The overwhelming victory of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, in Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006 is without a doubt the single most significant development on the Palestinian political scene since the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO in 1993.

The event itself – the first truly democratic elections in the Arab world – and its aftermath are likely to prove decisive not only for the future of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict but for the region as a whole, at least in the short to middle-terms.

The international response to Hamas’ entrance into the Palestinian Authority is crucial in this context. So far, however, that response has been knee-jerk and characterized by a lack of any kind of sophistication or understanding vis-à-vis regional realities.

Whatever the international community may think of Hamas regarding its commitment to armed resistance against Israeli occupation, its methods, and its stated aim of recovering all of historical Palestine for Palestinians, it cannot ignore that the movement has proven itself at the ballot box and is, in terms of Palestinian public opinion at least, going from strength to strength. An opinion poll, conducted in March by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, PCPSR, before the international financial boycott of the Hamas-led PA came into force, showed that rather than waning as a result of its entrance into institutional politics, Hamas was gaining and at the expense of its main rival, Fateh.

And while the boycott on transferring monies to the PA is likely to hit ordinary Palestinians hard, there is no reason that that will affect the popularity of Hamas, which can simply blame all its troubles on the international community and Israel. In a sense, Hamas can’t lose especially if it loses.

What may be lost is an opportunity, however. While the extent of its victory by all accounts took even Hamas leaders by surprise, the fact that Hamas decided to stand for parliamentary elections in the first place signals a shift, however implicit, of the movement’s political platform and an acknowledgement by its leaders that armed resistance cannot completely preclude a political process.

With the PA’s erstwhile dominant party, Fateh, fractured and in disarray, Hamas is simply too important to be shunted aside, indeed, arguably the only Palestinian political movement still capable of providing any kind of leadership. With a reputation for financial probity, a long and respected track record of charitable work, and an unflinching attitude to Israel, Hamas has surged in popularity amongst a people despondent with negotiations, tired of corruption and weary after five years of violence.

The rise of Hamas is in some ways ironic for Israel. Hamas was formed as the military wing of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian intifada. The Muslim Brotherhood, itself a late 1940s outgrowth of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, had long stayed on the sidelines as regards armed resistance to the Israeli occupation and Israel had come to see it as a potential rival to the PLO and its dominant party, Yasser Arafat’s Fateh. After occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in 1967, Israel thus allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to get on with its wide-ranging charity activities that included orphanages, medical relief and educational institutions.

Charitable work alone established the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine as a potential rival to Fateh at least in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, even if the movement was roundly criticized among Palestinians for staying outside the armed resistance. It was not until 1984 that the movement first started building military cells, a short-lived effort that was quickly unraveled by Israel. Only when the first intifada started in 1987 was Hamas – the word is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement – founded and became truly militarily active. In 1989, Hamas formed a military group called the mujaheedun, which carried out shootings, hand grenade attacks, interrogated collaborators, and kidnapped Israeli soldiers.

Having soon outgrown its parent organization and become a political movement in its own right, Hamas created its own military wing, the Izzedin Al Qassam Brigades, in 1992, and between 1992 and the signing of the Oslo accords in September 1993, Hamas had made its mark on the Palestinian street.

Israel responded accordingly. In 1989 more than 2,000 members, including leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Ismail Abu Shanab, both assassinated by Israel during the current intifada, were arrested. In 1992, 400 Hamas activists were deported to Lebanon. Despite these campaigns, and the tens of Hamas members who were also killed, it soon became apparent that Israel would neither eliminate nor paralyze the movement. The growth in popularity of the movement was only stalled by the signing of the Oslo Accords.

Hamas was implacably opposed to the Accords. The movement saw them as granting legitimacy to the Israeli occupation given that the PLO agreed to negotiate in the first place and to relinquish the Palestinian claim to the historical borders of Palestine in exchange for a Palestinian state on part of this territory. Ibrahim Maqadmeh, one of Hamas' leading intellectuals [who was assassinated by Israel in March of 2003], outlined the reasons for the movement’s rejection of the accords in his book, “The Gaza-Jericho Agreement – an Islamic Perspective”. Palestine, according to Maqadmeh, is Islamic Waqf land, which cannot be surrendered; the PLO was not authorized to negotiate in the name of the Palestinian people; and the accords in general served the Israeli occupation because they took away Israel’s responsibility for those under occupation and replaced Israeli security control with Palestinian security services working to the same ends. Finally, the accords did not provide any solutions to the principal issues: Jerusalem, the refugees, Israeli settlements and the right to self-determination.

But Oslo held out the promise of a state for Palestinians that was generally well received. While many were wary and suspicious of Israeli motives and dubious that two of the central pillars of Palestinian grievances, the rights of Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem, would be justly resolved through such a process, the lure of statehood and independence was strong and the establishment of the PA with some of the trappings of statehood proved irresistible in the short term.

Hamas was forced onto the back foot and the PA was confident enough to clamp down on the movement from 1994, culminating in March 1996, when hundreds of Hamas members were imprisoned, Hamas-affiliated institutions were closed down and the movement’s weapons were confiscated. Hamas subsequently sat out Legislative Council elections in 1996, arguing that as elections for a body created by the Oslo Accords they served only the Israeli occupation.

But the clampdown of 1996 also forced a subtle shift in the movement’s dealings with the PA. Wary of being accused of being an obstacle to the PLO’s negotiations strategy, Hamas opted to allow the PA to get on with things rather than confront it.

Every subsequent breakdown in negotiations between the PLO and Israel, however, strengthened Hamas. And as negotiations headed for ultimate deadlock at Camp David in 2000, with Israeli settlements in the West Bank multiplying and the economic situation for ordinary Palestinians deteriorating amid widespread accusations leveled against the PA of mismanagement and corruption, Hamas grew ever more popular.

The outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000 signaled the beginning of the latest shift in power on the Palestinian scene, even if Hamas did not enter the fighting until months later. The Israeli strategy of targeting PA security institutions served not only the purpose of rendering the PA paralyzed but showed up its weakness in defending its own people, bolstering the Hamas argument that that indeed was not what it was intended for.

Israeli-imposed closures, meanwhile, destroyed the Palestinian economy; Israel assassinated Palestinian leaders at will and raided Palestinian cities unopposed by the security services. Arafat became isolated internationally and was physically contained in his headquarters in Ramallah. Among Palestinians, the Hamas argument that Israel could not be negotiated with was vindicated, and for a people with no weapons capable of fighting the Israeli army’s F-16s, Apache Helicopters and Abrams Tanks, suicide bombings became seen as one of the only effective weapons to strike back.

The PA’s popularity plummeted. Fateh and Fateh-affiliated groups fractured, with deep fissures that Arafat’s stature barely managed to conceal. Hamas, on the other hand, used to working underground both under direct Israeli control and after the advent of the PA, kept its shape and structure intact. Capable of still providing services to people through its network of charities, it provided a stark contrast to the PA, which was totally dependent on international aid.

Nevertheless, Hamas felt the squeeze as much as everyone else. The tight siege on Palestinian territory dramatically increased poverty, and popular pressure for relief from the violence grew ever stronger. In 2003, Hamas and other opposition factions agreed to a unilateral truce with then Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Yassin proposed an open-ended truce with Israel, to last decades, based on the parameters of a two-state solution, leaving it to future generations to decide upon outstanding issues. While Yassin’s truce was not commented on much at the time, and the 2003 truce eventually collapsed, it represented a leap in Hamas’ thinking. The intifada had presented itself with opportunities as well as realities and, typical of the movement’s pragmatism, strategy was adjusted accordingly.

The opportunity arose with Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip. As usual, suspicions abounded about Israeli intentions, but once Israel came to the point of no return, Hamas quickly adjusted. With Abbas now president, and tensions in Fateh more exposed, Hamas agreed to another truce, still only in agreement with the PA, but after PA agreement with Israel in Sharm Al Sheikh in February 2005. In addition, the movement announced its intention to run for the long-delayed Legislative Council elections for which a date had been set after the presidential elections.

The two events were not unrelated. Hamas could with some plausibility argue that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip not only represented a victory for the armed resistance, but, because it was unilateral, signaled the end of the Oslo Accords and everything that followed. Thus freed from its own rhetorical constraint vis-à-vis the PA, Hamas enabled itself to cash in on its popularity and legitimize itself via democratic elections.

Nevertheless, a softening of Hamas’ stance, however much denied by its leaders, is also implicit in the move. Significantly, Hamas leaders have not discounted the idea of negotiating with Israel, whether directly or through intermediaries. In an interview conducted before PLC elections with this journalist, Hamas leader and now PA foreign minister Mahmoud Zahhar said negotiations with Israel would be entered into if they yielded results, though “not for the sake of negotiating”. By results, Hamas means an acknowledgement by Israel that all territory occupied in the 1967 war, including East Jerusalem, constitutes territory upon which a Palestinian state should be built. Since taking office that has been the consistent message from Hamas.

Running for parliamentary elections also represents an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the PA itself. In addition, Hamas, despite continued Israeli military strikes, incursions, assassinations and arrests, has remained committed to what is increasingly its own truce. Though the movement remains committed to the armed resistance, it does so now, as Zahhar said, as an “option”, further signaling a shift in the group’s position.

But when confronted with three conditions by the international community – unconditionally to recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce violence, and honor past agreements between the PA and Israel –Hamas has been given little option but to refuse to budge.

The reason is as much ideological as it is political. Hamas ran on a ticket of not repeating the mistakes of the past. Most important of these was not to give concessions to Israel without getting anything in return. It is a message that resonates well with the vast majority of Palestinians, a majority that is increasing if the aforementioned PCPSR poll is to be believed.

Furthermore, with Ariel Sharon and now newly elected Israeli PM Ehud Olmert loudly proclaiming Israel’s intention to unilaterally set its own borders, having claimed that first Arafat, then Abbas, now Hamas can not be partners in a political process, Hamas, indeed most Palestinians, sees little point in entering into negotiations, the outcome of which already appears settled.

Unless the international community, led by Washington, believes it can get Israel to the negotiating table for meaningful talks, it does not matter much who is at the helm of the PA. But Washington shot itself in the foot in 2004 by implicitly backing Israel’s retention of major settlements in the West Bank in a letter from US President George W. Bush to Ariel Sharon.

By starving the PA of desperately needed cash, most of which goes to pay the salaries of some 160,000 people, the international community is going down a poorly conceived path. Hamas is likely to follow one of two options available to it: either it sticks to its guns as the PA government and waits to see if the international community blinks first and finds a formula for allowing aid to reach Palestinians; or it rejects the PA completely, reverts to an all-out opposition group and ends the truce.

The second way, the PA likely collapses. Hamas’ superior organization and greater popularity will ensure that outside the PA it is within its power to destroy, one way or another, any group foolish enough to want to play ball with the international community.

But if it remains in power and is allowed funding, then it has to prove that it can indeed administer and is committed to the democratic process that brought it into power next time elections are due. That represents the best hope of the current Palestinian opposition.

The international community also needs to take a broader view. On a regional level, international willingness to consider Hamas a legitimate actor could signal an important change in the region where “Islamist” movements are largely understood to be the most vibrant political forces but are also largely lumped into one category. Hamas remains committed to the notion of a greater Islamic nation, but consciously points to the European Union as a model rather than the Islamic Caliphates. Said Zahhar, “unlike westerners, we do not believe in the clash of civilizations but the cooperation of civilizations. But only as equals.”

At a time when America is perceived to be slowly sliding into a war with the entire Muslim world, reaching out to moderate political Islamic forces ought to be a guiding policy if the US and the international community hope to attain any of their regional objectives. Doing so, in one way or another, with Hamas would send the signal that the international understanding of democracy in the region is not restricted to the participation of those Washington finds acceptable.

It is crucial to getting anywhere in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Omar Karmi is Jerusalem correspondent for the Jordan Times and administrative editor of the bitterlemons family of internet publications.