Hamas was not elected because of it's 'foreign policy.' It was elected because Fatah was corrupt and they were the only serious opposition party. It is possible to acknowledge them as the elected leaders (they still had to form a coalition government) while refusing to deal with them because of their foreign policy and wile withdrawing aid.

I think the major difference between Fatah and Hamas is the way they relate to Israel.

Fatah recognises Israel as a independent state, whereas Hamas does not.

Although I could be wrong... I briefly heard it on SBS world news.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jun 15^th, 2007 at 8:55pm:


Personally Sprint, I think the rage shown by Muslims in this instance is justifiable.

I read in the weekend Australian that Hamas has taken the Gaza strip and Fatah controls the west bank. The west bank is more religious, more conservative and has fewer refugees from the 1948 war with Israel (one quarter the population). Two thirds of the residents of the gaza strip are refugees.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21914087-601,00.html

Some analysts believe that Israel may now be able to negotiate with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also head of Fatah, about the fate of the West Bank. It has refrained from serious negotiations as long as the Palestinian Authority was a two-headed creature in which Fatah proclaimed a desire for peace with Israel while Hamas openly proclaimed as its goal the destruction of the Jewish state.

Over the past six decades, residents of Gaza and the West Bank have been separated from each other by at least 30km of Israeli territory and they have developed differently. Two-thirds of Gaza's 1.5 million residents are refugees who arrived during the 1948 Israel-Arab war. In the West Bank only about one-quarter of the more than two million Palestinians are refugees.

The Gaza Strip is more conservative and more religious, the West Bank more open to outside influences. Over the years, cultural differences developed, even differences in cuisine and dialect. Gaza was far poorer than the West Bank.

While Fatah is the dominant force in the West Bank, Hamas and other Islamic groups have strong networks there and experts do not rule out an attempt by them to take over the West Bank as well. This would be difficult in as much as Israeli security forces, which were not present in Gaza, are deployed in the West Bank.

Israel over the years has arrested thousands of militants on the West Bank, and one of the first moves by Palestinian security forces on the West Bank following Gaza's fall on Thursday was to round up hundreds of Hamas officials and supporters.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jun 15^th, 2007 at 8:19pm:


i would take precautions to defend myself and my family, but i wouldn't intervene in another's nations elections. it's their election, they have a right to decide who they want in power.

like i said before, countries shouldn't intervene in other countries domestic affairs - that causes alot of problems.

Classic Liberal wrote on Jun 16^th, 2007 at 3:59pm:


as i said before, u take precautions to defend yourself. but u have no right to dictate to the Palestinans who they can or cannot have in power.

countries shouldn't get involved in other countries domestic affairs, it's messy and in some cases is actually bad in the long term. here's a good example - back in the 1950's, Iran had a pro-democractic Prime Minister who was a capitalist and only took actions that were in his countries best interest. nothing wrong with that right??

but his actions were not in the best interests of the US, who decided to help overthrow him and put in his place the Shah regime, who were pro-American but also oppressive dictators. such oppression led to the Islamic revolution and ultimately resulted in the Ayatollah taking over.

now imagine if the US didn't intervene in Iran's affairs - Iran would have had a democractic government.

Classic Liberal wrote on Jun 16^th, 2007 at 4:23pm:


nice, so Israeli's precautions is to dictate to the Palestinans that Fatah must be elected - i.e. rigging the elections.

what i meant by precautions was building up their militiary & security to stop any attacks being launched against them - in the case that Hamas does decide to attack.

Israel expected Fatah to be elected that is why they supported the elections, but they were wrong and hamas was elected.

I dont see why israel would rig the elections to elect hamas...

Anyway hamas agreed to set up a unity givernment with fatah to stop infighting, this recently collapsed.

Israel had nothing to do with it.