What now?

For those of you living in a cave, or who just have not checked out the news today, there were elections in Palestine (which is only sort-of a country since they really don't have territory per se) and the results were quite stunning. Hamas, which the U.S. government has labeled a terrorist organization, won a majority of the seats in their legislature. It was expected that they would win a few seats, but not a majority. They take over for a group called Fatah, which Yasser Arafat started. The story that I linked to mentions that Fatah was considered somewhat corrupt. Although Hamas does call for the destruction of Israel, they do nice things too like build schools. Does that mean I think they are good? No, but I just want to give both sides.

Bush has said that the U.S. will not negotiate with the new Hamas-run government unless it renounces violence. Um...yeah. I would laugh my ass off if the new prime minister for Palestine told Bush the same thing. Needless to say, this could create a tense situation. It would be hard for Hamas to totally renounce violence since their people are also quite often the victims of violence at the hands of Israel, a country that I would hesitantly label a terrorist nation.

In any case, this could make our "peace attempts" in that lovely part of the world a little more sticky.