After Victory By Hamas, Hope Remains
Local Jewish leaders say group will have to adopt a more moderate stance

By Bethe Dufresne
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=7bee13b9-b471-4a0e-b565-88698830c2a3

Published on 2/12/2006 in Beliefs  

Long regarded as a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States, Hamas triumphed over the Fatah party of the late Yasser Arafat in a Palestinian election last month.
Despite Hamas' militant rhetoric and history of attacks against Israel, however, reaction amongst the Jewish community here was not all dismay.

Jerry Fischer, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Southeastern Connecticut, said many believe it's better for Hamas be part of an elected government than act according to its own rules.
If Hamas expects to win respectability in the international community, Fischer said, it won't be able to employ or excuse tactics such as suicide bombings. All told, he said, the Hamas victory may have a moderating influence.

“The key is the next election,” Fischer said.
Will Hamas permit truly free and open elections, he asked, and then, if its candidates lose, will the party be willing to surrender control?

Fischer said he is hopeful that Hamas will decide it has nothing to gain and much to lose if it encourages or permits attacks on Israel. A thriving Palestinian economy depends on access to jobs in Israel and tourism, he said.

Over the years Fischer has led dozens of trips to Israel, and he has no plans to cut back. But until people see evidence that Hamas will act peacefully, he said, “it's going to be harder to sell a trip to Israel.”
In 2003 Fischer joined David Good, senior minister at the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, to lead an interfaith journey to Israel and the Palestinian territories. Good will lead his fifth trip to the region Feb. 15-26.

Some of the 33 trip members were jittery after Hamas won control, Good said. Reassurance came last week during a visit to the church by Brother Jack Curran, vice president for development at Bethlehem University. A native of Troy, N.Y., Curran was in the United States for university board meetings.
Enrollment at Bethlehem University is two-thirds Muslim and one third Christian, said Curran, and “politics there is one's daily bread.”
While he expected Hamas to do as well as Fatah in the elections, “we were all surprised at the magnitude of the victory,” Curran said.

Echoing what others have said, Curran theorized that most Palestinians who voted for Hamas did so because of Fatah's ineptitude and corruption, not because they condone suicide bombings or want to destroy Israel.

Curran said only time would tell if the Hamas victory will make things more difficult for Christians in the Holy Land. But he is optimistic.

Prior to the elections, he said, Hamas focused on touting its record of fiscal responsibility and helping the poor, not its historic opposition to Israel. The Hamas campaign, he said, was about improving domestic services.

Stonington attorney Peter Viering has long advocated for Palestinian interests as a member of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that maintains the United States is too closely aligned with Israel.

In 2005 he joined a council delegation to observe the Palestinian presidential election won by Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas. He and his wife, Elizabeth, returned in January with a council delegation that also included Hassan Fouda of Groton Long Point. The trip was undertaken to observe the parliamentary elections.

Last week the Vierings flew to Washington, D.C. to testify Thursday before a House committee about their meetings with top Hamas leaders and with Syrian President Bashar Assad during a side trip to Damascus.
“We were in Gaza for the elections,” said Elizabeth Viering, speaking via cell phone while her husband drove to the airport. “It was almost like a holiday. Everyone was very festive, very excited, and the kids had the day off from school.

“The polling places were the schools. The kids were dressed in green, for Hamas, or waving Fatah flags.”
As in 2005, no significant voting irregularities or acts of violence were reported.
Everywhere, Viering said, they heard the win attributed to Hamas' attention to social services and honest handling of money.

Nowhere, she said, did they hear talk of a desire to destroy Israel. But even those who oppose violence expressed admiration and pride that Hamas has taken a stronger stand than Fatah against Israeli occupation, Viering said.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Viering said, they visited Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar at his home, rebuilt after Israeli military forces tried to assassinate al-Zahar and killed his 23-year-old son.
Al-Zahar, a medical doctor, spoke primarily about raising the standard of living for Palestinians and building more clinics and schools, Viering said.

Asked if al-Zahar acknowledged Israel's right to exist, Viering said, “I don't think he used those words. I'm not sure they want to actually say that. What he said was, 'We feel that we need to keep our weapons, the little that we have, to protect ourselves from attacks against us, but we do not plan to initiate force.'”
In television interviews since the election Hamas leaders have said that Israel obviously exists, but without any established borders. Viering said they repeatedly heard that establishing borders is crucial to establishing peace.

Palestinians want those borders to be along 1967 armistice lines, while the Israelis want to retain more territory in the West Bank.

Viering said al-Zahar spoke in favor of a “long-term truce” with Israel “while they discuss things.” She speculated, as others have, that Hamas won't formally recognize Israel in order to “save face,” but that the truce it agreed to a year ago amounts to the same thing.

Attacks launched against Israel during that period have generally been attributed to the radical group Islamic Jihad.

On Tuesday, acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke of disengaging from the West Bank, but said Israel would keep its major settlements there. An ABC News report said those settlements house about three-fourths of the approximate 250,000 Israeli settlers now living in the West Bank.

“The overwhelming feeling we got” Viering said, “from presidents of countries to the Secretary General of the Arab League ... was they want a Palestinian state to exist alongside Israel, they want peace in the region, and they want it immediately.”