In January, Palestinian Authority President Abbas issued a decree ordering the first Palestinian elections in over 15 years. There are currently three votes scheduled: parliamentary elections on May 22; presidential elections on July 31; and elections for the Palestinian National Committee — the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization — on August 31.
Most of the reporting about the upcoming Palestinian elections has focused on the long-overdue presidential vote. Indeed, Abbas is in the 17th year of what was meant to be a four-year term. Possibly more interesting, however, is the May 22 poll.
The previous elections for the Palestinian parliament took place in both 1996, shortly after the creation of the Palestinian Authority, and 2006. While the 1996 elections resulted in a clear victory for Fatah — with 70 percent of the seats going to the party founded by Yasser Arafat — the second vote ended with a dramatically different result that eventually led to the fracture of the Palestinian Authority after a year of infighting.
Hamas’s 2006 Shock Win
On January 25, 2006, the Hamas-led Change and Reform list won 74 seats in the 132-member Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the Palestinian Authority’s parliament. The vote took place just months after the end of the Second Intifada, during which the terror group had perpetrated dozens of deadly attacks on Israeli civilians. Hamas, however, mostly campaigned on a platform that promised to root out corruption in the PA — a problem that many Palestinians today are saying will again play a role in the upcoming elections.
Related Reading: The Second Intifada: Israeli Society Terrorized
Hamas defeated Fatah not only in the Gaza Strip, but also in traditional Fatah strongholds like the West Bank city of Ramallah, as well as in the eastern part of Jerusalem. The results shocked the PA’s western backers, who had anticipated a Fatah victory, in line with the 2005 presidential elections that had crowned Mahmoud Abbas PA leader. Indeed, according to counter-terrorism expert Dan Diker, the American decision to back Palestinian elections was based on an overestimation of Fatah’s popularity. Then-US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice later admitted that the Bush administration did not have a “good enough pulse” on the situation.
Although then-president George W. Bush did urge Abbas to confront “armed gangs” before the PLC election, he stopped short of saying that the PA should prevent terrorists from running, despite a request to do so by 70 members of the US Senate.
As some have pointed out, the failure to prevent Hamas from participating in the elections clearly violated the agreements the PLO signed with Israel. The 1995 Oslo II agreement says, in Annex II, Article III, Section 2: “The nomination of any candidates, parties, or coalitions will be refused, and such nomination or registration once made will be cancelled, if such candidates, parties, or coalitions: commit or advocate racism or pursue the implementation of their aims by unlawful or non-democratic means.”
Hamas, whose charter advocates for the destruction of Israel, obviously fits that definition. Consequently, five days after the terror group’s victory, Bush announced that he would not support a government that included Hamas. “We want to work with a government that is a partner in peace, not a government that is — whose declared intentions might be the destruction of Israel,” said the president, who had previously promoted democracy as an antidote to the spread of terrorism in the Middle East.
The 2007 Civil War: ‘Cruel Beyond Our Imagination’
The 2006 poll turned out to be a prelude to a civil war in the Palestinian territories. Within weeks after the elections, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh formed a government, which Fatah refused to join. Shortly thereafter, the US and other members of the international community severed diplomatic relations with and suspended their financial support to the Hamas-led PA. Moreover, the PA lost access to banking services and loans as banks worldwide imposed sanctions, and a financial crisis ensued.
Meanwhile, armed clashes between Fatah and Hamas began to intensify. After the elections, Hamas had formed its own security service called the Executive Force, operating in cooperation with its military wing. By the end of the year, conflicts between Hamas’ police and security forces loyal to Abbas escalated into a full-blown internecine conflict. Although the exact number of casualties is unclear, a UN report states that internal violence in the first five weeks of 2007 alone killed 86 Palestinians, including 11 children. Additionally, almost 500 Palestinians were injured. Following the violence, Abbas tried to outlaw the Executive Force, but to no avail.
Over the months that followed, several truces were negotiated, only to be broken again within days. While a Saudi-brokered unity government between Fatah and Hamas was established in March 2007, fighting continued. In June, Reuters reported that some 630 Palestinians were killed since Hamas’ election victory. According to a Gaza doctor, the level of cruelty during the civil war was “beyond our imagination.” Eyewitness reports describe how Hamas threw members of Abbas’ security services off 15-story buildings in Gaza and mutilated the bodies of dead adversaries.
The infighting culminated between June 10 and 15, 2007, when Hamas forcefully expelled Fatah from the Gaza Strip. The takeover was secured after Hamas struck the main Fatah headquarters in the Strip with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons and seized the compound of the Fatah-controlled security services, giving them control over US-supplied weapons and jeeps. In Ramallah, Abbas fired Hamas ministers and dissolved the three-month-old unity government — a move not recognized by the terror group.
The decree formalized the split between the West Bank and Gaza, which exists to this day.
Related Reading: Invisible Blockade: Media Silent on Palestinian Authority’s Gaza Sanctions
Unsurprisingly, the Palestinian Legislative Council was suspended shortly thereafter, and officially dissolved in 2018. Last year, The Times of Israel described how the PLC building in central Ramallah, inaugurated in 2004, is now defunct. “Most politicians stopped turning up but kept receiving salaries of about $3,000 a month — in a territory where nearly a quarter of people live in poverty,” the report said. “In the parliamentary offices next door, the postman still delivers mail to the lawmakers’ boxes, but many haven’t been checked in years.”
For more than a decade, the West Bank has been ruled by decree, while Gaza continues to be ruled by terror.
The May Election: Groundhog Day Or A New Path Forward?
In 2014, another unity government was formed following a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement, but it disbanded a year later over disagreements. According to Abbas, the government was unable to operate in the Gaza Strip. When the PA’s Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah visited the coastal enclave in 2018 for reconciliation talks, his motorcade was targeted by a roadside bomb. The PA said it held Hamas responsible for the attack.
Despite several assurances over the years that new elections would be held, the PA has always failed to deliver on these promises. That Palestinians will probably in May have the opportunity to express themselves in the most fundamental democratic manner is a step in the right direction.
According to a March 2021 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), if elections were held today — with all factions participating — 43 percent would vote for Fatah. Hamas would garner 30 percent of the votes, with 18 percent of eligible voters undecided.
Related Reading: Why Can’t the Palestinians Vote?
As the 2006 election showed, however, polls can be deceiving. According to Dan Diker, the US in 2006 almost had “blind trust” in PCPSR polling data that predicted a Fatah victory. Time will tell if the Palestinian people again choose Hamas’s violent rejectionism or a new path forward towards internal political reconciliation and, just maybe, peace with Israel.
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