More Gazans turn away from Hamas

csmonitor.com

Support for Hamas, the Islamist militant group that has controlled Gaza since June, has frayed as Israel keeps intense pressure on the thin, coastal strip and its chief Palestinian rival is embracing a language of peace.


A vast majority of Gazans now favor Fatah's path to formal talks with Israel, according to the Ramallah-based Near East Consulting, an independent market research firm. Sixty-one percent of those Palestinians who responded to a November poll also said they see Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party, which controls the Palestinian Authority (PA), as the legitimate government for the Palestinian people.


While the numbers represent a dramatic drop in its popularity since its overwhelming win in Palestinian polls last year, Hamas remains steadfast in its opposition to new talks, as prescribed in the Annapolis, Md., summit of Arab and Israeli leaders last week.


And yet, say analysts, this potent and still widely influential force must be reckoned with before any lasting agreement can be inked. The catch is, according to the logic of Annapolis, Hamas should be treated as "extremist" until it endorses negotiations with Israel and forswears violence, despite the fact that the group controls a part of the Palestinian territories where 1.4 million Palestinians live.


But critics warn that as long as the US, Israel, and Mr. Abbas's PA shut out Hamas, the peace process will be flawed at best, or, at worst, could trigger intensified fighting.


"There is no concept of how to deal with Hamas. That is part of the big problem with what is going on right now," says Gidi Grinstein, who was part of the Israeli peace team for the 2000 Camp David summit, and is the president of the Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute.


Through aid, rebuilding PA institutions, and removing Israeli limits to Palestinian movement in the West Bank, peace-process advocates hope to improve the quality of life in such a way that Gazans will be compelled to turn out Hamas.