Hamas must be banned from Palestinian Authority elections - comment

The author argues that Hamas should be banned from participating in the upcoming Palestinian legislative elections, scheduled for November 28, warning that allowing their involvement risks repeating the "ugly, murder-strewn history" of 2006.

In 2006, the US, under its "freedom agenda," encouraged democratic elections across the Middle East, believing they would foster stability. Then-National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley stated, "Only when Palestinians are able freely to express themselves through ballots rather than bombs will we be able to get on the road to security for Israel." Despite Israel's concerns that an armed group committed to its destruction should not participate in democratic politics, the US did not insist Hamas resolve this contradiction beforehand.

Hamas ran under the party name "Change and Reform" and secured a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, winning 74 out of 132 seats compared to Fatah's 45. This result surprised many, including Washington, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later acknowledging the US had failed to anticipate the magnitude of Hamas's victory.

The author contends that this outcome had severe consequences. Just over a year later, in June 2007, Hamas violently expelled Fatah and the Palestinian Authority from Gaza, transforming the territory into a base for launching rockets and invasions. The article suggests that the US's "innocent naivete" in not foreseeing that a group aiming to replace Israel might prevail at the ballot box led to this outcome, a naivete the author claims persists today.

“

Only when Palestinians are able freely to express themselves through ballots rather than bombs will we be able to get on the road to security for Israel.