Hamas would win a West Bank election if it was held today: poll

[oberliner]

A new poll shows growing support for the Islamist Hamas movement in both the West Bank and Gaza. If the elections were held today, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would beat Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

The poll, by veteran pollster Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, found that 48 percent of the electorate in both the West Bank and Gaza would vote for Haniyeh, and 45 percent for Abbas. Just three months ago, a similar poll predicted a victory for Abbas, with 51 percent support over Haniyeh’s 40 percent. The poll showed Haniyeh as the most popular he has been since 2008.

“It’s a moment of happiness and popularity for Hamas, and a moment of challenge for Abbas,” Bassem Ezbidi, a professor of political science at Birzeit University told The Media Line. “Hamas is using its ‘victory’ in its recent war with Israel to enhance its status.”

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/18/hamas-would-win-a-west-bank-election-if-it-was-held-today-poll/

[Ken Burch]

1. And Likud(whose charter STILL opposes a two-state solution)

is certain to win the next Israeli elections, meaning Netanyahu may end up being prime minister-for-life.

The bad guys are popular on both sides at the moment. Is anyone surprised to find that out?

[oberliner]

2. Wrong on all counts

Literally every sentence.

[Ken Burch]

9. Has the Likud charter been changed?

If the Hamas charter matters, the Likud charter does too.

[oberliner]

12. Sorry I meant the sentences in the body of the message

Not the subject line.

[Ken Burch]

13. Not sure why you'd say the sentences in the message are wrong

Likud and its scarier partners have a big overall lead in the polls. There doesn't look to be any real chance of the prowar right losing in Israel...or of Netanyahu ending up out of power anytime soon, if ever.

So where did I have it wrong, as you see it?

[King_David]

3. It's ridiculous that you compare

Likud ( a right wing party I would never vote for.. But democratic )

To a bunch of terrorists who not only hate Jews but have proven it with murder and terrorism and pizza parlor bombings teenagr discoteque massacre at the Dolfinerium and Passover massacres and the worst of the worst murder imaginable .

[Ken Burch]

10. I didn't say they were exact moral equivalents-just that they were both the bad guys.

The fact that Likud is "democratic" makes little difference when it democratically carries out the unjust and completely indefensible settlement expansions, the no-longer-needed military occupation of the West Bank, and its insistence on a "security concept" that would force a Palestinian leadership to agree to terms that meant that Israeli territory surrounded a Palestinian state on ALL sides(with the major settlement blocs left in place)-an insistence, in the last case, would politically destroy ANY Palestinian leadership that agreed to those terms, thus making any such agreement meaningless.

Is it really an improvement that a party implements unjust and reckless policies by democratic vote? Why, exactly does that matter if what is democratically decided is brutal, destructive, and ultimately injurious to Israel itself?

This "Our side is ALWAYS better" meme is childish and really serves no purpose. It's not a contest over whose leadership is made up of saints and whose is made up of sinners...it's a dispute about whether it's right to perpetually subjugate an entire nation over the actions of only a small group within that nation. It would be wrong for Palestinians to invade and occupy Israel proper(the lands on the Israeli side of the Green Line) because of the occupation...it's equally wrong to occupy the West Bank to punish everybody in Palestine for the actions of some.

[bemildred]

4. So, Bibi really taught them a lesson didn't he?

[oberliner]

5. His actions have gone a long way towards this shift

It is infuriating.

[bemildred]

6. I was thinking in particular of the recent Gaza "war", but yeah, it's all part of it.

One trick ponies, with no new ideas, and every problem looks like a military problem. We have similar issues in the good old USA, overemphasis on the military as a solution for anything, but we can afford it better.

[oberliner]

7. And his shunning of Abbas/Fayyad hasn't helped

I think if he had given them something that looked like a "win" it could have positively impacted their standing among the people.

[bemildred]

8. Yes, quite, it is a strategic error to fail to give ones enemies their due.

You demolish the PA in Lebanon, and you get Hezbollah instead; you demolish the PNA in the OPT, and you get Hamas instead, you demolish Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and you get the Shi'ia Crescent instead. There is an answer to every problem, neat, simple, and wrong.

The Palestinians are not just going to disappear because Bibi and the settlers find them inconvenient to deal with.

[azurnoir]

11. Good job Bibi was this what you were hoping for?

I actually wonder because now there is an excuse a reason not to give up an inch of the West Bank they'll elect Hamas and if it changes in the next poll well there's always this one to fall back on for proof

The occupation has been handed a gift of sorts here

[Ken Burch]

14. Probably it's EXACTLY what Netanyahu was looking for.

Throughout his political career, Netanyahu has been committed to ONE objective above all others(his commitment to destroying every last vestige of Israel's Labor past is his secondary long-term goal, but, it's secondary)and that goal is this:

Preventing a Palestinian state from EVER being established.

And if this means peace never comes, Netanyahu doesn't care. Human life means nothing to him at all-even Israeli human life. He cares about nothing but crushing the Palestinians.

Israel deserves better than that...and it amazes me that the posters on this forum who self-identify as "pro-Israel" almost never(oberliner is pretty much the sole exception, and even with him its occasional at best)call Netanyahu out on that in the threads on this group. They aren't doing the country they see themselves as defending any favors at all by giving Netanyahu and his party a pass, over and over again, on all his reckless, arrogant, and senselessly aggressive policies towards Palestine and Palestinians. It's not loyalty to defend a person like that...it's Stockholm Syndrome...because the Likud and its ideology of hatred and winning-at-all-costs are holding Israel and its international supporters hostage.

[zellie]

15. Just wow.

It sure appears that the palestinians support a terrorist organization( that has openly called for the destruction of the "zionist entity&quot more than they want to embrace peace.

of course any voice of moderation is immediately labeled a "collaborator" and maybe draged by a motorcycle thru the streets as an example.

nice trick to suppress dissent.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

16. How long would it be before IDF tanks started rolling into the West Bank?

From the article.

Israel is also punishing the Palestinians for the decision to go to the UN. Israel is withholding $100 million in taxes and customs revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, and is using it to pay Palestinian debts to Israeli companies such as the Israel Electric Company. That money is usually used to help pay the salaries of more than 150,000 Palestinian civil servants.

Israel doesn't get its way so it has a tantrum. Does anybody wonder why the Palestinians are pissed and even thinking about Hamas?