Scary Monsters
The sweeping victory by Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections is the biggest story in the world today. This is not because they will have any real power--almost all power in the Palestinian authority belongs to the President; it was set up that way to be the sort of government Yasir Arafat (and George W. Bush) approve of: One that's corrupt, with near-dictatorial rule.
The problem is that for the first time since they've had a quasi-government, Palestinians voted in favor of terror. Granted, the waters are muddier than that. The Palestinians were offered the choice of a mind-blowingly crooked and incompetent party which favors a peaceful settlement with Israel (Fatah), and a squeaky-clean reformist party which favors terrorism and the complete destruction of the Jewish state (Hamas). Seeing Fatah leaders live like gangster rappers probably had a tendency to discredit peace in the eyes of some.
There is a small upside for Israel: Israel can now reasonably hold the Palestinian government responsible for the terrorist acts of Hamas.
Nonetheless, this is bad...very bad.
10:01:45 PM 
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