Very important article from NYT on Palestinian elections

Check out this piece by James Glanz from yesterday's Week in Review section of The New York Times. Glanz quotes extensively from Jarret Blanc, an American elections expert, who points out that, in fact, Hamas received fewer votes overall than Fatah in nearly every district, including in Gaza. Yet, because of the "bloc voting" mechanism that Fatah originally stuck into the election law in order to ensure their hegemony, Hamas was able to sweep the vote.

There are potentially some important implications here: If the Hamas vote really was about protesting the corruption of the PA, as many have suggested, then this gives Israel ammunition to stick to a hard-line policy. On that score, I would also recommend this very interesting article from the New Republic a couple of weeks ago that argues for just such a policy. In shades of the Cold War strategy of spending the USSR into oblivion, Joseph Braude argues for letting Hamas turn to Iran for support.