Desperate and Dangerous

As I guess everyone knows, Hamas has been declared the winner in the Palestinian Parlimentary elections. My own thinking was that this was a statement of desperation given the circumstances that most Palestinians have lived with for their entire lives. Refugees in their own land with little hope for peace, no hope for prosperity...no hope, period.

And although Arafat was a hero to many, his quasi-government was corrupt and closely tied to terror and really didn't offer much in the hope department either. I thought Abbas (the man of two names - why is that?) was a move in the right direction on that front. I was surprised to read this:

The election outcome amounted to a bitter rebuke to the secular ruling Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, which many Palestinians sought to punish for government corruption, chaos in the streets and unrealized hopes for an end to the Israeli occupation.

It seems unlikely that Hamas will help the region on any front, given their militant stance towards Israel, their open embrace of terrorism, and the fact that both the US and Israel refuse to recognize them.

Any hope for an easy transition after the debilitating stroke suffered by Ariel Sharon seems completely dashed. The situation appears desperate and dangerous.