Fadi, Mustapha and Khaled give their twopence worth...

Amid all the professional political analysis of the PLC elections you are reading in the press and watching on the news (or not), I thought you might appreciate the opinions of the folk on the ground…Here are the views of three of my Palestinian friends/colleagues (all Muslims) about the Hamas victory:



Fadi:
I am glad that Hamas won. Even though I voted for PFLP (Marxist-Leninist party), I’m just so happy that Fateh didn’t win. They had their chance and they brought no improvements for the Palestinian people. They just made things worse. Hamas now have a chance; we should give them the chance. We will see, they will negotiate with the Israelis and they will negotiate with Abu Mazen. You will see. It is what the people want; this is what they have chosen.



I asked him what the people in his village, Jayyous, thought and he said: Everyone I talk to is so happy with the result. They were just so disillusioned with Fateh and they hope Hamas will bring in a new era, a fresh start.



Mustapha:
I am very happy with the result. I am so happy that Fateh didn’t win. (He also voted PFLP). I think Hamas will invite many Fateh figures to become ministers though- as the Hamas figures just don’t have the experience or level of expertise needed. I don’t think that anything will change on the societal level. I don’t think they are going to implement new restrictive laws regarding culture. They said they wouldn’t



Khaled (he also voted for PFLP):

It’s a big problem that Hamas has won 60% of the seats in the PLC. It is not good for the Palestinian people and it’s not good for Hamas even. It is not capacitated to deal with this much power. They should have won 45-48% of the seats, in order to form a solid opposition to Fateh and make them tow the line in the Council. Now they are facing having to be a state government, something that has huge responsibilities and huge implications- It was always a grassroots organization, albeit a strong extended one, up till now. It cannot act like Iran- Iran has a state, with resources, oil, etc. Palestine has nothing; it is completely dependent on foreign aid. Now Hamas knows that it is in trouble (as they were most probably unprepared for such a wide scale victory), which is why they have invited Fateh to join them in a government- because they need Fateh. It is an interesting turnabout, as Fateh were their arch-enemies before. I think that NGOs could have a big opportunity now with regard to aid. Donors might turn back to NGOs, as in the past, and assign most funds to them. In recent years, they had started to inject the PA with lots of money, to boost the “democratization” and growth of state institutions…That money did not lead to improvements for the Palestinian people and now the EU and other donors will be reluctant to fund Hamas…so maybe the money will come back to the NGOs. Although Hamas has said that it won’t make any changes to laws regarding religion and cultural behaviour, I’m not so sure…