Earlier in the week, Prime Minister Abbas offered Hamas to take part in the government cabinet so that a stable situation can be built post-Israeli pullout. At least that’s the reason he gives. In any case, it didn’t take much brain power to know that they’d refuse this offer.

Palestinian mujahid group Hamas rebuffed an invitation to join the Palestinian cabinet, snubbing President Mahmoud Abbas who wants a unity government to help him control Gaza after Israel’s planned pullout.

Hamas spokesman Mushir al – Masri said that Forming a unity government at this late time will not be useful. But Hamas has proposed setting up a special committee to co-ordinate Palestinian moves during the pullout.

Here’s another little gem.

A senior Hamas official Wednesday threatened both open confrontation with the Palestinian Authority and continued attacks on Israel from Gaza after the disengagement, saying that Hamas had “lost faith” in Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).

In an interview with a local Gaza news agency, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said Hamas was not willing “to serve as a fig leaf” for PA control of Gaza following the disengagement, would not give up its weapons and was liable to continue bombarding Israel with mortars and rockets from Gaza after the disengagement “in order to liberate the West Bank and Jerusalem.”

However, other senior Hamas officials moved quickly to try to moderate the fears of civil war that Zahar’s interview aroused among the Palestinian public. Sheikh Hassan Yusuf, a senior Hamas leader from Ramallah, for instance, published a statement saying that Zahar “exaggerated in describing ÄHamas’Å differences of opinion with the Palestinian Authority and Abu Mazen.”

Abbas is no angel, but Hamas can’t govern at all. What they have is high-pitched rhetoric backed up by guns and the social services they run based on funding from regimes like Iran and sleeper cells in Europe. Joining in the government would compromise their position as independent, and even worse, it would force them to moderate. Taking part in the government would make them prove that they either can or cannot do so, and the latter is more likely. With elections coming up, Hamas may come to dominate and that’s what they’re holding out for — a huge election win so that they don’t have to govern well.

This highlights the big problem with holding elections, even ones as skewed as the recent Palestinian ones, without having first taken steps to liberalize the society. The west spent years dealing with Arafat the wrong way by giving him money without getting anything in return, well, except years of intifada. Elections alone can’t solve these decades of problems, and in this case, they will allow a group like Hamas to come to power which will backslide the situation even further.

Elections are not the single benchmark of liberal democracy. There are many aspects of the jewel, such as a vibrant economic sector, diverse civil society, and a free press for example. Unfortunately, the Palestinian territories have elections but nothing else, allowing for a dysfunctional authoritarian government at best and a terrorist state at worst. Perhaps a program similar to German or Japanese democracy building should have taken place, but now it is too late since the ball has already been thrown into the extremists’ court.

UPDATE: Norm Geras posts an interesting, though not surprising, interview with a Hamas official:

Q. Will Hamas consider the occupation over once the settlers leave Gaza?

A. Gaza is not Palestine. Gaza is part of Palestine. And where there is occupation of the land of Palestinians we will fight this until we end the occupation.
…..
Q. The Hamas vision has always been one Palestine, from the Jordan River to the sea. Is that still the case or has Hamas modified its position?

A. We want all our rights. There’s no problem Äwith aÅ step-by-step solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict. We can now accept Gaza and West Bank and in the future, all Palestine…