Some Palestinians See End of Secular Dream

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012801153.html

Some Palestinians See End of Secular Dream
Election Win by Islamic Group Hamas Clouds Prospects for Arab Nationalism

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 29, 2006; Page A01

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- The worshipers overflowed the mosque on Manger Square, covering the rain-slick stones with rows of prayer rugs and parked cars. At the center, surrounded by kneeling men, stood a showy symbol of their triumphant week: a van bristling with the green banners of Hamas.

Here in the cradle of Christianity, the radical Palestinian movement that favors creation of an Islamic state won every parliamentary seat on Wednesday's ballot except those reserved for Christian candidates -- a lopsided victory duplicated in such secular strongholds as Jerusalem and Ramallah on the organization's way to a majority in the next legislature. From his second-story office above the square, Victor Batarseh, Bethlehem's septuagenarian mayor, saw in the prayerful celebration the end of something.


"I have always believed in a secular Palestinian state, so I would have preferred another result," Batarseh, a member of the Marxist-oriented Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said Friday. "We have to accept this, whether we like it or not, because it is the will of the people."

The electoral triumph by Hamas, an organization that is committed to establishing an Islamic state across territory that includes Israel and whose armed wing has carried out bombings and other attacks on Israeli targets, has had repercussions around the world. It upended the Palestinian political order, complicated peace efforts with Israel and threatened the continuation of financial aid from the United States and other Western countries.



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