[lbo-talk] [Pen-l] The unromantic side of Hamas

[Marv Gandall]

Thanks, though Abbas' and Fayyad's Fatah is not much of an alternative. The Israelis releasing Barghouti would be tantamount to the release of Mandela which signalled the end of South African apartheid. If Barghouti happened to run and win election, the eclipse of Hamas by a secular progressive Palestinian would, I think, ratchet up the international pressure on the Israelis to move in a similar direction, while also winning the support of women, gays, trade unionists, and others in the West with legitimate misgivings about Hamas and the other Islamist movements.

On 2010-08-17, at 9:47 AM, Robert Naiman wrote:


> Here's some recent poll data:
> 
> "If new presidential elections are held today, Abbas would receive the
> vote of 54% and Haniyeh 39% of the vote of those participating while
> 7% say they are undecided. The rate of participation in such election
> would reach 61% with 39% saying they will not participate in elections
> in which Abbas and Haniyeh are the only candidates. Last March Abbas
> received 50% and Haniyeh 40%. If the presidential elections were
> between Marwan Barghouti and Ismail Haniyeh, the former would receive
> 65% and the latter would receive 30% of the participants with
> non-participation rate dropping in this case to 28%."
> […]