Hamas’s secret weapon to continue ruling Gaza

Hamas sees the upcoming elections as its next route back to power and international legitimacy.

By Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute

Is Hamas preparing to contest the Palestinian parliamentary election scheduled for late November?

If so, the United States and its European allies need to make one thing clear immediately: Hamas must not be allowed to participate.

The Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group that carried out the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel cannot be permitted to reinvent itself as a legitimate political party.

After October 7, Hamas has no right to exist as a military organization. It should have no right to exist as a political organization either.

Hamas’s latest statements suggest that the terrorist group has no intention of disappearing from the Palestinian political scene.

On August 11, Hamas urged Palestinians to register for the upcoming election and update their details in the electoral registry:

“Out of national responsibility, and in loyalty to the sacrifices of our people, and in commitment to safeguarding their right to choose their representatives and renew their national institutions by their free will…. Hamas calls upon the sons and daughters of our people to hasten in registering and updating their data in the electoral registry, thereby ensuring their right to participate in the upcoming Palestinian elections…. Registering in the electoral roll represents the fundamental gateway to exercising the right to choose and participate in national decision-making, and electing representatives of our people in its official institutions, foremost among which are the Legislative Council and the Palestinian National Council.”

This sudden enthusiasm for elections should fool no one.

Hamas has not formally announced that it will contest the election. Why, however, is an organization supposedly on its way toward disarmament and removal from power urging Palestinians to prepare for the vote?

Hamas clearly intends to remain relevant to Palestinian politics.

The appeal comes amid reports concerning Hamas’s response to the latest roadmap presented by US President Donald J. Trump’s Board of Peace for the Gaza Strip, including provisions regarding the group’s weapons:

“Weapons of all the militias shall be decommissioned and stored under NCAG [National Committee for the Administration of Gaza] authority according to an agreed upon timetable.”

Hamas, however, has not handed over its weapons or relinquished control over large parts of the Gaza Strip.

Even if Hamas eventually does surrender or store some of its weapons, allowing it to survive as a political organization would be a monumental mistake. What would be the point of disarming Hamas militarily only to rehabilitate it politically?

Hamas cannot be permitted to exchange its rifles for ballot papers and then claim it has suddenly become a respectable political movement.

The October 7 massacre should have put an end to that fantasy. The Hamas-led attack was the worst atrocity committed against Jews since the Holocaust.

Thousands of terrorists invaded Israeli communities, murdered more than 1,200 people, and abducted 251 others to the Gaza Strip.

An organization responsible for such atrocities does not acquire democratic legitimacy merely by participating in an election.

The West has made this mistake before. In 2006, Hamas was permitted to participate in the Palestinian parliamentary election through its “Change and Reform” list without first being required to dismantle its terrorist infrastructure or abandon its 1988 charter, which calls for the elimination of Israel.

The charter opens with a quote from Imam Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood organization: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

The result of the 2006 election was disastrous. Hamas won 74 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, compared with 45 for Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction.

One year later, Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip, expelled the Palestinian Authority and established its own regime.

What followed should be remembered by anyone now contemplating allowing Hamas to participate, directly or indirectly, in another Palestinian election.

Hamas turned the Gaza Strip into a massive terrorist base. It built tunnels, accumulated rockets and missiles, recruited, armed and trained tens of thousands of terrorists, and fought repeated rounds of war against Israel.

Then came the massacre of October 7, 2023.

The lesson could hardly be clearer: allowing terrorists to participate in elections does not necessarily turn them into nice guys. Usually it just gives them the legitimacy and institutions they need to consolidate power.

Twenty years later, are the Americans and Europeans about to make the same mistake again?

Hamas has reason to be optimistic about elections. Despite the catastrophe it brought upon Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by launching the October 7 attack, Hamas remains popular among Palestinians.

Polling by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research has shown Hamas maintaining a substantial advantage over Fatah in party preference and in a hypothetical parliamentary election. The same polling reveals the depth of the problem.

Eighty percent of Palestinians surveyed wanted Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, to resign. Among those who said they would vote in a presidential contest between Abbas and Khaled Mashaal, a Hamas leader, Mashaal would crush Abbas.

Even more disturbingly, 69% of the Palestinians oppose disarming Hamas to permanently end the war.

An overwhelming 86% also said they did not believe that Hamas terrorists committed the atrocities against Israeli civilians depicted in videos from October 7.

This is the political environment in which the November election is supposed to take place. Why, then, should anyone assume that another Palestinian election would produce moderates committed to peace?

Hamas’s leaders presumably know these numbers. Their enthusiasm about voter registration is therefore hardly surprising. They know that Abbas and Fatah are deeply unpopular.

They know that many Palestinians continue to support “armed struggle” against Israel. They also know that a large majority oppose their disarmament.

Hamas may therefore see elections as its next route back to power and international legitimacy.

If Hamas cannot retain its control through weapons, perhaps it can retain or regain influence through the ballot box.

That is precisely why the United States and Europe should act now. There should be no repeat of 2006. Hamas and its affiliates should be barred from participating in any elections.

Candidates who belong to Hamas, represent it, or openly advocate its terrorist program should not be allowed to use elections to legitimize an organization responsible for mass murder.

Hamas’s political and military wings are not two separate organizations. They serve the same movement and the same ideology. The idea that Hamas could be dismantled militarily while being allowed to continue operating politically is grotesque.

Another party that would undoubtedly welcome Hamas’s political survival is Iran. For decades, the Iranian regime has armed, financed, and supported Hamas as part of its network of terrorist proxies targeting Israel and destabilizing the Middle East.

A Hamas victory in a Palestinian election would therefore be a victory not only for Hamas but also for the Iranian regime and its “Axis of Resistance.”

The Iranian regime would be able to boast that despite October 7, despite the Gaza war, and despite international demands for Hamas’s disarmament, its Palestinian proxy survived and returned to power through elections.

That would be the message to terrorists throughout the Middle East: commit atrocities, start wars, sacrifice your own people, survive the military response, and eventually the international community will rehabilitate you as a legitimate political actor.

Did the Allies, after World War II, allow the Nazi Party to continue governing Germany?

The objective after the October 7 massacre should not be to find Hamas a new role. It should be to ensure that Hamas has no role.

No weapons, no militia, no control of Gaza, no participation in Palestinian government — and no electoral rehabilitation whatsoever.

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