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Peace Process

Israel softens stand on Hamas election bid


By Ryan Jones
October 23, 2005

Just days after Washington signaled it would do nothing to prevent Hamas from participating in upcoming ?Palestinian? parliamentary elections, Jerusalem backed down on its threats to pro-actively thwart the ascension of armed terrorists to public office.

?Israel is not going to stop Hamas from participating in the elections,? a government official told The Jerusalem Post Saturday.

Less than a week earlier, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told Israel Radio that Israel ?would do everything it could to prevent Hamas from participating in the elections.?

Last month Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened to obstruct the poll.

?I don't think they can hold elections without our assistance, and we will make all possible efforts not to aid them if Hamas participates,? Sharon told reporters in New York.

But US President George W. Bush last week decided not to insist that visiting PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas ban Hamas from running, or at least require the killers to sign a pledge disavowing the use of violence against the Jews.

The American apparently bought Abbas' claim that Hamas would not play any significant role in government or be offered any ministerial positions.

Washington has for weeks been pressing Israel to follow its lead on the matter.

Opinion polls, however, have consistently shown Hamas garnering as much as 40 percent of the vote in the January poll, giving the group considerable influence over the future policies of the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli officials insisted that while Jerusalem was softening its stance, it would not deal politically with Hamas following the election.

That threat's veracity is questionable, considering Israel's record when faced with international pressure.

Prior to the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords, Abbas' PLO, for decades the world's preeminent terrorist organization, was outlawed in Israel, and citizens were forbidden by law to have contact with the group.

Those prohibitions were quickly repealed amid pressure from the first Bush White House.

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