Hamas Will Boycott Palestinian Elections

Hamas, the extremist Islamist Palestinian faction, made a formal announcement on Wednesday that they would boycott the January 9 elections to replace Yasser Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas also boycotted the elections in 1996 that first elected Yasser Arafat to the office of president. Hamas believes that Palestine should not negotiate with Israel, and faulted Arafat for giving in to pressure to bargain and deal with the Israeli government in efforts to move the peace process forward.

The current leader in the election polls, Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) and acting president of the PA since the death of Arafat on November 11, is scheduled to meet with leaders of Hamas next week in Damascus. Abbas was nominated by the Fatah party, currently the more moderate of the Palestinian leadership groups and the party of Arafat, and apparently has a close relationship with Hamas. In addition to agreeing to meet with Abbas, Hamas announced that it would not attack Israel during the election period, and would consider a truce with Israel to end its part in the most recent intifada. As I have posted in this blog previously, I believe that Hamas largely controls the hearts and minds of the people of Palestine already--they have shown themselves not only to fight for Palestinian independence, but also to offer humanitarian assistance, medical care, and security for local Palestinian communities.

In another interesting development in the race for president of the PA, another Fatah candidate declared himself this week. Marwan Barghouti, in jail for the murder of two Israeli government officials (two life sentences, I believe), announced this week through associates that his name would appear on the ballot. Barghouti represents a younger generation of the Fatah party, and is largely seen as a pivotal character among Palestinians in their twenties and thirties. It seems that he represents many of the same policies as Hamas, but he operates within Fatah, the major political movement that grew out of the Palestine Liberation Organization as it evolved into the Palestinian Authority. It would certainly be interesting to watch events unfold if he were to run the PA from inside an Israeli prison!!!