Hamas Makes Important Gains in Palestinian Poll

[klusener]

Is this good or bad?

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7177361

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The Islamic militant group Hamas made significant gains in Palestinian municipal elections, the first contested by the group sworn to destroying Israel, initial results showed on Friday.

Unofficial results tallied from 24 of the 26 West Bank councils contested in the vote on Thursday showed that Hamas had won seven against 11 for the dominant Fatah movement. There was no overall control of the other councils.

Electoral commission officials said they would announce results only on Saturday, but that Fatah had won about 70 percent of the vote overall.

Hamas is boycotting a Jan 9. presidential election for a successor to Yasser Arafat.

But the Islamists' showing in the council poll was certain to send a message of their strength to Mahmoud Abbas, a Fatah moderate who is almost certain to win the presidential poll and expected to revive peace talks with Israel.

 

[klusener]

especially looking for an answer from bilal, if he is still here, cause i haven't seen him for a long time, cause he is the one living in Palestine..

 

[Bilal]

Hi klusener,

I am surprise that Hamas still powerful after all these attacks! They lost most of their Academic, religious, political and military leaders in the last 4 years. I observed that they succeeded to win in well known ‘’ secular’’ and ‘’leftist’’ towns. May be people have strong sympathy with them, because we are in the war , and they are fighting the occupation since 17 years. Also the Palestinian want also to send massage to PA to reduce their corruption.

I am not worry because this is democracy and Hamas accept to be part of this system. They respect the views of seculars and leftists; also they will not limit the personal freedom as some Islamic groups want to do.

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((RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The Islamic militant group Hamas made significant gains in Palestinian municipal elections, the first contested by the group sworn to destroying Israel, initial results showed on Friday.))

I think (Reuters news is not accurate: Hamas is not just militant group who want to destroy Israel!…. They started as religious-civil- charitable groups who has nothing to do with violence and wars. In 1988, under high pressure of people, they decided to create military wing called (Ezz eddin Qassam military wing) to work parallel with academic-civil wings. Hamas want to liberate Palestine (completely) … the same as many Israeli parties (including the government) believe that Israel should be ‘’liberated completely’’ ….

Even I do not support them; Hamas is not Taliban (as pro Israel media claim!).

Hamas is classified as very moderate Islamic movement, and 20% of their candidates are women. Also they do not focus on personal freedom (e.g. women clothes-in fact 70% of their supporters are women , and many of them do not wear Islamic clothes ) . Beside that, they respect the other religions and ideologies, so they celebrate with Christian in their feasts and they make sometimes alliance with communists and leftists if it is necessary.

Most of Hamas leaders are educated people, I Know many of them who got PhD in Science or Engineering from the best Universities in the West. They respect western civilization and they do not agree with random killing as Al Qaeda do.

Hamas has strong charity network, and they succeeded to build many hospitals, schools and institutions, also they doing well in helping poor families.

I think if Hamas stop suicide bombers attacks against Israeli civilian targets, they could be great resistance movement.
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