It has been particularly fascinating for me to be in the United States this week to watch the reactions to the dramatic victory by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Wednesday's parliamentary elections. Media and official comments both indicate that the historic nature of what has just happened in Palestine is unlikely to be grasped in the U.S. or many other parts of the Western world, because Hamas and the rest of the Middle East continue to be judged by the litmus test of their acquiescence to Israeli security demands.

This is a tragic shame, because Hamas' victory - coming after similar Islamist triumphs in Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq - also offers a potential political opportunity, if only sober minds would prevail on all sides. I say a "potential" opportunity because Hamas' ascent to power remains riddled with many unknowns and deep concerns among many people in the Middle East and other parts of the world. Hamas is not certain to succeed as the party in power.

Three key points seem important about Hamas' victory. The first is that the election campaign was not a referendum on making war or peace with Israel. Hamas did not win because it promised to wipe out Israel. It won because it held out the promise of redressing some of the terrible imbalances and chaotic distortions that have come to define Palestinian domestic society in the past few years. These include corruption and incompetence in the Palestinian Authority governance system, lawlessness at the local level, and a humiliating inability to protect Palestinian communities' basic day-to-day ability to function because of the sustained onslaught of Israeli occupation policies. Hamas won because Palestinians think it can do a better job than Fatah in bringing order and self-respect to the business of daily life.

The second important aspect of the election result is that Hamas will now experience the responsibility and accountability that come with incumbency. As a democratically elected governing authority, whether on its own or in coalition with Fatah and other groups, Hamas will have to act in a manner that broadly reflects the views of the majority of the Palestinian citizenry. That majority has clearly and consistently expressed a desire to negotiate a fair, permanent peace with Israel and coexist in peace with the Jewish state, rather than to wipe it off the face of the earth.

The third important point about Hamas' victory is that it represents a brand of political leadership legitimacy that has been rare in the modern Arab world. Hamas' massive victory is significant in itself, but it also represents a historic, peaceful transfer of power from what has effectively been a one-party state run by Fatah to an opposition that came to power through democratic elections.

There are important differences between the causes of Hamas' victory and its possible consequences. These must be sorted out if this striking democratic victory is to lead to positive outcomes for Palestinians, Israelis, and the rest of the region and the world.

What is clear here in the U.S. is that the Hysteria Brigades are already on the march, as they are in Israel. Hamas is judged almost solely on the basis of whether it will disarm and recognize Israel's right to exist - to the extraordinary exclusion of the fact that Hamas only armed in the first place to resist the Israeli occupation. It would be a terrible tragedy and a huge missed opportunity if Israel, the U.S., and the rest of the world compound the mistakes they have made that gave rise to Hamas in the first place. The main mistake is to see Hamas militancy against Israel without simultaneously seeing the Israeli policies of occupation, assassination, colonization, and other acts of aggression against the Palestinians.

Above all else, the birth and now the political triumph of Hamas reflect a sustained Palestinian response to the American-backed Israeli government policies of colonial disdain for Palestinian national rights. Israel and the U.S. for decades have refused to acknowledge that Hamas (as well as Hizbullah in Lebanon) was born as a reaction to Israeli occupation and abuse of Arab rights and national integrity. Hamas' policies must be viewed in the context of the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians. Unilaterally demanding that Hamas disarm its resistance wing or unilaterally acknowledge Israel's existence will go nowhere if such a call is not matched by parallel Israeli steps to stop assassinating Palestinians and colonizing their land. The urgent priority now is for third-party mediators to craft a process that identifies the legitimate rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians, and that outlines diplomatic steps to achieve these rights and aspirations.

Overview: Palestinians overwhelmingly voted for the Islamic movement Hamas in yesterday’s 25 January 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections, giving it absolute power to form the next Palestinian government. The vote also served to marginalize Fateh, the historically dominate party in Palestinian politics.

Yesterday’s vote is seen as a “wake-up” call for the current Palestinian leadership, which has been unable to deliver on its promises to improve the lives of Palestinians at both domestic and international levels. Local expectations abound that Hamas will carry out a stalled reform agenda within the Palestinian Authority (PA) institutions, specifically within the judicial branch and on the issues of government mismanagement, corruption and performance.

However, when Hamas enters the fray of international politics, the difficulties and impediments will differ little from those that plagued Fateh and President Mahmoud Abbas, specifically in relation to political action from Israel and the United States. Notably, Israel’s unilateralism, dictates toward the Palestinian leadership and race to create facts on the ground before negotiations together led to Fateh’s downfall and continue to hinder the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

The Power of the People

Preliminary results released today by the Palestinian Central Elections Committee (CEC) show that Hamas won 76 of the 132 seats in the legislature as compared to Fateh’s 43 seats (33 percent). This is a blow to the party, which formerly held 62 of the 88-seat legislature over the past ten years (70 percent). Four independent candidates have announced that they will join Hamas, raising the group’s control to 80 seats (61 percent).

According to the CEC, 77 percent of the 1.3 million registered voters cast their ballots in 1,100 polling stations throughout sixteen districts yesterday. Voter turnout reached 74 percent in the West Bank, 82 percent in the Gaza Strip and 46 percent in the suburbs of East Jerusalem. Some 13,000 Palestinian security personnel were assigned to polling stations, along with 47,000 election workers, international and local observers and party representatives. Final results are expected no later than Friday, January 27.

The CEC reports that Mustafa Barghouthi’s “Independent Palestine” slate won two seats in the legislative vote, as did Hanan Ashrawi’s “Third Way” slate and the “Alternative” slate, a coalition of leftist groups. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) won three seats.

Fateh has said it will not join a government led by Hamas and that it will hand over all cabinet positions. This leaves Hamas, which has no experience in running national institutions—especially those that function through cooperation with Israel—responsible for the governing of every aspect of Palestinian life.

How did we get here?

Israel and the United States have said that they will not deal with Hamas unless the group recognizes Israel’s right to exist, disarms its personnel, and renounces what they call “terrorism.” Hamas does not seem to have any immediate plans to act on those demands. Hamas’ holdout gives Israel the international seal of approval it has sought for continuing its unilateral policies toward the Palestinians. Israeli officials have already said that Hamas’ new dominance of the Palestinian legislature means their government will accelerate construction of the separation Wall. This action, which is in direct contradiction to international law, will make permanent a de facto border that deprives Palestinians of their land, natural resources and the contiguity needed for a viable state and puts any international attempts to revive a peace process on hold.

Israel and the United States must consider what role they have played in Hamas’ victory. Israel has undermined Abbas’ power by disregarding its obligations under the Road Map and Sharm el-Sheikh understanding and by pursuing a policy of unilateralism, military might and territorial expansion. On its part, the United States allowed the weakening of Abbas and his government despite warnings that such action would push the Palestinian people to choose a different leadership.

What the Coming Steps Are

For Fateh, the defeat is a lesson that its mistakes can no longer be ignored out of loyalty or deference to its history of a decades-long struggle for Palestinian liberation. Fateh must reinvent itself, remove those persons or circumstances responsible for its corruption and rebuild the party by reexamining its membership, leadership and political strategy. Fateh officials have acknowledged that issues of corruption and internal party divisions over leadership were the primary causes of their declining support and ultimate defeat in yesterday’s tight race.

For Hamas, the road ahead is difficult. Now adding legislative representation to its resume of public services, the group needs to prove that it can effect change that Fateh could not if it is to be a sufficient alternative to the Fateh-led PA. To do so, it will need to balance its religious and political ideology and bring itself closer to the reality of the political situation in terms of its means of challenging occupation, improving Palestinian daily life and creating a viable Palestinian state.

Rising support for Hamas in the months leading up to the election shows that it has proven itself astute in its challenge to Fateh. The question remains whether it has grasped the need for political moderation at an international level. Its campaign platform projects a party that is somewhere in the political center and wants to attract international powers. Hamas will soon realize that there are realities that if it chooses to ignore, it will find itself equally unable to implement domestic campaign promises such as its economic development projects. The implementation of such projects will require negotiation with Israel on the issue of borders and the movement of Palestinian people and goods and funding from the international community.

One way or the other Hamas’ victory brings a new political reality in the region. The test for the international community is its dedication to democracy and the changes that it brings.

Samar Assad is the Executive Director of the Palestine Center. This brief may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the Center. The above text does not necessarily reflect the views of the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development.

Hamas`s triumph in Wednesday`s Palestinian elections is the best news from the Middle East for a long time. The poll was a more impressive display of democracy than any other in the region, outstripping last year`s votes in Lebanon and Iraq both in turnout and the range of views that candidates represented. Whereas in Iraq parties that opposed the occupation had to downplay or even obscure their views, Palestinian supporters of armed resistance to Israel`s expansionist strategies were able to run openly. It is true that Hamas candidates did not make relations with Israel the centrepiece of their campaign. They focused on reform in the Palestinian Authority. But few voters were unaware of Hamas`s uncompromising hostility to occupation and its record in fighting it.

Wednesday`s election was remarkable also in owing nothing to Washington`s (selective) efforts to promote democracy in the Arab world. Instead, it was further proof that civil society in Palestine is more vibrant than anywhere else in the region and that Palestinian politics has its own dynamics, dictated not by outside pressure but the social and economic demands of ordinary people in appalling conditions. Providing a forum to freely express hopes and fears, debate policy and seek agreed solutions is, after all, what democracy is about.

In Israel and Washington reaction to Hamas`s victory has been predictably negative. European governments should take a more sensitive view. The first watchword is caution. Applaud the process but don`t take issue with the result. While the dust settles and Hamas works out its own priorities for government, Europeans should calmly analyse why Hamas got so much support.

Among several Hamas leaders I met in Gaza last summer, Mahmoud Zahar, one of its last surviving founders, exuded the clearest sense of inner steel. Trained as a medical doctor in Cairo, and now a short middle-aged figure with combed-over grey hair, he left several impressions. This is no mosque-driven revolutionary or wealthy jihadi of the Osama bin Laden type, motivated by ideology or a desire for adventure. Like other Gazans, he has felt the occupation on his skin. His wife was paralysed and his eldest son killed by an Israeli F-16 attack on his house in 2003. Zahar was in the garden and lucky to survive. In spite of that, he took the lead last year in persuading colleagues that Hamas should declare a truce or period of `calm` with Israel. For 11 months no Hamas member has gone on a suicide bombing mission. That is no mean achievement, which foreign diplomats rarely credit.

Zahar`s reasons were not just tactical - a desire to deny Sharon a pretext for abandoning his retreat from Gaza. His strategy is to de-escalate the confrontation with Israel for a long period so that Palestinian society can build a new sense of unity, revive its inner moral strength and clean up its institutions. He feels western governments give aid and use the issue of negotiations with Israel only as a device for conditionality and pressure, not in the interests of justice.

So he wants Palestinians to have a broad-based coalition government that will look to the Arab and Islamic worlds for economic partners and diplomatic support. It`s a kind of `parallel unilateralism`, matching the mood in Israel where the peace camp clearly has lost all real purchase. `Israeli attitudes show they don`t intend to make any agreement. They`re going to take many unilateral steps,` Zahar told me. `In this bad unbalanced situation and with the interference of the west in the affairs of every Arab country, especially Syria and Lebanon, we can live without any agreement and have a `calm` for a long time. We`re in favour of a long-term truce without recognition of Israel, provided Sharon is also looking for a truce. Everything will change in 10 or 20 years.`

Zahar also left me with no sense of embarrassment about the imminence of power. He pointed out that Mahmoud Abbas would remain president for three more years, as though implying he could be a convenient front for inevitably unproductive talks with Washington and Israel while Hamas acted as a watchdog on the main issues. `There will be no contradiction between the Palestine legislative council and the president,` he said. `We will be the safeguard, and the safety valve, against any betrayal.`

Along with caution in reacting to the Hamas victory, Europe`s second priority should be to maintain continuity. Any cut-off in EU aid would only be a gift to Israel`s hardliners. The EU is the largest international donor to the Palestinian Authority, and Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, blundered last month when he told a Gaza press conference that `it would be very difficult for the help and the money that goes to the Palestinian Authority to continue to flow` if Hamas were in government.

Yesterday`s EU statements were more measured. If Europe, weak though its power may currently be, wants to have an independent role in the Middle East, clearly different from the manipulative US approach, it is vital to go on funding the PA regardless of the Hamas presence in government. Nor should the EU fall back on the cynical hope that Hamas will be as corrupt as Fatah, and so lose support. You cannot use European taxpayers` money to strengthen Palestinian institutions while privately wanting reforms to fail. Hamas should be encouraged in aiming to be more honest than its predecessors.

Above all, Europe should not get hung up on the wrong issues, like armed resistance and the `war on terror`. Murdering a Palestinian politician by a long-range attack that is bound also to kill innocent civilians is morally and legally no better than a suicide bomb on a bus. Hamas`s refusal to give formal recognition of Israel`s right to exist should also not be seen by Europe as an urgent problem. History and international politics do not march in tidy simultaneous steps. For decades Israel refused even to recognise the existence of the Palestinian people, just as Turkey did not recognise the Kurds. Until 15 years ago Palestinians had to be smuggled to international summits as part of Jordan`s delegation. It is less than that since the Israeli government accepted the goal of a Palestinian state.

Hamas may eventually disarm itself and recognise Israel. That will be the end of the process of establishing a just modus vivendi for Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. It cannot be the first step. Today`s priority is to accept that Palestinians have spoken freely. They deserve respect and support.

Last week, Israel barred a UNESCO fact-finding mission from entering the country, charging that the Palestinians had ‘politicized’ the mission before it had even arrived. The mission was tasked with looking into conditions of historical sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, something Israel apparently found to be very threatening.

Looking at the state of Jerusalem’s eastern sector today, it is understandable why Israel would not want UNESCO or anyone else walking around the Old City, especially the Palestinian-populated parts of it. Because anyone who does, will see the devastation that Israel and its settlers have wreaked on one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world.

Excavation works are being conducted in and around the Aqsa Mosque to make way for more Jewish construction at the place where Waqf authorities say Ottoman and Abbasid artifacts have long been tucked away. A Muslim graveyard is being dug up just outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, to build – ironically – a museum of tolerance. Today, two stores were forcefully taken over by Jewish settlers in Al Hakari, one of the neighborhoods in the Muslim quarter and every day, it seems that more and more homes are either being demolished by Israeli municipality authorities or being taken over by Jewish settlers.

The “Judiazation” of Jerusalem is a term many Palestinians and Arabs use for what Israel is doing in the city. In a nutshell, it is the long-term plan Israel is gradually carrying out to change the Arab Palestinian character of Jerusalem. This means demolishing old and historical structures, displacing Palestinians, handing over their homes to settlers and trying to erase the Palestinian or Arab history of the city.

The sad truth is that, on the surface, Israel has succeeded in this to a large extent. Pockets of Jewish settlers now live in the heart of Muslim quarters and aim to take over more and more. Sheikh Jarrah, one of the more affluent Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is now pierced with Jewish flags waving from homes that have been wrestled from their Palestinian owners, and Israel’s light rail train cuts right down through Palestinian neighborhoods outside of the city center. The train, of course, is not meant to service the Palestinian population but rather to connect Jewish neighborhoods and settlements in the city, but the area confiscated from Shufat and Beit Hanina for its construction simply fell into the plan.

What the UNESCO mission would not have seen even if they made it into the Old City is the overall humiliation that the Palestinian population of Jerusalem must endure on a daily basis because of Israel’s military occupation. Trips to the Israeli ministry of interior must be made just to prove that one lives in the city for fear that their residency rights may be revoked; young Palestinian men are stopped randomly by Israeli soldiers to check their ID cards or just to harass them, and settlers are always given the luxury of maximum security whenever they walk the streets. If settlers want to march through the city, the Palestinians are told to close their shops, are barred for hours from reaching their homes if they run along the path of the march and are always the ones blamed if any kind of confrontation between the two sides breaks out.

Jerusalem is being squeezed by these measures more and more each day. But there is always that glimmer of hope, that strength that shines through proving that all is not lost. On Shavuot, Israeli settlers and extremists poured into the Old City, singing loudly, banging on the shop doors and waving huge Israeli flags. The sight was disconcerting to say the least. However, the afternoon of that same day, at Damascus Gate, passersby were met with a completely different scene. Palestinian flags waved in determined Palestinian hands under the threatening eye of heavily armed Israeli police and soldiers. The youths were fearless, demanding freedom, with strong, unrelenting voices.

The sight of the Palestinian flag waving at the entrance to Damascus Gate was a breath of fresh air. All is not lost and never will be because hope is eternal and determination and strength come from a never-ending spring.

That day at Damascus Gate is what all Palestinians must keep in their minds’ eye in spite of the daily oppression of the occupation. No matter how many missions Israel bars from entering or how many houses it takes over, there will always be those brave souls who, despite the risks, will always raise Palestine’s flag.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

There is no point falling into the pit of countering the claims being made about the death of Mohammed Al Durra, the 12-year old boy from Gaza whose videotaped killing was seen around the world. The boy, crouching in fear behind is equally afraid father as bullets whizzed around them, was killed admittedly by the Israeli army. Later, the army recanted after investigating the tape, saying Durra was killed by Palestinian fire instead. Well now, Israel is changing its story altogether, saying he was not killed at all. In fact, he was probably not even wounded and the French channel that broadcast the footage and brought some pretty bad rap to Israel, had most likely filmed a charade.

The reason why I will not waste my time countering this claim is that even with the great lengths the Israeli government went to to prove that the boy was never killed, it could not provide any irrefutable proof that Mohammed Al Durra – who would be 25 now – is still alive. No pictures, no testimonies, no hospital or morgue officials giving statements to refute his death, have been provided. Only sketchy information about ‘poor quality footage’ and the fact that it seems as though the boy moved his arm after he had slumped over his father following the explosion.

My point is this: indeed, Mohammed Durra’s death was at least one of the catalysts that fueled the second Intifada, and thus, was an important event in the history of the Palestinians. However, more importantly – most importantly to me –is the fact that this is about a boy who died in sheer terror, with his distraught father futilely trying to shelter him from the barrage of bullets coming their way.

Mohammed Al Durra was a boy, with a life, a family and friends. He died a horrible death and now he is being made to die a second one. I did not know Mohammed or his family, but I can only imagine how awful it must be for them to read these claims now and feel the pain of losing their child all over again. If nothing else, this is disrespect for human life of the worst kind.

Some may postulate that the rehashing of the Durra case is a personal jab at the French cameraman who shot the footage, Charles Enderlin. Perhaps. But as a Palestinian who has seen the pain endured by numerous families who receive the horrible news that their sons or daughters have been killed by the Israeli army, my concern is for his family and for his memory. He should be left to rest in peace. If Israel has axes to grind with French journalists or with the international community for holding it accountable for its actions, then so be it. Israel is not lacking in the public relations department.

That being said, there is just one decent thing left to do. Leave Mohammed Al Durra and his memory alone.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

This week Palestinians will commemorate Al Nakba, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people when Israel was founded. Every year, Palestinians hang placards pointing to the right of return, they carry keys symbolizing the homes they were forced to leave and could not return to and remember the Palestine that was lost to them 65 years ago.

This year will be no different. Every May 15, Palestinian recall their catastrophe and demand justice. They demand that they are granted the right of return for those who were made refugees virtually overnight and were then relegate to a life they did not choose. But more than anything, they demand recognition of the tragedy that befell them rather than a denial that it ever happened, or worse, that it was of their own making.

It has been 65 years since Israel was established in 1948, which means those who were cast into exile are either very old or have long passed. Those who experienced the Nakba are now few and far between, clinging to those few precious memories of a small garden in front of their house in Jaffa or of the salty smell of the sea in their neighborhood in Haifa. The rest of us are either descendants of these refugees or ordinary Palestinians who feel their cause is our cause because we are one people.

But the Palestinians have made one thing clear. The refugee issue will not die with the last refugee. It is felt nationwide, the loss, the injustice and the fact that those who were forced from their homes have mostly passed, longing for their beloved homes.

We cannot turn back time. What was lost has been altered, destroyed, changed or taken over by Israel’s newcomers. What we can do is hold on to the right to be recognized, for the injustice to be rectified in word and deed and for Palestine to never be lost in our minds or hearts.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.