The victory of the fundamentalist Hamas in the Palestinian elections will have far-reaching consequences for the region, some totally unexpected. Two aspects, however, are already visible. The Hamas victory is, first and foremost, an indication of the total failure of the traditional Palestinian leadership to create a body politic. Palestine is not yet a state, but it is already a failed one. Since the Oslo Accords of l993 between Israel and the PLO, the Palestinians enjoyed limited transitional autonomy. To be sure, the new Palestinian Authority (PA) took power under difficult conditions, but which new liberation movement does not face serious challenges when it finally must govern? The PA had an opportunity to lay the institutional foundations for a functioning state. But, but instead of supplying the population with the necessary infrastructure � economic development, education, welfare, medical services, housing, and refugee rehabilitation � Yasser Arafat's Fatah-led PA spent more than 70% of its meager budget on a dozen competing security and intelligence services, neglecting all other spheres of activity. It created what is called in Arabic a Mukhabarat (security services) state, very much like what is prevalent in almost all Arab countries � Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, republics and monarchies alike. The vacuum that the PA left elsewhere, including the social sphere, was filled by Hamas. Indeed, its popularity is due not only to its fundamentalist Islamic ideology and its commitment to the destruction of Israel. The high esteem in which Palestinians hold Hamas also grew out of what Hamas actually did for them while the PA squandered its resources. It was not only the endemic corruption of the official Palestinian leadership that turned so many Palestinians from it. Hamas set up better schools, kindergartens, cr�ches for mothers, medical centers, welfare services, and programs for youth and women � all of this in addition giving special grants to the families of suicide bombers. In the elections, Hamas received its dividend for doing what the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority failed to do. It is still an open question whether Hamas in government will become more pragmatic and less committed to terrorism: it certainly is a possibility, and one should not prejudge the outcome. But nor, on the other hand, is it clear that the existing organs of the Palestinian Authority � especially the security services at its disposal � will allow a peaceful transfer of power. Indeed, no such precedent exists: there has never been a peaceful transfer of power in any of the Arab League's 22 member states. Israel's response to Hamas's victory will obviously be complicated by its own elections on March 28, and by a government headed by an interim prime minister, Ehud Olmert, owing to Sharon's incapacitation just weeks after leaving Likud and founding a new, centrist party, Kadima (Forward). Despite Sharon's absence, Kadima maintains its lead in public opinion polls � the most recent gave it 44 of the Knesset's 120 seats, compared to 21 for Labor and 14 for the right-wing rump-Likud, under Binyamin Netanyahu. Kadima's success is due to Sharon's main innovation in Israeli politics: the successful unilateral disengagement from Gaza. That withdrawal was based on the conviction that the gaps between the Israeli and Palestinian positions are too wide to enable meaningful negotiations. Hence, Israel must start deciding the future boundaries of the country unilaterally, hoping for eventual negotiations at a later stage. This is also the line adopted by Olmert. But Hamas's victory suggests that the gaps between the Israeli and Palestinian sides will grow even wider, and that the chances for a negotiated settlement will recede even farther into the future. This leaves further unilateral Israeli moves � such as a partial set of withdrawals from selected areas in the West Bank � as the only feasible option. Realistic conflict management will replace utopian hopes for conflict resolution. In a region full of paradoxes, the Hamas victory may have added another one: usually, when extremists on one side become stronger, it plays into the hands of extremists on the other side, producing a dangerous spiral effect. In this case, however, the victory of the extremist Hamas may strengthen not the extremists of Likud, but, surprisingly, the more moderate centrists of Kadima. One cannot be certain of such an outcome, of course, but it is now the best that one can realistically hope for. Shlomo Avineri is Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University and former Director-General of Israel's Foreign Ministry. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2006. www.project-syndicate.org

Shlomo Avineri