Ten years ago today, Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, taking 76 of the 132 parliamentary seats (74 plus two independents). The Palestinian faction best known for a campaign of suicide bombings in the 1990s formed a new government some two months later, thrusting Palestinian nationalism into a crisis from which it has never recovered. Washington's foreign policy establishment still fails to grasp its impact, which may explain its recurring inability to broker the creation of a Palestinian state at peace with Israel.

The Hamas victory was an undeniable black eye for American efforts to democratize the Middle East as envisaged by George W. Bush. The secular Fatah faction, Washington's choice as the pragmatic incumbent ruling party in the Palestinian Authority (PA), lost the elections because of the growing (and correct) public perception that the party was ossified and corrupt.

This perception still dogs the Fatah party to this day. But Washington was willing to tolerate corruption and declining legitimacy in exchange for Fatah's readiness to engage in peace talks with Israel, whose existence Hamas refuses to recognize.

With pressure from Washington and Israel to keep Hamas from power, Fatah blocked the Islamist faction from forming a government.