It appears that Hamas has captured 70-75 seats of the 132-seat Palestinian parliament, which means they will be running Palestine.
Last night, exit pollers were predicting that Hamas would capture 40% of the seats, but now it looks like Hamas got 57% of the seats.
The consequences are already beginning: the Palestinian cabinet has already resigned as Fatah does not wish to participate in a coalition government with Hamas. The peace process is definitely on hold as Israel and the U.S. have said that they will not deal with Hamas until it gets rid of it's platform of calling for Israel's destruction. Should that happen, however, both governments have signalled a willingness to deal with Hamas.
Any hope of a bi-lateral peace now rests with Hamas and their attitude toward Israel.
The sad part about this is that Fatah and Israel failed to work together to bring peace to the Holy Lands. They blew it.
Now they have radicals in charge of the Palestinian territories who have no interest in recognizing Israel or working toward peace. Additionally, Fatah's corruption problems and Israel's hard-line stance brought this about. So they shouldn't blame the Palestinian people too much for what has happened. Their own stubborn attitudes are more responsible than the Palestinians voting in free and fair elections for the government of their choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment