Word: fatah
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Voter sentiment was the same from the crowded cities of the Gaza strip to hillside towns in the West Bank: It's time to teach the ruling Fatah party a lesson. As Palestinians lined up to vote Wednesday in their first legislative elections in ten years, many said that their government needed a shakeup. Fatah, founded by Yasser Arafat and led today by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, is widely viewed as corrupt and incompetent. According to polls, around a third of all Palestinian voters now support Hamas, a radical Islamist group committed to destroying Israel but also widely...
...Islamic group that has actively pursued the violent overthrow of Israel, killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and rocket attacks and is listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. But Hamas has also emerged as a major a political force, positioning itself as the chief rival to Fatah, the party of former president Yasser Arafat and current Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. In local elections last year, Hamas won control of towns and cities across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The group is set to increase its power in parliamentary elections this week, which would make...
...towns like al-Bireh, Hamas has built popular support by providing a disciplined alternative to Fatah, which is seen by many Palestinians as corrupt, inefficient and unable to run a garbage collection service, let alone negotiate with Israel. Hamas has long run its own medical clinics, schools and soup kitchens for the poor-mostly in the Gaza Strip, its stronghold. In last year's local elections, Palestinian voters gravitated toward Hamas because of its reputation for having "members with a clean record," as Mayor Hamayel puts it, in a reference to Fatah's many corruption-tainted officials. Residents of towns...
...settlement that recognizes Israel's right to exist would also force Hamas to renounce the ideology on which it was founded. "Sometimes they must pray that they don't win a majority and have to become responsible," says the Israeli security official. Success for Hamas will cause problems for Fatah and Israel, but the greatest uncertainties it will create will come inside the party itself...
...demilitarizing it, but the Israeli government has claimed that Hamas should not be allowed to participate until it acknowledges Israel’s right to exist.According to experts and recent news reports, Hamas is poised to make a strong showing in the polls against Abbas’s dominant Fatah faction, which Arafat founded in the 1950s. The militant group has performed well in local elections over the past year, taking control of many important municipal councils. A poll released last Friday by an independent Palestinian firm, the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, put Fatah and Hamas in a dead...