BECAUSE LIFE DOESN'T TAKE PLACE IN A VACCUUM:

Why the Palestinians are voting for Hamas (David Horovitz, 1/13/06, THE JERUSALEM POST)

In mid-December's elections for the local council in Ramallah's adjacent municipality, El-Bireh, Hamas won nine of the 15 council seats.

Two went to independent candidates and Abbas's Fatah list won only four.

"It was a protest against Fatah corruption," says the flat-capped owner of a dry-goods store around the corner from the municipality building. "People are fed up with the mess."

You don't have to press hard for details. Over cups of bitter coffee, the grievances come pouring out. On a national level, people see top Fatah officials building themselves lavish homes and driving luxury cars. And on a local level, they see jobs being given to relatives and friends, unfairnesses in the awarding of building permits, dirty streets.

He doesn't volunteer whom he voted for, and I don't push him. He notes that only 6,000 locals voted in the El-Bireh elections, perhaps a quarter of the potential electorate. He says he doesn't know if people's despair over what he calls "interior issues" will translate into similar support for Hamas in the parliamentary vote. And he asserts that voters didn't opt for Hamas "out of religious affiliation."

But the bottom line, he says, is that Abbas's PA has lost the trust of ordinary Palestinians. "People think Hamas will do better, be fairer, than Fatah."

Another man in the store chimes in that "even Christians are voting for Hamas. People are saying, 'Things can't be any worse.' They hear the international community saying that 'if you elect Hamas, we'll cut off aid.' But it's the PA that was misusing the world aid. Why does the world insist that Mafia rule is the only leadership the Palestinians can have?

The reality is that most of us would vote for Hamas.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 13, 2006 12:16 PM