All will turn out well, given only intelligence, integrity, vision and competence on the part of Palestinian, Israeli and American officials. Unfortunately, those qualities rare in general, and especially so amongst the above-mentioned officials.

I don’t want to wax all religious and Messianic, since I know the Muffti, he isn’t down with that, but IIRC there is a prophecy in Isaiah, in one of the haftorot, that says that at the time of the geulah, Hashem will make Israel’s enemies “drunk on their own blood as though with sweet wine” or something along those lines.

Here’s hoping.

Drink away, boys.

The last few Xians in the territories are probably checking out real estate prices in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv right about now.

The real problem here is that when Hamas faces the inevitable problems of trying to run a gummint (if they even bother), they will up the violence against Israel to “mobilize the masses” and direct their attention elsewhere. No matter what happens, attacks on Israel will increase, and increase soon.

And don’t hold your breath expecting the US and the EU to honor their promises of not dealing with and not funding terrorists. I assume that, as always, they’ll find a way to weasel out of their promises.

No matter what happens, this is not going to be pretty.

But, man, did Hamas hand Fatah its ass on a plate or what? “Bend over and grab your ankles,Ab-ass, and don’t bother asking for any lube!”

But I just can’t believe all of these people who say they were “shocked” at Hamas’ victory. What are they, stupid? Anybody with any sense saw this coming from miles away. It was as obvious as the setup and punch line in a Threee Stooges movie, like when Curly is working at a gas station and uses a match to check what he thinks is the water level in the radiator.

Of course, it is the gas tank. Ka-BOOM!

Surprise, surprise.

Laya: You’re right. But I get a weird feeling when I start to realize that I get excited by events which might help Israeli hasbarah, but actually will lead to more Jewish suffering… :-/

Ben-David: What most people fail to realize is that democratic institutions in the Palestinian territories are very corrupt and weak, so these are mere proxy contests for the armed groups/militias, which are the real power structures/brokers. In other words, for any group to effectively hold power in the territories, they have to be backed by their own armed gunmen. That’s why it is unlikely that the PLO groups will silently go into that dark night without a fight. Who would freely give up power? They’ll engage Hamas if not for supremacy then for just maintaining the status quo.

So, in essence, Muffti thinks that you are massively oversimplifying the complications, dangers and general problems with running a brand new party. These parties tend not to do well, especialy during an election with a massive protest vote.

Let Muffti conclude with a reiteration. It doesn’t follow that there is “such a silent majority”, but that the evidence against it is rather piss poor. Hamas, as Laya points out, has provided social services for years: the cleverness of Hamas is precisely that they are a party concerned with the plight of Palestineans AS WELL as a terrorist organization. What moderate party can compete with a socialist progressive party like Hamas that actually has a track record of providing services like hospitals?

I’m sure the day after, more of these arabs were kicking themselves for not voting Hamas either.

Such a party would have grabbed a lot of airtime, and garnered much international support. And they would have had great success at the ballot box.

So why didn’t it happen?

Because such a silent majority – the last wispy straw of hope for many messianic peaceniks – Does. Not. Exist.

Calling for Israel’s liquidation is the Palestinian political equivalent of kissing babies.

Maybe now many hopeful lefties will get a clue…