Meeting with Elias Zananiri

After breakfast on Saturday morning, we met with Elias Zananiri, a journalist with strong ties to the Palestinian Authority government of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and the authors of the "Geneva Peace Accords".

Zananiri offered a Palestinian perspective on the situation in Israel, including stories alleging daily humiliation of Palestinians in the occupied territories. His take on the Hamas victory in the recent Palestinian elections, later delivered by email, is quoted, verbatim, below.

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Why Hamas Won! Facts Sheet

1. Hamas took 74 seats of the 132 parliamentary seats - or 56 percent.

2. The Palestinian electoral system is complex, where every citizen votes for a national list to pick up 66 members of the parliament members and a district list from which another 66 members of parliament are elected.

3. The number of representatives in each district is determined by the relative size of the population in this district.

4. The elections results are all about performance. FATAH had such a very bad performance. Numerous members ran as independent figures, causing a huge amount of votes to disperse, losing the chance to win. Hamas, on the other hand, ran a successful campaign with a minimal number of candidates.

5. In Hebron, for instance, each citizen had to check off nine names from a list of 46 candidates. Of the 46 candidates running, Hamas presented only nine, while FATAH and other parties and independents made up the remaining 37 candidates.

6. As a result, Hamas received 29 seats (43.94%) on the national list. As such, 56.06% of the Palestinian votes went to non-Hamas candidates.

7. On the district list Hamas won 68% of the seats, with non-Hamas candidates taking 32% of the seats. In reality, however, Hamas candidates on the district lists received 36.5% while non-Hamas candidates received 63.5% of the votes.

8. In short, the public did not shift to Hamas as much as the non-Hamas forces ran a very unsuccessful and lousy campaign.

Political reasons for why Hamas won:

· Corruption.

· Lack of political process.

· Unilateralism.

The Palestinian public at large became fed up with a corrupt PNA government and wanted some change. The PNA leadership did little to fight corruption and the little it did was remarkable anyway. One should only take note of the fact that both the Palestinian public and the US President praised former Finance Minister Salam Fayyad for the excellent job done in the field of transparency and fighting corruption. The public expected more to be done. But time was not on the PNA side. Matters were developing rapidly, especially at a time when no political breakthrough was achieved.

An Israeli government that avoided genuine and serious talks with President Abu Mazen and decided to go ahead with its unilateralism is to blame for the rising power of Hamas. The unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was portrayed by Hamas as a victory to its tactics, including the rocket attacks on Israel’s southern towns. “Four years of Qassam rockets,” read huge Hamas banners in Gaza, “brought to the Palestinians better results than ten years of negotiations.”

And we are still astonished at Hamas victory? In January 2005, Abu Mazen was elected president based on the very consistent line he adopted supporting talks as the only means to solve the conflict. Israel’s decision to dump the bilateral process of talks with President Abu Mazen automatically and inevitably weakened his authority and gave way to the rise of Hamas and other anti-reconciliation forces. Those who voted for Abu Mazen expected him and his political line to deliver. Israel, and to a large extent the US Administration, played a significant role in weakening Abu Mazen. They should learn from past mistakes.

Is it too late? Not really. The Basic Law of the PNA gives enough powers to the president to continue what he pledged to achieve: a negotiated peace settlement with Israel. The President is also the Chairman of the PLO, the supreme point of reference for negotiations with Israel. Many things can still be done to save the region. On top of them is to resume talks immediately after elections in Israel and to reach a final status agreement as early as possible.

Israel after the elections may have the most powerful government in its 58-year history. A coalition of Kadima, Labor, Meretz and possibly Shas and the Arab parties can give the upcoming prime minister a parliamentary power of no less than 70 mandates (61 are needed) to cut an end of conflict deal with the PLO under Abu Mazen.

A large window of opportunity is being open right after elections in Israel and it has to be utilized perfectly well. This is the only way to sideline the rising power of Hamas. The Palestinian public needs a settlement. The Israeli public is no less enthusiastic about a peaceful settlement. The new Israeli government will have to decide whether to go along a path of bilateral talks with President Abu Mazen or to continue its unilateral approach, which is identical to that of Hamas that negates talks with Israel.

To sum up, all efforts are needed to empower Abu Mazen and with him the moderate and reasonable forces in the Palestinian society (they are by the way at least 63 percent who voted personally for Abu Mazen) through negotiations that yield visible achievements to the Palestinians. This is the only way to stop the rapid deterioration in our region.

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