Since the Palestinian Authority has not held general elections in nearly a decade, student-council elections at Palestinian universities—where candidates run on party tickets—are often the best indicator of prevailing political winds. Thus, argues Khaled Abu Toameh, a recent landslide victory for Hamas over Fatah at Bir Zeit, together with a tie between the two at Palestine Polytechnic, constitute a “vote of no-confidence in Abbas and Fatah”:
In 2006, Fatah lost the Palestinian Legislative Council elections to Hamas largely because of its failure to reform and combat financial and administrative corruption. Since then, Fatah has done almost nothing to draw the conclusions from that defeat. The same leaders who led Fatah to the 2006 defeat continue to hold key positions in Fatah, ignoring demands for reforms and transparency.
The landslide victory of Hamas at Bir Zeit University came in spite of an ongoing security clampdown by Abbas and Fatah on supporters of the Islamist movement in the West Bank. . . . It is evident . . . that Abbas’s campaign against Hamas has had a boomerang effect, resulting in increased support for the Islamist movement among Palestinians, especially those living in the West Bank. When you tell your people that the Jews are awful, and do not want peace, and just want to kill Arabs and destroy their homes and holy sites, then people say, “This means Hamas is right. We should be killing the Jews and not making peace with them.” . . .
The Hamas victory at Bir Zeit shows why it is not a good idea, at this stage, to hold parliamentary or presidential elections in the Palestinian territories.
Read more on Gatestone: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5622/palestinians-vote-hamas