Peace "Partners" on Life Support

Sharon. And Fatah. Such as they were.

"The Palestinian people voted for resistance," said Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. (Actually, they voted for better social services and less corruption, but so did the Germans in 1933.) (Thanks to newly blogrolled Kobayashi Maru for smartening up that sentence.)

With Hamas in power, can Netanyahu be far behind?

Imagine the apocalyptic mood in Israel, pinned between Ahmadinejad and "Hamastan."

Lots of muttering about Nostradamus.

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On the . . . "bright" is too strong a word . . . less dim side:

A Palestianian Christian candidate thinks the Hamas victory may be "a blessing in disguise":

"Now that they are in power, Hamas will have to take responsibility for the future. They will have to become more moderate. Now they are part of the democratic game and they will have to play by the democratic rules," [Hanna] Siniora said. [ . . .]

"Once they are in power, the Hamas will have to pay salaries, create jobs and provide health and education services. They know that to do all of this, they need stability. In order to be in charge of the government, they will have to become responsible leaders, if they want to stay in power," he predicted.

Siniora said that Hamas has already begun this process of moderation. "Hamas was responsible during the cease fire with Israel - in fact, they were in better control of their people than Fatah was. And they moderated their rhetoric, especially the positions that were anathema to the United States and Israel, such as calling for the destruction of the State of Israel."

Furthermore, he added, "Hamas ran under the slogan, 'Reform and Change' and promised a clean, efficient government. They ran as 'Mr. Clean' in these elections."

For these reasons, Siniora does not believe that the popular vote for Hamas was a vote of support for their terrorist agenda.

"Voting for Hamas was as much a backlash against the PLO as it was a vote for Hamas," he told the Post. "The voters wanted to say to the Fatah, 'You have done nothing for ten years. Now get out.'"

Meanwhile, in the first post-election polls, Israelis favored negotiating with a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, 48 to 43. And the Tel Aviv stock exchange "took only minor losses when the news broke and has since rallied."