With horns blaring, hundreds of Hamas supporters on Thursday took to the streets in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza to celebrate their party’s historic election victory.
Truckloads of supporters waving the party’s traditional green flags drove through the Islamist stronghold with some militants firing in the air in celebration.
Youths wearing green bandanas or baseball caps hung out of car windows as they careered along the dirt streets of this impoverished camp, shouting Islamic slogans and making victory signs with their fingers.
Celebrations were more muted in Gaza City itself where partisans of the rival Fatah faction had already been out in force on Wednesday in a premature celebration.
Thousands of Hamas supporters also took part in joyous celebrations in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the political capital of the Palestinian Authority and traditionally a bastion of the previously dominant Fatah movement.
Brandishing Hamas banners and portraits of two of their assassinated leaders, the crowds — including veiled women — turned the central Manara Square into a field of green while chanting victory songs and slogans.
A number of armed militants unleashed volleys of celebratory gunfire into the air as the crowds recalled two of the movement’s leaders, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdelaziz Rantissi, who were both assassinated in Israeli air strikes in early 2004.
Although the official results of the parliamentary election were still to be announced, Fatah has already conceded defeat, with Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei submitting his resignation.
Bush: ‘We’re interested in peace’
United States President George Bush said Hamas must renounce its call to destroy Israel after its election triumph, but admitted the stunning result was a ”wake-up call” for Palestinian leaders.
He said the United States would not deal with Hamas, which comfortably won a Palestinian election victory, unless it renounced its call to destroy Israel.
”The United States does not support a political party that wants to destroy our ally Israel,” Bush said.
”People must renounce that part of their platform. A political party that articulates the destruction of Israel as part of its platform is a party with which we will not deal.
”If your platform is the destruction of Israel, it means you’re not a partner in peace. We’re interested in peace,” he said, addressing fears that the Hamas win would further stall US peace efforts in the Middle East.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier made clear that the US position on Hamas, which Washington sees as a terror group, had not changed.
”You cannot have one foot in politics and the other in terror,” Rice said, in a video linkup with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
”The Palestinian people have apparently voted for change but we believe that their aspirations for peace and a peaceful life remain unchanged,” she said.
Bush portrayed the strong Hamas showing as more a reflection at discontent among Palestinians about how they were being governed than anger at the situation with Israel.
”It’s a wake-up call to the leadership. Obviously, people were not happy with the status quo. The people are demanding honest government,” he said.
Bush also said he would like US-backed moderate Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas to remain in office.
”We’d like him to stay in power,” Bush told a news conference, when asked whether Abbas should remain in office in light of the vote results.
The two-state solution
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies called on Thursday for Hamas to recognise the right of the state of Israel to exist.
In a statement the board’s national director Yehuda Kay said this right ”within secure borders” should be accompanied with the eschewing of violence in favour of peaceful negotiations.
The board called on Hamas to commit itself ”to working towards a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as supported by the majority of the international community and in line with key United Nations resolutions”.
Board chairperson Michael Bagraim said despite its past actions, Hamas now had the opportunity to become a partner in the pursuit of a lasting negotiated settlement for both Israelis and Palestinians.
”Throughout its existence, Hamas has been the avowed opponent of the Middle East peace process, and in its present form continues to be a terrorist organisation intent on achieving its aims by methods of indiscriminate violence. However, through its conclusive electoral victory, it now has a window of opportunity to convert itself from a violent revolutionary movement to a responsible political party,” Bagraim said.
The board reaffirmed its belief that only negotiations and compromise by both sides can ultimately end the Middle East conflict.
”It hopes that Hamas will reassess its past strategies and commit itself instead to opening negotiations with the state of Israel with a view to achieving a lasting peace settlement between the Israeli and Palestinian people.”
Pointing fingers
Meanwhile, Israelis reacted to the poll result with shock and dismay.
”This is an earthquake which has taken us back 50 years and will lead to an upheaval,” said former foreign minister Silvan Shalom, now the number two man in the hardline Likud opposition party.
Right-wing Israeli politicians were quick to blame the current Israeli government for Hamas’ rise in popularity, with many of them attributing it to Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August and September last year.
Unnamed Likud officials said Hamas’ victory was the ”direct result of the withdrawal and Palestinian realisation that terror and violence is the way to achieve political gains”.
Pointing a finger at Acting Premier Ehud Olmert, who together with other leaders of his new Kadima party was instrumental in helping Premier Ariel Sharon implement the Gaza withdrawal, the Likud said the acting premier and his party were ”setting up a Hamas terror state that will be a branch of Iran, several kilometres away from Israel’s population centres”.
Even some dovish politicians blamed Sharon’s centrist government.
Yossi Beilin, leader of the small Meretz faction, told Israel Radio that by pulling out the Gaza Strip unilaterally, and not as part of an agreement, Israel ”greatly” boosted the militant movement.
”Israel has a large role in weakening the Palestinian Authority and strengthening Hamas,” he charged.
Hamas’ upset victory also percolated beyond the political level and shares fell sharply on the Tel Aviv stock exchange when trading opened on Thursday morning.
In the street too, many people expressed consternation and trepidation at the news of Hamas’ triumph.
”It’s a disaster for our country. God help us,” said a man in his 40s, shaking his head, who declined to identify himself and comment any further.
”It’s a blow for the state of Israel,” agreed Simon Akuka, a 62-year-old vendor in a Tel Aviv lottery booth, who also singled out the Gaza Strip withdrawal as the main cause for Hamas’ rise.
”The disengagement gave them strength and allowed them to claim credit for getting Israel out of the Strip,” he said.
”Mark my words, from now on Kadima will go down [in the polls] and the entire right-wing will strengthen,” he argued.
A few people nevertheless expressed hope that Hamas’ victory would push the group which until one year ago claimed responsibility for hundreds of attacks and suicide bombings against Israel to abandon terrorism and evolve into a purely political party.
”That’s what happened to all the liberation movements in the entire world,” shrugged Nissim Hed, as he stood in his DVD store.
”They won’t have a choice. If they want support from the world, if they want financial aid, they must change.”
But a client in his shop angrily entered into discussion with him. ”We can say ‘goodbye’ to a peace agreement now for at least four years,” he said bitterly. – Sapa-AFP, Sapa-DPA, I-Net Bridge