world.

I am definitely no fan of Hamas, and my opinion is that the change from the Fatah to the Hamas government will set back the Middle East peace process a year or two, but in the end this election will be a jump ahead. The Palestinian people will benefit from having more than one viable party, and Hamas will quickly realize (they probably already have) that they have to adopt new methods reflective of their new role in the Palestinian world. The Bush Administration and the Israelis have to play hard ball with Hamas to get them to immediately get into the mainstream instead of being a fringe group (that's the goal of the current U.S. and Israeli rhetoric), and I think at this time next year Hamas will be a much different beast than it is now.

From what I've read about Hamas and the PLO (Fatah), I'm optimistic that this change is for the better in the long term. If Abbas stays as president of the Palestinian Authority and can work with Hamas to bring them around, better days are ahead. We just have to keep the pressure on the Palestinian government to pursue diplomacy and pray for the best.

The Hamas election shouldn't surprise anyone except the dunces in DC...

Hamas reminds me a cat that catches a bird and then is not too sure what to do next. They won the election fairly and now must put together a government. With governmental responsibility comes responsibility. They will now either show responsibility, or the chaos that they have inflicted on the Middle East, will come back to haunt them.

My guess is that they�ll have trouble exercising this responsibility. They are a �party� of disparate people with only a single common thread � hatred of Israel. If their leaders do succeed forming a government and acting responsibly, their rag-tag following will continue the violence and possibly direct it at the leadership.