The second uprising, the al-Aqsa intifada in late 2000—after the failure of peace
talks with Israel, little improvement in the lives of Palestinians, and a near doubling
of Jewish settlers since 1994—placed additional stresses on Palestinian society. Arafat’s
political base, Fatah, fractured along generational and ideological lines. By contrast,
Hamas used suicide bombings and shrill anti-Israel rhetoric to build public support
among Palestinians increasingly frustrated by the failure of the peace process launched
in the 1990s to produce positive results in their daily lives. These stresses became
increasingly obvious after the death of Arafat, the only leader most Palestinians had
ever known. His successor, Mahmoud Abbas, attempted with little success to negoti-
ate compromises with Hamas and other groups.
Abbas encouraged Hamas to enter the political process, hoping that the need to
face voters would lead the group to moderate its positions. Hamas did surprisingly
well in 2005 local elections, in several cases sweeping entrenched Fatah leaders from
power. This success led Hamas to put forth candidates for the Palestinian Legislative
Council in January 2006 elections, the first parliamentary elections in a decade. As
election day, January 25, approached, opinion polls showed strong support for Hamas
candidates, running on a platform with the appealing slogan “Change and Renewal.”
In addition, Fatah in many cases ran two candidates for a single seat, splitting what-
ever support existed for it. Hamas won a stunning victory, taking 74 of the 132 seats—
more than enough to give it effective control of the government. Fatah ran a distant
second, winning only 45 seats, and several smaller parties (including factions that had
broken away from Fatah) took the remaining 13 seats.
The prospect of a Palestinian government run by Hamas alarmed the Israeli gov-
ernment, which had worked with Fatah because the party and its leadership had rec-
ognized the Jewish state in 1993. Israel’s acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert—who
had taken office three weeks earlier after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a mas-
sive stroke—immediately refused to negotiate with the Palestinian government “if its
members include an armed terrorist organization that calls for the destruction of the
State of Israel,” a reference to Hamas.
On January 30, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, U.S. secretary of state Con-
doleezza Rice, and the European and Russian representatives of the diplomatic group-
ing called the Quartet met in London to discuss a united approach to a Hamas-led
government. While congratulating the Palestinians on holding successful elections, the
Quartet issued a statement essentially demanding that Hamas abandon much of its
core ideology. All members of the new Palestinian government “must be committed
to nonviolence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obli-
gations, including the Roadmap,” the Quartet insisted. The so-called road map was
the phased plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by the Quartet in 2003 (The
Road Map, p. 298).
Implicit in the Quartet’s statement was a threat by the United States and the
European Union to suspend tens of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian
Authority unless Hamas met the three conditions. The Israeli government also
announced that it would cease transferring to the Palestinian Authority some $50
million a month that it collected, on the authority’s behalf, from various taxes on
imports to the Gaza Strip and West Bank. These taxes and international aid provided
most of the Palestinian government’s income, which in turn underpinned the econ-
omy of the territories.
318 ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS