A dark day for Israel

It's a dark day for Israel that Hamas won the Palestinian elections. Hamas organizes suicide bombings, the murder of its own citizens, to achieve their means. How can one trust people who do that to their own children is beyond my comprehension. Hamas also does not recognize Israel's right to exist and claim they won't negotiate with it. Many in Israel probably will take this as a sign to retrench in the hard line and continue provoking Palestinian unrest. Others probably will live in fear of renewed violence from both sides. Hamas won not only because of its pure hatred of Israel, which unfortunately is shared by most of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, but it also won because it has offered more social services and in a terrible, misguided way, more hope to the Palestinians than the corrupt and ineffective Fatah. They won because the area has steadily become more radicalized on both sides for years, Sharon's withdrawal of Gaza notwithstanding. Is the rise of Hamas' Israel's own fault? Perhaps. Is it Ariel Sharon's fault? Read Ari Shavit's fascinating, deeply ambivalent article in the New Yorker this week. Click on the title of this super serious blog entry to read an interview with Shavit about Sharon.
In a way, Sharon is lucky he's not conscious anymore to see what he has sown.
Hamas has won and I hope in my heart this will not bring a new era of violence and disaster for both peoples.