This one almost flew under the radar.

NABLUS, WEST BANK — Hamas, the major force behind a four-year suicide bombing campaign, announced yesterday it would run in a coming parliamentary election, a move that could undermine Palestinian efforts to end violence, reform a corrupt government and renew peacemaking. Hamas has emerged as a key player in Palestinian politics. A victory by the militant group in the July 17 parliamentary vote — to be held days before Israel is to begin withdrawing from the Gaza Strip — could be a deciding factor in whether the Israeli pullout leads to peace talks or a dead end.

Hamas political leader Mohammed Ghazal said the group would decide after the vote whether to join Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’s cabinet and if it would support his moves to renew peace talks with Israel.

“Until then, anything can happen,” he said. “We still haven’t decided whether to be a part of the Palestinian government and we haven’t decided on the issue of Israel. We will decide in the future whether to talk to them.”
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Hamas has won popular support partly because of its fight against Israel, but also because it has provided welfare and social services to poverty-stricken Palestinians, especially during the last four years of fighting when the situation has worsened.

Abbas said he was not surprised by Hamas’ decision and encouraged other Palestinian factions to compete in the election. “I think this is a good step that we should react to positively,” he said.

Abbas, who is under intense Israeli and U.S. pressure to rein in Hamas and other militant groups, is trying to co-opt the groups, fearing a crackdown would lead to internal fighting.

More on the civil unrest within the article, which actually strikes a pretty accurate picture. Recall this post I made quite a while back. Hamas politics are incredibly popular with the Palestinians, giving them 2/3 of the seats in the municipal elections. If they ran, they would certainly receive many seats as well.

For Israel, this creates an interesting situation. Would Hamas become more political than militant? I don’t think so, as is their politics in the first place. If they are thoroughly legitimized through elections, the problem would lie in that they are a political party that is also heavily armed and powerful… much like Hizb’allah in Lebanon. Therein lies the problem for Israeli policy toward the PLO.

Additionally, read this piece that Kirk Sowell posted here a couple weeks ago. Hamas believes that pressure on Syria will harm it — something happening a lot now, and if true, could help make Hamas significantly gentler — and also says that the State Department is trying to coerce them into being more political than militant. Very interesting.

UPDATE: Huge brawl erupts between hundreds of student supporters of Hamas and Abbas’ Fatwa. This is just the beginning of the upcoming power struggle.