U.S. and Israelis Are Said to Talk of Hamas Ouster

The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats. The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement.

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I guess Bush's concept of democracy is that it's when people vote like he wants them to.

Hamas Comes to Power: Breakthrough or Setback?

The preeminent Islamist organization in Palestine—Hamas—stunned the world on January 29, 2006 by winning an absolute majority in free, open, and peaceful parliamentary elections in Palestine. In final tallies, Hamas gained 74 out of 132 seats. But what is this supposedly shadowy organization? Hamas is many things: a religious, social, and political movement, a guerrilla and terrorist force. Poised now to assume the ragged reins over the limited, constrained and contorted “national authority” in Palestine—whatever the scope and extent of “Palestine” may presently even be—Hamas faces a host of new decisions that come down to the key question: which faces of the movement will now dominate?

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