Constructing a Political System from Within the Iron Cage: Explaining Civil War in Palestine Michael Sheflin This paper attempts to apply the Selectorate Theory models from The Logic of Political Survival (Bueno de Mesquita et al.) to the recent history of the Palestinian National Authority (PA). By analyzing selectorate hypotheses about institutional preference, corruption, war, and civil war, we create a cogent model for examining Palestinian domestic politics and the prolonged effects of the Occupation. The Selectorate Model has important implications for the analysis of Palestinian politics. Nevertheless, the immeasurable effects of persistent Occupation, strong international monetary and military interference, and the lack of transparency in regular official data, overshadow the normal ability to measure Selectorate predictions in Palestine. We conclude with proposals for improving PA transparency, improving government efficacy through regular elections, and reducing conflict through more balanced US policy.
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Constructing a Political System from Within the Iron Cage: Explaining Civil War in Palestine
Michael Sheflin
This paper attempts to apply the Selectorate Theory models from The
Logic of Political Survival (Bueno de Mesquita et al.) to the recent history
of the Palestinian National Authority (PA). By analyzing selectorate
hypotheses about institutional preference, corruption, war, and civil war,
we create a cogent model for examining Palestinian domestic politics and
the prolonged effects of the Occupation. The Selectorate Model has
important implications for the analysis of Palestinian politics.
Nevertheless, the immeasurable effects of persistent Occupation, strong
international monetary and military interference, and the lack of
transparency in regular official data, overshadow the normal ability to
measure Selectorate predictions in Palestine. We conclude with proposals
for improving PA transparency, improving government efficacy through
regular elections, and reducing conflict through more balanced US policy.
I. Introduction
II. A Selectorate Model of Political Competition (in brief)
III. Building a Political System from Within the Iron Cage
IV. Political Participation: 1996 and 2006 Elections
V. Corruption
VI. From Occupation to Intifada
VII. A House Divided
VIII. Conclusions
I. Introduction
In 2006, militias controlled by Fatah and Hamas began fighting primarily in the Gaza
Strip, beginning what some observers have termed the Palestinian civil war. Though
Hamas and Fatah, the main two Palestinian factions, have similar goals, their tactics have
become increasingly divergent. The Israeli Occupation of Palestine has taken thousands
of casualties and prevented freedom of movement. Conditions of the occupation, and
American and Israeli military and fiscal policies, have aided the conditions for
Palestinian violence. Nevertheless, the Palestinian civil war reflects a fundamental
redirection of Palestinian resources toward Palestinian violence against Palestinians on a
scale not previously seen. Explaining why violence has occurred has significant
implications for the conflict and the Palestinian political system. This essay examines the
assumptions of The Logic of Political Survival and Selectorate Theory to explain the
violence in Palestine and how to create conditions to prevent its recurrence.
Selectorate Theory, forwarded by in The Logic of Political Survival by Bruce Bueno de
Mesquita, James Morrow and others, explain some significant factors of government
action based on the size of a polity and its governing coalition. By examining how
government policies provide goods to the public and key political supporters, Selectorate
Theory predicts certain outcomes. Public goods, such as security, civil order, and
transparency are distributed from the government across the entire population without
regard to political affiliation. Selectorate Theory assumes that members of the winning
coalition will also receive private benefits from their participation in the winning
coalition, such as money or access to key resources. Factional interaction in most
institutionalized democratic political systems, at most times, leads to peaceful
reallocation of public and private goods. At other times, members of the winning
coalition may seek to oppress rivals to maintain the benefits derived from controlling the
government. Oppression requires the confluence of certain factors that provide
incentives to a winning coalition to prevent the loss of public and private benefits. It may
also degrade the normative functioning of society and contribute to civil conflict.
Increasingly after the PA�s creation in 1994, Hamas and the Palestinian public perceived
a widespread loss of the legitimacy of the Palestinian National Authority�s provision of
public goods. The Palestinian National Authority (PA) provides the institutional
structure described by Selectorate Theory, because it determines how Palestine selects its
government. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO/Fatah) emerged initially as the
dominant factional force by virtue of having negotiated the Oslo Accords with Israel,
which created the PA. Hamas quickly emerged as a main opposition political faction, but
its militant roots as a resistance organization created questions about the breadth of its
full political commitment. Hamas�s participation in local Palestinian politics had
increased its grassroots support throughout the 1990s. Fatah also had lost a significant
amount of public support because of increasing public perception of Fatah corruption as
the governing faction within the PA. The change in the domestic balance of public
support provided incentives for Hamas to participate more directly in the 2006 elections
for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the legislative organ of the PA. The
resulting victory for Hamas, as the Change and Reform List in 2006 legislative elections,
provided incentives for Fatah to engage in institutional oppression, according to the
Selectorate Model.
It is important to note that the Selectorate Model, which will shortly be examined in
greater detail, has shortcomings in measuring the effects of Israeli policies on domestic
Palestinian political behavior. The Israeli Occupation is an external force impeding or
preventing Palestinian freedom of movement, economic growth, and security. Thus the
political survival of Palestinian actors to some degree is decoupled from domestic policy-
performance. The Occupation allows Israeli control over violence against Palestinians,
which is generally perceived by Palestinians as arbitrary, collective, and unwarranted.
Israel controls some of the resources that would be controlled by a Palestinian
government in normal political circumstances. Public goods, like peace and civil order,
and the distribution of private goods, to supporters of the Palestinian government, are
externally influenced without regard to the performance of domestic Palestinian policies.
Thus Palestinian policy has at times reflected the coordination of violence toward Israelis
to reflect widespread political support for attacks. At times, resistance to the Occupation,
a private good, may have been seen as a public good to encourage Palestinian control
over Palestine. Thus during both Intifadas, Palestinian factions coordinated attacks
against Israel. Before 1996 elections, there was widespread public support for the hudna,
or truce, between Hamas and Israel, and Hamas mostly committed itself to that policy.
The effect of the Occupation cannot be understated, and American and Israeli collusion
will help contextualize the results of studying the Palestinian and Israeli conflicts through
Selectorate Theory.
This paper is arranged in eight parts, tracing Selectorate Theory predictions about various
aspects of Palestinian politics during the period of the Palestinian National Authority
(PA). The next section presents certain basic assumptions and hypotheses of the
Selectorate Theory�s model, and explanations about the use of data and appendices.
Section III presents a brief background on conflict and Palestinian political developments
until the negotiation of the Oslo Accords in 1993. The following four sections reflect a
progressively complex analysis of the Palestinian pseudo-state through political
participation, corruption, the Occupation and the Intifadas, and the Palestinian civil war.
The final section presents conclusions about the application of the Selectorate Theory to
the domestic Palestinian situation and suggestions for improving future government
efficacy and performance.
Israeli violence against Palestinians and Palestinian prisoners of the Occupation
numerically far outstrip the violence and oppression of the Fatah-dominated PA or civil
war. Still, the redirection of resources toward coordinated violence within a society is
extremely significant. For the first time, both Fatah and Hamas exhibited willingness to
engage in systematic, violent oppression of �the other.� Many attribute a major cause of
this violence to American pressure and support for a Fatah crackdown on Hamas,
resulting in Hamas�s seizure of the Gaza strip. These concerns will help explain some of
the findings of the Selectorate Model. This paper suggests that external events helped
influence internal conditions, reducing the size of the governing coalition and degrading
the condition of civil liberties in the Territories, such that systematic oppression was
more likely. The separation of Palestinian territory by Israeli Occupational control
helped prevent the allocation of the necessary resources required by Fatah to militarily
repress Hamas with sufficient force. Similarly, the Negev�s separation of Gaza and the
West Bank may have prevented Hamas from seizing power in the West Bank despite its
claims it could do so. The Selectorate Model predicts that in a democratic system,1 a
small governing coalition aids the degradation of civil liberties. Both these elements
encourage a government affinity for oppression, helping spur the Palestinian civil war.
II. Background: Conflict, Occupation, and Factionalism
The Occupation was not the only external force affecting politics in the Territories,
though it was the most significant. Jordan and the PLO, an organization forced outside
Palestine until Oslo, also externally influenced West Bank politics, and Palestinians were
"subject to fluctuations in the political influence and political fortunes of the outside
players they follow" (Sahliyeh, 1988 7). Israel had attempted to create and buttress local
rural elites in Palestine, in reality undermining "the political power of the West Bank
nationalist elite" (ibid 164). There was also no hegemonic Palestinian voice, and
alignments of pro-PLO pragmatists and pro-Jordanian factions differed in their support
and approach for resolving problems. Some Palestinians, like Sari Nusseibeh, even
argued that demanding equal rights for Palestinians within the Israeli political system
would be most likely to ensure Palestinian rights (ibid 173). Israeli opposition to
territorial concessions, particularly by the Likud Party, hurt Palestinian attempts at 1 What The Logic of Political Survival calls a large-coalition large-selectorate system.
negotiated settlement. Although �pragmatic PLO politicians� had initiated talks with
Israel after the 1982 Lebanon War, the PLO gained support at the expense of local
politicians, Jordan, and Israel by creating �its own mass-based institutions and structures�
(ibid 7).
In 1993, the Declaration of Principles on Palestinian Self-Government (Oslo I) was
signed by the PLO and Israel in Oslo. This agreement created the Palestinian National
Authority (PA) as an agreement between Israel and the PLO, whose political party would
be known by its Arabic acronym Fatah. The first Oslo Accords paved the way for the
Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza (Oslo II) in 1995, which outlined the
nature of PA governance and the 1996 elections. This progress has occurred only over
the last decade and a half, and complexity of the conflict between Palestinians and
Israelis is not primarily concerning Palestinian autonomy. In Palestinian Sovereignty and
Israeli Security, Naomi Weinberger explores the breadth of issues on the negotiating
table during Oslo like Israeli-Palestinian power asymmetries, Israeli settlements, security,
water rights, and control of Jerusalem. The more leaders ignore final-status issues such
as these, the �more likely previous accomplishments are to unravel� (Weinberger, 2000
216). There have been several international peace initiatives with uncertain results.
President Bush�s Road Map to Peace created a timetable for progress contingent on
progressive trust-building between Palestinians and Israelis. It is relatively clear that
momentum on this initiative is not seen as likely to produce results. It is also unclear
whether the peace initiative by the Quartet can produce effective progress. Israeli and
Western opinion has become less sympathetic since the victory of Hamas in elections for
the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006. Hamas has long been seen as a
deleterious militant force by Israel and the international community.2
Despite occasional low-intensity violent disagreements between Hamas and Fatah in the
1990s, they generally preferred to avoid violent conflict. The PA was created as an
agreement between Israel and the PA, so it was clear Fatah would dominate the
organization. It was the largest faction in the territories and also the sole Palestinian
negotiating force, having won international and Arab support, then finally Israeli
recognition (Tamimi, 2007 187). Hamas was skeptical of the PA, and refused to
recognize either the PLO or the PA as representative bodies. Arafat had actually invited
Hamas to join the PLO and the Palestinian National Council (PNC) in 1990, which was
initially received well by Hamas but did not ultimately result in its integration into either
(ibid 189). It would also have been impossible for any domestic Palestinian faction to
ignore the importance of the PA economically. By January 1995, the PA had become the
largest single employer in the Palestinian Territories (Mishal and Sela, 2000 139). The
initial optimism following the negotiation of the Oslo and Taba� Accords have not
yielded purely positive or effective results. The persistence of Occupation, and
stalemates in Palestinian-Israeli and domestic Palestinian dialogue, illustrate a
�discouraging view about how much has actually changed in the status quo�
(Weinberger, 2000 197).
2 With the notable exception of efforts by Vladimir Putin to engage Hamas diplomatically.
III. The Selectorate Model
Israel casts a long shadow as both an "internal" player in Palestinian politics, due to its ongoing occupation, and an external actor. (Weinberger, 2006 5)
The problem of how to consider Israel in models of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
slightly complicates Selectorate predictions. To some extent, it might be useful to
measure some Israeli data against Palestinian coalition and selectorate data. The theory
in The Logic of Political Survival does cross over into dyadic state interaction, but not in
a manner analogous to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The model employed for most of this
paper holds Hamas as the leader of a challenging coalition and Fatah as the incumbent
coalition until January 2006. Israeli data is included as it helps explain why Palestinian
data alone may not fully explaining conditions. The scope of our data is late 1993 to
early 2008, concentrating on particular dates depending on the availability of data or the
scope of a particular model for a regression. We have briefly summarized the elements
prior to the scope of this paper, which continue to play a large role in framing social and
political discourses. Before examining the particular methodology employed in our
adaptation of the Selectorate models, we must first summarize some of the key aspects of
the theory.
A Theory of Political Survival:
Selectorate Theory assumes that there is a leader and challenger who each form coalitions
of support derived from the population that participates in the political system (Bueno de
Mesquita, 2003 39). A polity has a total population of residents (N) from which a
selectorate (S) is drawn (ibid 40). The selectorate is defined as �the set of people whose
endowments include the qualities or characteristics instiutionally required to choose the
government's leadership and necessary for gaining access to private benefits doled out by
the government's leadership� (ibid 42), regulated by institutions, norms, and laws.
Selectorate members have generally been defined by qualities and characteristics
categorized as origin or birthplace, personal affinities or special skills, gender and age,
and wealth (ibid 43). A selection institution, or the actual machinery and structure of the
political system, can define both the selectorate and winning coalitions (W), by
controlling who can govern and participate.
The winning coalition is the proportion of the selectorate that supports the governing
party and �endows the leadership with political power over the remainder of the
selectorate as well as over the disenfranchised members of the society� (Bueno de
Mesquita, 2003 51). Thus W is a unitary actor controlled by the leader in theory, though
the reality is almost always more nuanced. We will additionally examine the effects of
challenging leaders from within the coalition, like Marwan Barghouti�s challenge to
Fatah�s leadership and the divisions in Hamas leadership. Challengers usually arise from
those outside W who do not receive private benefits, and from the disenfranchised who
receive fewer public goods by remaining outside of S. As public goods provision
increases and private goods provision decreases, members of the coalition are less likely
to see the benefit of remaining within W. Thus as the provision of private benefits to
members of the winning coalition approaches zero there is a greater probability of
members of W defecting to challenging coalitions (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 382).
Over their terms, incumbent coalitions develop greater ability to distribute benefits to
their supporters, often at the expense of the public good.
The incumbent leader does not face this problem of credibility as severely because her current supporters understand that they will continue to receive private benefits as long as they remain loyal. (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 60)
It is often difficult for members of the selectorate to know convincingly that bringing a
challenger to power will continue providing the previously enjoyed private benefits, after
that challenger has attained power.
Drawing from economic models of utility and models of rational choice, Selectorate
Theory assumes that coalitions offer the promise of bundles of goods that influence
individuals� preferences to support them. It is assumed that leaders want to ensure and
prolong their political careers and thus offer an acceptable allocation of public and
private goods to key segments of society. As with the economic definition of normal
goods, more public and private goods provide a greater utility and are preferred by
individuals. The candidates that can offer the optimal bundle of goods tends to be
favored in political survival. Theoretically,
Leaders use the combination of public and private goods they produce to hold the loyalty of their winning coalition. (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 59).
Private goods benefit only supporters of the governing coalition. Public goods benefit
society as a whole, but may not be constant through all polities. Core public goods tend
to be universal across polities:
Civil liberties, political rights, transparency, peace, and prosperity are among the most important public welfare enhancements that any government can provide. (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 179)
Some goods are not universal, and the diversity of individuals and polities no doubt
makes generalizing less precise. General public goods can include things like education,
health care, or foreign policy (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 195).
A determining factor in why actors allocate either private or public goods is the loyalty
norm (W/S), which measures the �risk to coalition members of exclusion from future
winning coalitions� (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 66). Most of the hypotheses and
deductions in The Logic of Political Survival relate to the effect of the loyalty norm. It is
assumed that the probability of inclusion in a winning coalition is greater as W is greater
and S is smaller (ibid 67). Governments commonly termed democracies, autocracies, and
monarchies are, in theoretical terms, more accurately described by the characteristics of
W and S, the means for choosing each � selection institutions. In the case of each
government type, selection institutions help structure who can be a part of the selectorate
and the winning coalition. In democracies, the selectorate is generally high because
�citizenship automatically holds out the prospect of benefits, both in terms of public
policies and in terms of private benefits� (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 69-70). In contrast
to democracies, or large-coalition systems, authoritarian states have smaller winning
coalitions and selectorates and thus stronger loyalty norms:
When the selectorate is small, this means that the policy preferences of the vast majority of residents (N-S) can be ignored as a part of daily, routine politics. (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 70)
The key assumptions of the allocation of private and public goods relate to the relative
and absolute sizes of W and S, thusly affecting the loyalty norm (W/S). As W increases,
private goods are distributed over a larger group of people, and the benefits of good to
individuals is diluted (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 92). A strong loyalty norm (low W/S)
also allows a leader to skim more off the top for protecting personal incumbency (ibid
93). A weak loyalty norm (high W/S), characterized by a large coalition size, encourages
group to favor public goods at the expense of private goods (ibid 105).
Limitations of the Model:
The authors identify four key shortcomings to their model. It assumes a unitary nature of
actors, policy implementation is possible, more public and private goods are better, and
individuals are identical (74). The second and third elements are particularly
problematic. Implementation of PA policy is not always possible because of restrictions
placed by the Occupation and international dependency. Though we attempt to account
for some Israeli policies that might skew the data, it is often difficult to do so. Palestinian
politics is also highly defined by personal, and to a lesser extent ideological, affinities.
Hamas and Fatah have core popular bases that consist of such loyal members.
For purposes of our basic model the nature of the affinity does not matter. Affinity is simply a preference for one individual over another, independent of the policies of the individuals. (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 61)
Throughout this paper we believe we have accounted for the effect of Palestinian
domestic conditions, the Occupation, and international intervention in a balanced manner.
We now discuss specific aspects of the modeling employed in this paper.
Modeling Palestine:
We believe it is better to test a theory with crude data than not to test it at all. (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 133)
As with many tests in The Logic of Political Survival, we employ multiple-variable linear
regressions to determine the effect of certain independent variables on a dependent
variable. The data is primarily drawn from polling by the Palestinian Center for Policy
Survey Research (PCPSR) Survey Research Unit.3 Data on fatalities are taken from
B�Tzelem, an Israeli human rights monitor. Some data, such as GDP per capita income
for the territories, and election results and voter lists, are drawn from the websites for the
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and the Central Elections Commission,
respectively. Appendix B goes into more detail regarding the sources of data for
particular graphs and regressions.
The regressions have several important components. Results are in table form, listing the
coefficient, standard deviation, and 2-tail probability for each independent variable. The 3 The name was changed after April 2000 to the Center for Palestine Research and Studies.
coefficient measures the strength and direction of the effect of independent variables on
the dependent variable. As the coefficient for an independent variable has a greater
positive or negative value, it causes a greater positive or negative effect on the dependent
variable. Standard deviation measures the deviation of the quadratic means of all data
values from their arithmetic means. The 2-tail probability (or p-value), is the measure of
statistical significance for each independent variable. As this value approaches zero the
probability that an independent variable has a statistically significant effect on the
dependent variable increases. The maximum p-value for statistical significance is
determined before a regression, and measured against the p-values in the results of the
regression. Some regressions use p<0.05 as the condition for significance. Because of
the lack of transparency and consistency in data reporting, and the short period of time
from which our data originate (1993-2008) compared to the regressions employed in The
Logic of Political Survival, which uses Correlates of War and Polity data, we use the
condition p<0.10.
Even if independent variables have significant effects on the dependent variable, their
cumulative effect may not explain much of the dependent variable. The amount of
variance explained by each regression is related to standard deviation, and listed as r2 for
each regression. A high r2 value shows that independent variables explain a large
proportion of the dependent variable. The probability that all the independent variables
have a cumulative effect is listed as p for each regression. The results of these
regressions have striking implications for the Selectorate Theory�s ability to explain and
predict certain aspects of Palestinian politics.
IV. Political Participation
Clearly Fatah�s reputation had been increasingly staked on diplomatic negotiations with
Israel since at least the Madrid Conference in 1991. Thus there was little uncertainty
over whether Fatah (the PLO) would participate in a system it had created jointly with
Israel, especially since it saw itself as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.
This progressive moderation was challenged by the rise of the tenzim (organization),
within the PLO (Weinberger, 2006 6). A prominently tenzim leader, Marwan Barghouti,
fell out of favor with Arafat�s leadership and has been imprisoned by Israel since 2002.
As a result, Arafat�s support increasingly became associated with that of an �old guard,�
the elites which had previously been in the diaspora. His options for political survival
were constrained by the tenzim, and increasingly by Hamas and Israel. The purpose of
this section is to examine both what preferences actors have for institutional selection,
and also whether Hamas is a legitimate political player.
The Logic of Political Survival does not expressly say anything about the latter issue
(when actors participate in externally imposed selection institutions). It does, however,
outline various actor-preferences for and within selection institutions. In particular, the
demands of an increasing winning coalition or selectorate put pressure on leaders to
distribute goods over a greater number of people. Therefore, if given free reign, leaders
would prefer a low W and large S, to maximize private goods over the fewest number of
people. Theoretically, therefore, rational leaders most prefer �autocratic regimes with
universal suffrage� (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 336). Those inside a coalition may or may
not prefer a similar trend. On the one hand, reducing W would provide more private
goods per person, by strengthening the loyalty norm. However, reducing W also
increases the probability of any individual coalition member�s exclusion from a future
coalition. Those outside the coalition generally prefer a large coalition for the same
reason, to increase their chances of future inclusion (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 333). We
now examine long-term trends before turning to the 1996 and 2006 Palestinian
Legislative Council elections themselves.
Long-Term Trends in Palestine:
Because of leaders� autocracy preferences, we should expect Fatah to prefer a
strengthening loyalty norm over time. We should thus expect a greater provision of
private goods to supporters of Fatah�s winning coalition (WF) and fewer public goods.
The decision of participation within a selection institution can be seen as having costs or
benefits to a leader and coalition. In other words, an increase in private goods to a
coalition and to key leaders can provide incentives to an organization to work within a
selection institution to provide goods to supporters.
Graph 1
Fatah's Loyalty Norm (1993-2006)
0
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% S
uppo
rt
W/S
The regression employed assumes that Fatah and Hamas are the only major competing
political actors across the PA system. The reason we examine the probability of
defecting from Hamas to the selectorate and Fatah is rooted in the loyalty norm�s
function as a probability of defection and inclusion. This regression essentially measures
two probabilities and Hamas�s loyalty norm as independent variables against the
dependent variable PLCPart, a measure of expected participation in elections for the
PLC. For this regression, PLCPart data was available only for certain dates before
March 1996 and January 2006, because it resulted from a question of whether individuals
would participate in upcoming elections. We thus do a linear interpolation of PLCPart
(S) in order to calculate each loyalty norm and participation over time. Hamas�s
participation decisions are very tricky to measure and we include an available measure,
from PCPSR polls from 1993 � 1996, of the percentage of the selectorate that supported
Hamas�s participation in 1996 PLC elections in the following regression (HSupPart).
These data were not collected after 1996, and simple linear regressions are inaccurate, so
it is not included after 1996. Nevertheless, there needs to be a bridge between Hamas�s
identity as a movement and its development into a political party. The intuition behind
the creation of these new variables will now be explained.
Participation, Hamas Loyalty Norm, Probabilities of Defection from Hamas
-1-0.8-0.6-0.4-0.2
00.20.40.60.8
110
/1/1
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/199
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/199
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/199
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/200
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7
Pro
babi
lity PLCPart
HamasW/SProbH-FProbH-S
Graph 2: Palestinian participation in the PLC, Hamas�s loyalty norm, the probability of defection from Hamas to Fatah within the selectorate, and the probability of defecting from Hamas to the remainder of the selectorate.
The first independent variable (ProbH-S) is a comparison of the likelihood that members
of the selectorate will defect from Hamas�s coalition to Fatah�s coalition, controlling for
the level of disenfranchisement. If this measure is negative, it implies that members of
Fatah�s coalition will join Hamas. The effect on participation would be assumed to be
positive because as Hamas members defect to Fatah, they would have a more positive
effect on participation being attached to a key force behind the creation of the selection
institution (the PA). Therefore a rise in the probability that Hamas members defect to
Fatah�s coalition should also cause a rise in political participation. It is unlikely that this
correlation would change from positive to negative over time because of Fatah�s strong
continuing association with the PA, especially through the institution of the Presidency.
Even were Hamas to become a full political participant, it is still more likely that Fatah
has had a greater positive effect on participation over time. This trend may also fluctuate
over time because of external Israeli and international conditions over which Fatah does
not have direct control.
The second independent variable represents the probability that members of Hamas�s
coalition will defect to the selectorate in general, excluding the level of disenfranchised
people.4 This variable thus measures what effect defections from Hamas�s coalition to
the selectorate have on political participation. Though it may be less predictable than the
effect of defections to Fatah, several expectations should be defined. First, if Hamas has
transitioned from a political pariah to a full-fledged member of Palestinian politics, then
there should be an inflection point after which the effect of ProbH-S on PLCPart changes
� some time after 1996. Prior to 1996, defection from Hamas to other coalitions should
have a positive effect on participation, not because Islamic Jihad and the Democratic
Front for the Liberation of Palestine were positive forces, but because this measure
includes the effect of defection to Fatah. At some point in the decade that followed,
defection from Hamas to independent factions should switch from having a potentially
insignificant effect on participation to a clearly negative effect. Throughout the 1990s,
the probability of defection from Hamas to Fatah was positive, whereas the trend-line on
Graph 1 (a polynomial trend) makes it appear as this probability was lower than it likely
was in reality. Tessler and Nachtwey�s suggestion that fluctuations in support for peace
did not prevent Fatah from maintaining a consistent base, did not translate into segments
of the population and key factions endorsing �none of the above� faction lists (Tessler 4 The first term (1) is a simplification of S/S.
and Nachtwey, 1999 25). Thus in the 1996 elections we should expect Hamas�s non-
participation to result in a positive effect of ProbH-S.
We also include Hamas�s loyalty norm (W/S) to determine whether this may have an
effect on participation. In particular, a stronger loyalty norm would have encouraged
members to participate in the boycott and thus reduce participation. Fatah�s loyalty norm
is not a useful measure for a few reasons. Because Fatah is assumed to be the perpetual
incumbent, and Hamas the perpetual challenger, one would expect a strengthening
loyalty norm over time because of leaders� tendencies to prefer autocracy (Bueno de
Mesquita, 2003 336). The same may be true for Hamas but its lack of incumbency
should actually have the opposite effect over time. Beginning with a small support base
and limited resources, Hamas would need to expand its provision of public goods to
become a viable political challenger, and to expand its base of resources for prosecuting
military operations. The external conditions of the Occupation, and the general optimism
that fades after a precipitous event like the creation of the Palestinian National Authority,
would be likely to encourage a negative long-term trend in political participation. In fact,
the data we do have on participation suggests that participation increased slightly over
The outcome of this regression is surprising. PLCPart, ProbH-S
(S
hiseDisenfrancS
Wh −−1 ) and ProbH-F (S
hiseDisenfrancS
WhS
Wf −− ) are all
individually statistically significant (p<0.1), but these independent variables collectively
accounts only for 36% of the variance in LegPart. However, the independent variables
collective effect (p=0.0431) is also statistically significant. Regardless, the results are
worth examining.
The size of the selectorate increased over time both with participation and voter
registration initiatives by the Central Elections Commission.5 Thus with a relatively
small winning coalition (WH) until 2002, an increasing selectorate size would dilute
Hamas�s allocation of both private and public goods. The probability of defection from
5 Elections com website for more info, see the website for Palestinian Central Elections Commission voter lists: http://www.elections.ps/template.aspx?id=53.
Hamas to Fatah in fact has a small negative effect on voter participation. The period
from 1993 to 2002 reveals a decreasing probability of Hamas defection to Fatah until it
became negative � Fatah defection to Hamas after the late 1990s.
Additionally, the probability of Palestinians becoming disenfranchised exceeded the
probability of defecting to Hamas until 1995. The negative effect of defection from
Hamas to Fatah would decrease as disenfranchisement rose in the early period. Where
selectorate size is large and the coalition is small, those outside the coalition within the
selectorate tend to reject institutions less readily than the disenfranchised outside the
selectorate (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 333). Thus Hamas, as a more mainstream party
than Islamic Jihad and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, should be
expected to have a less negative effect on an institution of the political system like W. An
examination of Hamas�s decision-making process with regard to 1996 PLC elections
reveals a broader flexibility than realized by many observers at the time.
Altering the Case: Accounting for Hamas�s Internal Selectorate: To look at what effect Hamas�s internal support for democratic participation had on its
pariah nature, we add the variable HSupPart. This is the support level among self-
identified Hamas supporters from PCPSR polls from 1993 to 1996 in proportion to the
total share of Hamas�s support in the selectorate (WH/S). Hamas�s internal selectorate is
fractured between external and internal leadership, and security and political interests.
Though Hamas pays keen attention to the demands of the people, internal support for
participation increased steadily prior to elections. This independent variable can
essentially be seen as a way of quantifying participation as the provision of a good to
Hamas�s popular support base. Hamas�s acuteness to public desires was primarily
realized in the distribution of private goods through grass-roots charitable organizations.
Still, the question of a Hamas boycott was floated in a December 1994 PCPSR poll, in
which 30.5% of those polled said they would or might boycott elections if Hamas called
for a boycott (CPSR Poll #19).6 So there will probably be a positive effect of Hamas
support for elections on legislative participation. Hamas�s thinking was strategic and we
will now briefly examine why Hamas chose to boycott elections, but why its concurrent
de facto participation may also have been inevitable.
As with Fatah through the 1980s, Hamas had primarily been a resistance organization
with a political leadership to steward the group toward that end. The creation of the PA
raised a greater number of issues for Hamas because they had not participated in the Oslo
peace process, which created the Interim Authority, and they were avowedly opposed to
it. After Oslo negotiations between the PLO and Israel had begun, Hamas �gradually
mounted an unprecedented challenge to the PLO�s exclusive claim to the leadership of
the Palestinian people� (Kristianasen, 1999 20). The debate within Hamas over the
benefits and costs of participation was not monolithic but neither did it produce strong
rifts within Hamas. As early as 1992, Hamas had outlined its view of the potential
decisions facing the Movement, and the outcomes it believed were likely to result.
Hamas�s leadership decided to boycott elections and discourage citizens from voting as
well as tacitly supporting and fielding candidates, without actually employing the name
Hamas. This decision partly reflected general uncertainty over the developing nature of 6 Appendix B contains a full list of references to PCPSR/CPSR polls employed, from 1993-2008.
the recently created PA and resulting elections. It also reflected the belief that the new
selection institution would be monopolized by Fatah. No strong incentive structure
existed to compel Hamas to participate in the PA, and the costs of associating with a
policy Hamas termed collusion (with Israel) would affect its strong credentials in
resisting the Occupation. However, Hamas may also have recognized the growing
importance of the PA as an employer of Palestinians, seeking to avoid a confrontation
either with either the PA or Fatah. Saul Mishal and Avraham Sela note that the PA had
become the largest single employer in the Palestinian Territories in January 1995 (Mishal
and Sela, 2000 139), and after the PA released Hamas prisoners in late-October 1995,
Hamas spokesmen began referring only to �refraining� from elections rather than
boycotting them (ibid 134).
The creation of the PA was indeed dominated by Fatah, who had negotiated the accords
with Israel. Nevertheless, Hamas encouraged its members to build connections with the
PA and recognized the inevitability that many of its members would join. Its rhetoric
called the PA an administrative rather than representative body, so that its involvement
(in the PLC) would be seen less as a legitimization of the body as a representative
legislature. The allegations by Hamas, of Fatah�s corruption and collaboration with
Israel, helped foster popular dissatisfaction with Fatah, but were increasingly directed at
Arafat�s leadership. Hamas and Fatah both recognized the threat the other could pose.
Hamas was wary of beginning or being involved in Palestinian infighting, believing it
would be blamed in the media and public regardless of the realities of the provocation.
Each group also had relatively reliable information about the other�s decision-making and
intentions. Nevertheless, Hamas and Fatah both displayed restraint in provoking
Palestinian infighting, despite worsening relations. Threat perception would have been
reduced by the more fluid identity structure of Palestinian politics at the time, in which an
in-group/out-group relationship would not have existed. Hamas had no need for highly-
centralized organization given its ground-up support strategies. In 1995, Hamas
officially created a distinction between the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, its military
wing, and its political activities (Mishal and Sela, 2000 143). When the PA security chief
(at the time) Mohammed Dahlan reached an agreement with Izz al-Din in Gaza, it was
without the knowledge Hamas�s political leadership in Gaza (Kristianasen, 1999 29).
Hamas�s internal discourse and preference-ranking were also not hegemonic. A
conference of wealthy Hamas businessmen in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, in
November 1995 supported participation in elections against the majority view within
Hamas (ibid 134). After the PA released Hamas prisoners in October 1995, Fatah also
managed to secure a ceasefire of Hamas forces within PA-administered territory. If
Hamas imposed a ceasefire in PA administered territory, the PA would no longer be
obligated to police areas essentially controlled by Hamas. Therefore, Hamas would not
be as likely to face violent conflicts with Fatah or its members in the PA. Due to the less
developed and centralized nature of political institutions, Hamas and Fatah did not see
each other as directly threatening groups in the short-term. Past cooperation increased
hopes of future factional cooperation, and personal connections and reliable information
further reduced the perception of threat.
Mishal and Sela�s The Palestinian Hamas presents a document prepared by Hamas for its
high-level political-leadership in August 1992, which was captured and translated by the
IDF. This document outlines clear priorities and beliefs in a pragmatic manner:
"There are four possible alternatives:
1. Hamas participates in the elections. 2. Hamas boycotts the elections and is contented with calling the people also to boycott the elections... [sic] against the elections. 3. Hamas boycotts the elections and also attempts to disrupt them by force in order to delegitimize them as well as the whole peace process. 4. Hamas participates under another name, the essence of which would be determined in accordance with the circumstances of the next phase and the results of the negotiations." (Document, August 1992 Table 5.1 in Sela and Mishal 124-130).7
An analysis of this internal Hamas document reveals the pliability of the developing
Palestinian political opposition, even in early years, and its potential for political
moderation and integration. Hamas expected any militant actions it took against Fatah or
the PA
would necessarily mean a civil war in which we would lose more [than Fatah would] because our real power is our popularity, whereas Fatah's power derives from a combination of both financial [resources] and control of the important institutions. (Document 3)
Because resistance was a priority, it saw an �attempt to diminish the legitimacy of the
elections and in effect the negotiations and the concessions that it entails� as potentially
7 Hereafter the internal Hamas document in Sela and Mishal will be referred to as �Document� including the section number, or table number if specified. This document is reproduced in part as Appendix A.
beneficial but unlikely to succeed (Document Table 5.1). Hamas was keenly aware that
the peace negotiations could produce meaningful and noticeable gains in public goods,
such as freezing the expansion of Jewish settlements, and thus galvanize support in favor
of the peace talks (Document 5). Hamas has seen Oslo, entailing recognition of Israel
and cessation of hostilities, as partly contradictory to its mission. Hamas has consistently
condemned Oslo in its rhetoric (with decreasing intensity) since before the 1996 elections
campaign. In its internal document, Hamas maintained three preferences it considered
central to any decision taken with regard to elections: the maintenance of its popular base
and growth of popularity; the continuation of jihad for the liberation of Palestine; and
continued resistance to the loss of Palestinian rights (Document 1). Hamas�s
commitment to private goods served it well in the mid-1990s, and incentives to allocate
public goods were not high.8 They also could serve to alienate the base of its winning
coalition by appearing to endorse Oslo and thus appearing to compromise on Palestinian
rights. Hamas did, however, urge its supporters to take positions in the PA to distribute
services to Palestinians, but emphasized that these positions were administrative and not
representative (Mishal and Sela, 2000 139).
Its relatively small support base in the 1990s made it ill equipped to compete with Fatah
militarily or politically on the national level. Still, it ruled out disrupting elections
because of the potential ramifications. It feared that even a passive boycott could
facilitate �the opportunity to Fatah to contain Hamas� (Document Table 5.1).
Nevertheless the personal connections between Fatah and Hamas members would have
8 Allocating public goods through private organizations, like charities and Izz al-Din, would not be considered private goods.
reduced Hamas leaders� beliefs that Fatah would crack down on its activities. The tenzim
leader Marwan Barghouti, now in an Israeli prison, was �adamant about preserving
independence from the PA� (Weinberger, 2006 6). While believing non-participation
would somewhat isolate Hamas, personal political connections no doubt reduced the
perception of threat from the outside.9
Beliefs in the credible possibility of a future PA or Fatah crackdown led Hamas to reject
violent disruption of elections to deny Fatah the pretext of �containing [the] movement,
dismantling its institutions, and ending its activities� (Document 1). A boycott would
deny it a potential boon to its popularity and the means through which to both increase
the resource base and distribution of services. Hamas rightly predicted and feared,
however, that participation within a political structure would require altering its discourse
in a way that might conflict with its overarching goals, such as armed resistance to the
Occupation (Document 2). Its political leaders were keenly aware of Hamas�s limitations
on campaigning and achieving seats, and they did not expect to win a majority, by any
calculation. When this secret document was prepared, in August 1992, they expected
they might win a third of legislative seats (Document 4), though CPSR data suggests no
more than 13.3% support nationally (Poll #3, CPSR October 5-10, 1993). Khaled Hroub
explains Hamas�s political objections to elections on the basis of the Oslo Accords.
From its establishment, Hamas had steadfastly refused to run in any national elections, either for PC or for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority (PA). As both these structures grew out of the Oslo accords,
9 Arafat and others may have perceived a greater threat, after Oslo, of Barghouti and others, to derail the investments they had put into diplomacy and negotiation.
which Hamas opposed and considered illegitimate, it had never recognized the legitimacy of either. (Hroub, 2006 6)
One of Hamas�s founding members, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin had made reference to
Hamas�s participation as the lesser of two-evils. Hamas knew that a boycott was unlikely
to be successful enough to deny the PA political legitimacy. Encouraging a future Fatah
crackdown would have been as likely to have effects as adverse on the prosecution of
attacks, as would moderation. Hamas had also signaled its intention not to derail
elections by supporting candidates and imposing a ceasefire in PA administered territory.
Even a superficial boycott would allow it to both achieve some presence in the new
Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and save face with its more hard-line coalition
members � its political base. Hamas attempted to de-emphasize the connection between
elections and self-rule, though �the coincidence [of the elections and self-rule] leaves a
vague impression [that such a connection indeed exists]� (Document 6).
Results: Table 2 (October 1993 - July 1995) LegPart
(coef., std, p) LegPart
(coef., std, p) Probability of Defection from Hamas to
Fatah
ShiseDisenfranc
SWh
SWf −−
(-0.51, 0.36, 0.2239)
(-0.25, 0.13, 0.1623)
Probability of Defection from Hamas to Selectorate
As expected, Hamas�s support for elections within its own coalition (HSupPart) has a
statistically-significant positive effect on political participation. This accounts for the
ineffectiveness of Hamas�s boycott and the fact that Hamas members did participate in
elections. During this period, the first regression explains just over 40% of the variance
in the dependent variable. The second regression explains just under 95% of the variance.
The limited availability of statistics on internal Hamas support for elections constrains
our data set to between October 1993 and July 1995. The first regression is not as
statistically significant as it is for the same regression from 1993 to 2002, thus HSupPart
is worth analyzing.
Graph 4
Internal Hamas Selectorate
-0.6000
-0.4000
-0.2000
0.0000
0.2000
0.4000
0.6000
0.8000
Oct-93
Dec-93
Feb-94
Apr-94
Jun-9
4
Aug-94
Oct-94
Dec-94
Feb-95
Apr-95
Jun-9
5Prob
abili
ty HamasW/SProbH-FProbH-SHSupPA
In this time, Hamas internal support for elections rose steadily until the decision not to
participate in elections, which would indicate a weakening internal loyalty norm
(increasing HSupPart*WH). Participation through support for independent candidates,
the cease fire in PA territory, and encouragement of its members participating in the PA,
might indicate an early Hamas shift away from merely resistance and charity as goods to
its supporters.
Despite discouragement of its members from voting, its members still showed up at the
ballot boxes, and Hamas had expected this. This also reveals a point about the affinity of
Hamas supporters for the control of Hamas � the Movement of the Islamic Resistance.
Hamas also means zeal, and its members zealously advocate certain ideals that, while
vilified in the West, in many cases �do not essentially differ from those held in the West�
(Hamad, 2006 4).10 Nevertheless, the distinction between the leadership in Palestine, the
Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and the expatriate leadership reduces the effect of popular
Palestinian support for a policy option incompatible with more militant rhetoric. In
Israel, Jordan, and the Masha�al Affair, P. R. Kumaraswamy describes a tale of intrigue
that seems fit for a John le Carré novel. In 1997, Khaled Mesha�al, at the time Hamas�s
Jordan Bureau Chief, was poisoned by ten agents of the Israeli security organization
Mossad. International pressure from President Clinton and King Hussein eventually led
to Netanyahu giving Mesha�al the antidote to the poison. The result was Jordan�s
deportation of Mesha�al. Much like the PLO throughout its history, Hamas�s actions
have presented a threat to both Israeli and Jordanian designs for Palestinian sovereignty
and governance (Kumaraswamy, 2003 125). Hamas at various times also presented
threats to the PLO�s dominance and the authority of Palestinian President Yasir Arafat.
The Second Intifada began in 2000, and witnessed a brief sidelining of Palestinian
factionalism to the common misery brought about by the escalated military operations
10 This is a statement on Hamas�s view of transparency and accountability by Ghazi Hamad, the editor of al-Risala, Hamas�s weekly publication.
and the Occupation. Arafat�s death in 2004 created new political conditions that raised
questions of whether Hamas could or would participate fully in national politics.
Hamas in Politics?
In November 2004, after the death of Palestinian President Yasir Arafat, Palestinians
chose Mahmoud Abbas as their leader. Khaled Hroub explains that Hamas�s abstention
from presenting a candidate for the Presidential elections was not fundamentally rooted in
opposition to Oslo or the process of elections.
Hamas chose to remain entirely on the sidelines of the November 2004 elections for president of the PA following the death of Yasir Arafat. Hamas believed that it would be illogical to present a candidate for the presidency of a body and indeed an entire system completely dominated by its traditional rival, Fatah. (Hroub, 2006 7)
As a pragmatic and strategically-oriented movement, its participation in 2006 PLC
elections were all but inevitable after its strong showing in municipal elections in 2004
and 2005 (Special Poll, PCPSR December 2005). After its surprising electoral gains in
the municipal elections, largely due to widespread perception of its rival�s corruption,
Hamas decided to contest 2006 PLC elections under the Change and Reform List �to
become a strong opposition force in the new PLC� (Hamad, 2006 3).
The al-Aqsa intifada has created new realities on the ground. It has made the Oslo program a thing of the past. All parties, including the Zionist occupiers, now refer to the demise of Oslo. Our people today are more united, more aware, and stronger than before. Hamas is entering these elections after having succeeded, with God�s help, in affirming its line of resistance and in ingraining it deep in the hearts of our people.
Brothers and sisters: this is our program, which we put before you, sharing with you, hand in hand, our ambition. We do not claim to be able to work miracles, or to have a magic wand. But together we will keep trying to realize our national project with its great aims . . . one free and capable nation. (The Change and Reform Electoral Platform in Hroub, 2006 8-9)
Hamas maintained a continuing rejection of the idea of the Oslo peace in its
connection with the PA and PLC. The unjustifiable nature of such a distinction
helped weaken Hamas�s resistance to participation. In the PLC elections, Naomi
Weinberger explains that �the decision to participate in elections within the
framework of the Palestinian Authority was a reversal of its earlier political
stand� (Weinberger, 2006 13). The decision also reflects significant growth in
Hamas public support since 1996.
The victory was in part a mandate for Hamas to tackle key issues like corruption and
reform. There were also certain structural elements of Palestinian politics that
contributed to Hamas�s victory in receiving PLC mandates (seats), which may not have
reflected a corresponding popular mandate. Naomi Weinberger explains that Hamas
support was partly contingent on Fatah�s failures in fully exploiting the complex
proportional and individual representation aspects of the Palestinian electoral system.
Despite Fatah's efforts to put forward appealing new candidates who were known locally for professional competence rather than factional loyalty, Fatah in the West Bank was considered a movement of social conservatism, with its base primarily in small localities. (Weinberger, 2006 13)
In The Hamas Victory: Implications and Future Challenges, Ziad Abu Zayyad, a PLC
member and former minister, claims that Hamas�s victory �does not necessarily
constitute an endorsement either of its agenda or its modus operandi and military option�
(Abu Zayyad, 2006 107). While he acknowledges that some of the shift in politics is due
to the perception of the corruption, he also claims that Palestinians see the Occupation as
the chief source of problems. A Hamas spokesman, Ghazi Hamad, saw the elections as a
mandate for Hamas to pursue law enforcement, political reform, and job creation
(Hamad, 2006 6).
Results: Table 3 (October 2003 � December 2005):
LegPart (coef., std, p)
Probability of Defection from Hamas to Fatah
ShiseDisenfranc
SWh
SWf −−
(0.3, 0.03, 0.0521)
Probability of Defection from Hamas to Selectorate
Between 1996 and 2003, several major changes occurred regarding the effect of defection
probabilities and Hamas�s loyalty norm on political participation. Unlike in the period of
the first PLC elections, the probability of defecting to Fatah causes a positive effect on
participation. No doubt despite its shortcomings, Fatah managed to maintain a popular
base and was still associated with progress made through negotiations. Despite its
position as an �incorruptible� party, Hamas still had trouble establishing credibility
internationally. This regression clearly also shows that the probability of defecting from
Hamas to the rest of the selectorate has a negative effect on participation. This means
that unlike until 2003, Hamas has had a positive effect on the selectorate in the recent
period. Additionally, as Hamas�s loyalty norm weakens, participation also increases.
Khaled Hroub�s contention that Hamas has undertaken a political moderation appears to
be validated by data. Hamas has always been strategic in its thinking, and Weinberger, in
analyzing Hroub�s contention, asserts that there is �considerable nuance in [Hamas�s]
positions with regard to resistance and a two-state solution, as well as a progressive de-
emphasis on religion in favor of a programmatic, state-building approach� (Weinberger,
2006 15).
Hamas�s loyalty norm has weakened consistently since its victory in the PLC in January
2006. This trend is an indication of the effects of Fatah�s incumbency, which will be
discussed at greater length in the following section as components of Fatah�s drive to
preserve its incumbency � and thus political survival. Hamas�s inexperience at national
governance encouraged it to default back to private goods to its traditional support-base
shortly after the election, and as its loyalty norm progressively weakened. Thus as more
resources are allocated toward private goods after the election, these goods are being
distributed over a far smaller number of people as well. Those who had defected to
Hamas�s coalition in hopes of �punishing Fatah� for corruption may also not have
appreciated the international blockade, which will be discussed in Section VII. These
would have lost their access to public goods as a result, and would not be ensured access
to the increased quantity of private goods, distributed in increasing quantity to Hamas�s
traditional base.
Graph 5: (2004-2006)
Participation, Defection, and Loyalty Norm
-1.2
-0.7
-0.2
0.3
0.8
1.3
Sep
-04
Oct
-04
Nov
-04
Dec
-04
Jan-
05
Feb-
05
Mar
-05
Apr
-05
May
-05
Jun-
05
Jul-0
5
Aug
-05
Sep
-05
Oct
-05
Nov
-05
Dec
-05
Jan-
06Prob
abili
ty PLCPartHamasW/SProbH-FProbH-S
Conclusions: There are clear indications of positive developments in the integration and full
participation of the Palestinian opposition into the political system. Nevertheless, Fatah,
Israeli, and international inflexibility have isolated Hamas and helped reduce its loyalty
norm. The domestic and international political, economic and social changes in the years
between 1996 and 2006 will be examined more closely in the following sections.
Nevertheless, the effects of the international and Israeli blockades of the Hamas-run PA,
and Gaza in particular, have served to reduce Hamas�s loyalty norm and increase the
probability of Hamas coalition members defecting to the selectorate. These conditions
make it more likely that Hamas will continue to default back on the provision of private
goods, like those to its security services as it has done in the last few years. Even during
the 2006 PLC election campaigns, the Carter Center announced �credible reports of use
of Palestinian Authority resources for the benefit of Fateh candidates and numerous
reports of campaigning in many mosques on behalf of Islamic Resistance Movement
(Hamas) candidates� (The Carter Center, 2006). Strengthening loyalty norms and
increased production of private goods also means that the probability of Hamas returning
to its tenuous position outside the political system is more likely. The final section will
look more closely at the effects of these conditions on domestic Palestinian relations and
violence. First, it is necessary to examine an important trend in all polities, and a major
component of the shift in the 2006 legislative elections: corruption.
IV. Corruption
Incumbent Tendencies:
Incumbent leaders tend to favor strong loyalty norms, meaning a low winning coalition
and also generally a reduced selectorate. The strengthening loyalty norm encourages the
production of private goods distributed over a smaller group of people. Corruption tends
to benefit incumbent leaders by allowing them to steal resources from state funds to
allocate as private goods. These resources are then kept by the leader personally to
protect her personal incumbency and distribute to members of W.
In addition to failing to root out corruption, leaders with small winning
coalitions might endorse corruption as a way of rewarding supporters.
(Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 103)
A small winning coalition and selectorate increases leaders� affinities for corruption by
reducing the amount of resources needed for political survival (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003
162). The Logic of Political Survival refers to this trend as kleptocracy, constructed state-
networks of corruption. As the loyalty norm weakens, and W increases and S decrease,
kleptocracy approaches zero (ibid 164). By discouraging public goods and encouraging
private goods, corruption adversely affects not just money but civil liberties,
transparency, foreign policy and the peace as well. We now trace the growth of
corruption under the Palestinian National Authority (PA). This corruption, as has been
previously mentioned, was strongly associated with Fatah�s domination of the PA, and
was a key source of its municipal and legislative defeats (2004-2005 & 2006).
Tracing the Growth of Corruption since Oslo:
An early test of the PA police, in November 1994, resulted in 14 Hamas supporters shot
dead at a peaceful rally in Gaza (Tamimi 191). A Lancet article concisely summarized
the 1997 Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG) �The State of Human
Rights in Palestine� Report as simply �worse.� The group�s director, Bassem Eid,
attributed declining human rights conditions partly to officially sanctioned abuse and
corruption (Fisherman, 1998). Though elections had been held less than a year prior to
the report�s publication, Eid claimed that �criticisms of the Authority are effectively
illegal � political opponents are jailed as an expedient means of blocking opposition�
(ibid). The dismissal of two senior judges, for the criticism of a minister and ruling
against the PA respectively (ibid), indicates attempts by the leadership of Fatah to
strengthen its loyalty norm by withholding private goods from members on the fringe of
its winning coaliton. Over time this means that, as its loyalty norm strengthened, Fatah
would increase private goods over a fewer number of people at the expense of public
goods. It would also isolate those on the edge of its coalition, whose private benefits
were marginal compared to those in the core of the coalition.
Foreign policy is another public good, and Fatah had staked its popularity and reputation
on the provision of tangible results from the peace process. According to Shikaki in
Peace Now or Hamas Later, in 1998:
Most students see the peace process as an American tool to stabilize
Arafat�s corrupt regime and maintain the domestic status quo. The more
disillusioned the students are with the PA about issues like corruption,
mismanagement, and lack of democratization, the more opposed to the
peace process they become. (Shikaki, 1998, 32)
Tessler and Nachtwey observed, in Palestinian Political Attitudes: An Analysis of
Survey Data from The West Bank and Gaza, that despite fluctuating Palestinian
support for peace between January 1994 and the PLC Elections, Fatah managed to
maintain a consistent base of support (Tessler and Nachtwey, 1999 25).
Conspiratorial views on the impact of aid also play a part in defining particularly
Arab discourse on the issues. Corruption has no doubt injured investment in
foreign policy, if just in monetary terms alone, impeding progress toward
Palestinian reform or the implementation of international agreements. Shikaki
mentions that had the nation-building project in Palestine failed, Oslo could have
collapsed (Shikaki, 1998 38). We have already mentioned why the PA favored
Fatah.11 The system was also originally negotiated to be an interim authority
toward the end of creating an internationally-recognized Palestinian state. The
initially transient nature of the PA did not provide the requisite steps toward
institutionalizing consistent elections. This subsequently encouraged the
autocratic trends that strengthened Fatah�s loyalty norm over time. Though
Palestinians consistently ranked their political system more free than Egypt but
less so than Israel in the 1990s, �only about a quarter of the population [said] that
the Palestinian political system is moving toward democracy� (Shikaki, 1998, 39).
Municipal elections, held between 2004 and 2005 in Gaza and the West Bank,
showed a clear public dissatisfaction with the type of private good allocation
associated with corruption.12 Michael Denoeux examined 11 polls by the PCPSR
and Bir Zeit University in the West Bank from January 2004 to June 2005 in The
Politics Of Corruption In Palestine: Evidence From Recent Public-Opinion Polls.
Over this time, 86.5% of poll respondents believed corruption existed and 57.3%
believed officials were not generally charged with graft allegations (Denoeux,
2005 120). About 18% believed corruption was the most significant factor
impeding Abbas, which included responses like the practices of Israel, the PLO, 11 Fath is actually just a reversed Arabic acronym for the Palestine Liberation Organization (harakat tahrir filistiin), and its members personally negotiated Oslo (I) and the Taba� Accords (Oslo II). 12 The First Round was held on December 23, 2004 in �36 population centers� in the West Bank and January 27, 2005. The Second Round was held on May 5, 2005 in �76 [population centers] in the West Bank and 6 in Gaza Strip.� The Third Round was held on September 29, 2005 in �104 population centers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.� All �seats were distributed according to the Proportional Representation System (lists) according to the new Local Councils� Elections Law No. (10) of 2005.� (Palestinian Central Elections Commission, http://www.elections.ps/template.aspx?id=351)
armed groups, and PA coordination (ibid). Though corruption was not
necessarily seen as the most important policy priority, about half of those polled
in municipal election exit polls believed that fighting corruption should be the
PA�s first or second priority (ibid 122). The expectation that Hamas would fight
corruption, and provide the people greater public goods, was a strong deciding
factor in municipal election exit polls.
Extrapolating from this and Denouex's analysis, it is clear that Fatah was the
faction most closely associated with corruption in the PA (Denouex, 2005 124).
In June 2005, Palestinians polled were split on whether they thought corruption
would increase or decrease (38% each) (ibid 123), and over the period 56.6%
believed the PA did not properly approach tackling corruption (ibid 121). Such
high beliefs in the mismanagement of funds would suggest that a credible
challenger would arise that promises greater public goods. Hamas�s
incorruptibility was a major reason for their electoral success. However, low-
turnout in large cities also hurt Fatah�s support, and local voters were more
focused on corruption than issues like the peace process (CPSR Special Poll,
December 21, 2005). Hamas�s perceived strength nevertheless aided its
credibility as a challenger in the 2006 PLC elections. Widespread pessimism that
the government�s fight against corruption was not progressing led voters to select
Hamas in part on the belief it would encourage the distribution of public goods.
Modeling Corruption:
Expectations:
Corruption, according to the Selectorate Theory, is strongly correlated to the size of the
winning coalition and the loyalty norm. The more public goods are funneled instead to
private goods, fewer people receive benefits from government policies. After 1996, as
the incumbent, Fatah began to foster the growth of private good distribution networks
through the PA. These occurred either as political favors from politicians to members of
the selectorate, or from higher up the political ladder to individual politicians. Fatah�s
support had been contingent on the peace process and negotiations beginning with the
Madrid Conference in 1991 and Oslo I in 1992. After 1996, Hamas�s support had been
contingent upon a tenuous balance between limited participation in the PA and
condemnation of negotiations. The effect of support for these competing foreign policies
correlates to support for each group, as will be examined shortly. Between Fatah�s initial
electoral dominance and its decline in 2006, it began to be seen as an increasingly
autocratic and corrupt force.
Graph 6: (1996-2006)
Corruption and PA W/S and W
0.000.100.200.300.400.500.600.700.800.901.00
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
% (0
-1) Corruption
WW/S
The regressions for corruption in The Logic of Political Survival measure the effect of
residual democracy rating (WS:DemRes), W, and W/S against corruption perception and
construction (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 204). We do a regression for annual averages of
W and W/S from 1996 to 2006, drawing these figures from support for Hamas rather than
Fatah beginning in 2006. We do not have a measure of democracy for the PA and cannot
include the effects of Democratic Peace hypotheses, which are not integrally relevant.
Nevertheless, we should expect a negative effect of both W and W/S since 1996 (ibid).
One expects an autocratic tendency for Fatah as the incumbent, so there should be an
increasing trend in corruption and a decreasing trend for W/S from from 1996 until the
2006 elections. The data for corruption are annual averages from PCPSR for those
respondents who believed that corruption did, or definitely did, exist. This measure is
very similar to that employed in regressions in The Logic of Political Survival, which
measures perception of corruption internationally over a greater period of time. All of
these variables are computed as averages for the figures available each year from 1996
until January 2006. We should find negative effects of both independent variables on the
W 6.76 2.02 0.0101 W/S -5.76 1.38 0.0031 p=0.00066 r2=0.83988
The regression explains 84% of the variances in corruption from 1996 to 2006, and is
very statistically significant. Each independent variable has a strong, statistically
significant effect as well. However, W actually causes a rise in Corruption, the opposite
of predicted by Selectorate Theory (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003 204). In part this is
attributable to the eight year gap in elections. Internal incentives for Fatah to reduce
corruption were weak between the first legislative elections in 1996 and the first
municipal elections round in 2004. As expected, W/S has a negative effect on
Corruption, which suggests that as the loyalty norm strengthens, more private goods are
indeed produced. These are distributed by means of political patronage and personal
loyalty by Fatah from moneys like those received through international aid. The rising
threat of Hamas and fractured state of the security services recently have also provided
incentives for Fatah to strengthen its loyalty norm and skim more money off of foreign
aid for political and actual survival. The diversion of funds from public to private goods
corresponds to a higher probability that members will defect from a winning coalition
(smaller W/S). The change in loyalty norm means those outside the coalition benefit less,
because they are not receiving private goods. Thus from 1996 to 2004, Fatah would have
had strong incentives to promote private goods. No doubt some like the tenzim and
Barghouti criticized this corruption, but as Fatah�s loyalty norm strengthened, dissident
members were more likely to be pushed to the fringe or to defect.
Thus Fatah�s regime from 1996 to 2006 appears to reflect the normal trend of régime
kleptocracy. Were Fatah�s loyalty norm to weaken, perception of corruption would fall
as more money is diverted to public goods like housing, economic activity, peace, and
perhaps foreign policy. However, it is possible that Fatah�s loyalty was not the most
important factor in delivering on the peace initiative, especially in the early and mid-
1990s. Israel�s resources far outstrip those of the PA and Fatah in negotiating or
implementing any peace accords. Therefore, the effect of Fatah�s provision of this public
good would be less significant on corruption than Israeli effects.13 As Fatah�s loyalty
norm strengthens, it diverts money to other uses like private rewards for members of its
coalition. Corruption had a significantly negative effect on Fatah�s popularity throughout
the 1990s and until the 2006 PLC Elections. This factor will be examined further, but
clearly the key factor for corruption in the territories, as predicted by the Selectorate
Model, is Fatah�s loyalty norm.
Fatah�s reliance on international assistance in diplomacy and foreign funding to
implement its domestic and foreign policy initiatives encourages private goods to Fatah
members, while general economic well-being may be devalued in policy priorities. The
US and Israel need Fatah support in their respective wars against terror, and have
provided Fatah external incentives to encourage corruption within the PA. There still
seems to be a relatively high level of PA private good provision to Fatah, which is not
surprising given that Fatah has institutionalized its presence within the PA over its decade
in power. A lack of transparency and the irregularity of elections have generally
encouraged greater Fatah corruption, and have isolated Fatah policies from popular
desires. Hamas�s provision of private goods through its grass-roots charity organizations,
as a challenger not in power, was not seen as encouraging corruption because of the
13 Selectorate Theory sees foreign policy as a dyadic game in which greater allocation of resources toward foreign policy by one actor helps it beat the other.
Islamic norms of giving charity (al-zakaa). Municipal elections were the first indication
of Palestinian discontent with a kleptocratic government, and its belief that Hamas would
rigorously tackle the endemic graft problem.
Conclusions:
Selectorate Theory would expect a lack of regular elections, like election rigging, to be
indicative of tendencies that lead to kleptocracy. It would also expect foreign interests to
seek to keep Palestinian political participation low and support for the government low.
This encourages the production of private goods at the expense of public goods like
foreign policy. It also aids in the US and Israeli wars on terrorist organizations �like
Hamas.�14 This serves Israel and the US by providing them public goods, like foreign
policy assurance and reduced risk of terrorism, as well as private goods, like serving
private policy interests.15 These external elements have a destabilizing force on relations
between Israel and Palestine, and the Palestinians. Selectorate Theory also has
predictions about when states initiate conflict, and how they behave. The following
section will examine these predictions and examine the Second Intifada, a wave of
violence conflict between Israel and Palestinians that began in 2000.
14 Hamas, as an umbrella organization, does fund and support terrorist activities, but calling Hamas a terrorist organization like al-Qaeda, devalues the important cause of analyzing Hamas�s political behavior. 15 See Mearsheimer, J. and Walt, S. (2007), The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
V. From Occupation to Uprising ( اإلحتالل إلى اإلنتفاضةمن فلسطين (
Since June 1967, Israel has occupied all of the territory commonly
referred to as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. With occupation has
come Israeli responsibility for ruling approximately 1.3 million
Palestinian Arabs...16
Since its occupation of the West Bank in 1967 the Israeli government has
avoided any substantial investment in the occupied territories' economic
infrastructure.
(Emile Sahliyeh, In Search of Leadership: West Bank Politics Since 1967)
The First Intifada and the Peace Process: 1967-1991
The creation of Israel in 1948 produced hundreds of thousands of refugees in camps
throughout the neighboring Arab countries. The primary focus on the issue of Palestinian
refugees shifted to the Occupation after 1987, when Palestinians began a coordinated
campaign of civil disobedience and calculated violence called the First Intifada.17 The
aims of the Intifada, portrayed in some Western media as disorganized �Arab rage� or
violence, was not actually intended toward the aim of violently destroying the
Occupation. Rather, in contrast to growing pressure on the PLO to compromise with
Israel, the Intifada was intended �to draw world attention to their grievances and political
aspirations� (Sahliyeh, 1988 177). In essence, it was both a campaign for media
16 The number of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza has risen to just under 4 million as of 2007. 17 al-intifada means �the shaking off.�
coverage and for bolstering the morale of a people who had lost rights and dignity. The
Occupation had led to harsh interrogation practices, administrative detentions and the
demolition of homes of �suspected militants� within Palestine (Dowty, 2005 132).
The Occupation was not the only external force affecting politics in the Territories,
though it was the most significant. Jordan and the PLO, an organization forced outside
Palestine until Oslo, also exerted influence within the West Bank and Palestinians were
�subject to fluctuations in the political influence and political fortunes of the outside
players they follow� (Sahliyeh, 1988 7). Israel had attempted to create and buttress local
rural elites in Palestine, and this served to undermine "the political power of the West
Bank nationalist elite" (ibid 164). There was also no hegemonic Palestinian voice, and
alignments of pro-PLO pragmatists and pro-Jordanian factions differed in their
approaches to resolving problems, particularly in whether UN Resolution 242 should be
accepted (ibid 167). Some Palestinians, like Sari Nusseibeh, even argued that demanding
equal rights for Palestinians within the Israeli political system would be most likely to
ensure Palestinian rights (ibid 173). Israeli opposition to territorial concessions,
particularly by the Likud Party, hurt Palestinian attempts at negotiated settlement,
although �pragmatic PLO� politicians had initiated talks with Israel after the 1982
Lebanon War (ibid 171). Other PLO members, like some security personnel �crossed
over and joined in acts of violence, reflecting internal Palestinian political struggles"
(Weinberger, 2006 6).
The effects of the Intifada were mixed and Israelis and Palestinians may both have lost
out as a result of the violence that followed acts of civil disobedience. On the one hand,
the First Intifada helped break the normative deterrence created by Palestinian fear of the
Israeli Occupation. Many Palestinians who were directly affected by the Intifada �were
no longer fearful of confronting the Israeli army� (Sahliyeh, 1988 3). Nevertheless, it
may also have made Israelis more hawkish on short-term practices like detention and
more dovish on long-term concessions on territory (Dowty, 2005 135). Emile Sahliyeh
claims the Intifada was �particularly detrimental to Jordan's interests� in political control
of the West Bank (Sahliyeh, 1988 184). To this point, as discussed in the Political
Participation section, local politics was divided over support for the PLO and for
Jordanian initiatives. After the 1982 Lebanon War, there was a joint PLO-Jordanian
initiative "culminating in the signing of an agreement between King Hussein and PLO
Chairman Yasir Arafat in February 1985... a year later the agreement was suspended and
Jordanian-PLO relations were ruptured" (ibid 2). The PLO�s refusal to recognize UN
Resolution 242 significantly injured its ability to portray itself as a legitimate negotiating
body to Israel and the US (Dowty, 2005 130). The PLO also coordinated violent activity
with Islamist movements under the National Unified Leadership of the Uprising (NULU),
which �operated in a clandestine manner, away from foreign media exposure and
political visibility� (Sahliyeh, 183). Nevertheless, the PLO eventually agreed to
recognize Israel, renounce violence, and accept Resolution 242, after which negotiations
between the PLO and United States commenced (Dowty, 2005 136).
The al-Aqsa Intifada, the Second Intifada:
The Second Intifada began after a brief period of optimism that the government of Ehud
Barak would commit itself to a just, peaceful settlement with the Palestinians. The
failure of the Camp David Summit in 2000 was attributed by the Israelis to Palestinian
inflexibility. It was attributed by the Palestinians to Israeli inflexibility, and Arafat�s
popularity increased with his image as uncompromising on Palestinian rights (Tamimi,
2007 199). Israeli external security had improved since the first Intifada, having signed a
peace agreement with Jordan in 1994 (Egypt in 1979). Little tangible progress toward
Palestinian statehood, rights, or final settlement issues had been achieved, however, and
when Ariel Sharon visited al-haram al-sharif with IDF protection, he enraged the Islamic
World and triggered the Second Intifada (Tamimi, 2007 199). The Israeli response to
another movement of calculated violence and civil disobedience was to systematically
destroy �the PA's security capabilities-headquarters, accomodations, and prisons�
(Weinberger, 2006 7). The PA in fact began freeing prisoners, claiming they could not
guarantee protection against Israeli attacks, and Barak threatened to hold the PA
accountable for attacks against Israel (Tamimi, 2007 200). The election of Sharon and
the Likud Party in 2001 dramatically changed the character of Israeli-US relations and
has had a pronounced effect on Palestinian politics that will be examined in the next
section.
The Intifada was advocated by tenzim like Marwan Barghouti, whereas it was condemned
by prominent figures like Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas (Abu Mazen), who was appointed the
first Palestinian Prime Minister in March 2003, resigned in October with the feeling that
he had little power to affect change. Despite being an old comrade of Arafat�s, he and
the President quickly �became rivals,� and Abbas�s condemnations of the al-Aqsa
Intifada lost him favor and popularity until his resignation (Tamimi, 2007 204). The
tenzim advocated greater cooperation with Hamas and greater militancy. This placed
strong pressure on Arafat�s political survival while he was under military siege by Israel
and cut-off by the United States. In Hamas: A History from Within, Azzam Tamimi
claims that Arafat learned too late �that what Israel was looking for in him was not so
much a partner as a collaborator� [who] preferred to die under siege rather than go
down in history as a traitor� (Tamimi, 2007 204-205).
Model for the Second Intifada:
The Logic of Political Survival forwards seven hypotheses of state motivation in and after
warfare. The authors acknowledge the model�s shortcomings in accounting for
particularities of issues in disputes that lead to war (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 423).
They also explain that their hypotheses� are based on the assumption that after the
cessation of conflict, foreign policy interests of the vanquished and victor will continue to
be opposed. In seeking to model the Second Intifada, the limitations of generalizing a
conflict that has been ongoing and unresolved should not be understated. Still, these
hypotheses have important implications for explaining state action, which will primarily
concentrate on Israeli action in this section.
The political, security, and economic costs of �declaring war� for Palestinians are muted
by the continuation of an Occupation that renders these effects on Palestinians anyway.
Nevertheless, the costs of supporting policies like uprising have become greater, and the
potential benefits slimmer, for Palestinians over time. Hamas�s response to renewed PLO
vigor in Oslo negotiations with Israel was a call for the intensification of the Intifada
(Sela and Mishal, 2000 120). In addition to detention, imprisonment, and movement and
economic restrictions on Palestinians, Israel also targets certain people for assassination.
Territory:
Many Israelis consider Gaza and the West Bank to be necessary for total Israeli security.
Settlements have progressed steadily in the West Bank over the last several decades
despite the withdrawal of settlers and the IDF from Gaza in 2005. The Golan Heights
were unilaterally annexed in the early 1980s, and the Israeli Separation Barrier has
shaved more and more precious land from what the Palestinians control of the West
Bank. Many Israelis refer to the West Bank by its biblical names: Judea or Samaria
(Sahliyeh, 1988 1). Selectorate Theory offers two caveats before explaining when states
take territory in war. First, taking territory shifts resources from the vanquished to the
victor, but requires the victor to fight �beyond the point when it could end the war with a
favorable settlement� (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 417). There are precious few
instances of states agreeing to cede all or some territory without the credible threat of
annihilation. Secondly, institutions can also have an effect, but if costs of taking territory
are small institutions may not have a significant effect in reducing a state�s desire for land
(Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 418).
1. The larger the winning coalition of a warring state, the less likely
it is to seek to take territory from the opposing side.
(Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 419)
The model assumes that leaders seek greater resources to increase the provision of private
goods to their coalition and to skim goods off for themselves. We have already seen that
as the loyalty norm weakens, the provision of such private goods becomes less likely.
Therefore, all things remaining equal, the smaller the winning coalition, the more likely
an increase in resources will improve a leader�s chances of political survival by
increasing the resources available for allocating private goods (Bueno de Mesquita et al.,
2003 418). If institutional arrangements also allow leaders to skim resources for
themselves, they have a further incentive to seek those resources (ibid). Because Israel�s
government functions as a coalition democracy, the winning coalition may be lower than
support figures would suggest. Many Israeli governments are made up of disparate
elements that have strongly differing policy preferences. Thus strong support for the
government may not have the same effects shown by The Logic of Political Survival,
because it is not an accurate measure of WIsrael. Israeli settlements are a private good to
Israeli constituencies, which help fuel conflict by allowing the de facto seizure of
territory. Land and money are then distributed to those who support settlement policies
and choose to become settlers.
2. The larger the size of the selectorate in a warring state, the more
likely it is to seek territory as a war aim. The impact of selectorate
size (SA) should be most pronounced when WA is small.
(Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 419)
As selectorate size rises, a winning coalition�s loyalty norm is strengthened (W/S is
reduced). As a result, there should be a shift in provision of public to private goods. As
already mentioned, taking territory increases the resources available to a victor state.
These newly acquired resources can be distributed as private goods, but more resources
can also be taken by the leader without fear of injuring political survival (Bueno de
Mesquita et al., 2003 418). Yisrael Beitenu, an Israeli political party that has in the past
supported transporting all Arabs to the Sea of Galilee area, resigned from the government
in early 2008 on the basis of refusing to negotiate with the PA on final status issues.18
The party�s founder, Avigdor Lieberman, recently explained to Jimmy Carter his belief
that land for peace will �provide neither peace nor security.�19 In March 2006 Israeli
elections, Yisrael Beitenu received 11 spots in the Knesset compared to 12 for the former
governing Likud, 19 for Labor-Meimad, and 29 for the new governing Kadima.20 Thus
private goods to Israeli parties that do not advocate peace or settlement on the basis of
international peace initiatives or UN resolutions have generally encouraged the illegal
seizure of Palestinian land. Because the Palestinian democracy, despite autocratic
18 Lieberman blasts Arab MKs, pulls party out of government. Mazal Mualem: Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Online Service. January 16, 2008. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/945299.html. (May 2008) 19 Liberman to Carter: "Land for peace will bring neither peace or security. The Strategic Threats: Israel Beytenu Domain. http://beytenu.org./121/1641/article.html. (May 2008) 20 Results. Elections for the 17th Knesset � 2006. English Domain to the Israeli Knesset. http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections17/eng/index_eng.asp. (May 2008)
tendencies present in any government, is a large-coalition system, Israel would also have
an incentive in taking resources to forestall future Palestinian foreign policy efforts. The
effect of vanquished selection institutions may be marginal compared to those of the
victor; but if the vanquished leader heads a large-coalition system, resources are more
likely to be sought by the victor to forestall future foreign policy efforts by the
vanquished (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 419).
Puppets:
3. Puppets are not installed in large-coalition systems.
(Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 421)
The prerequisite military control of the victor must be extensive to allow the installation
of a puppet in a vanquished state, and the puppet must be able to hold power domestically
(Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 419). Thus installing a puppet in a large-coalition
system would be unlikely to succeed because of domestic competition. A victor state
would have to pay a very high cost to ensure the survival of a puppet in a large-coalition
system. Because puppets are constrained in their provision of goods, they survive best in
systems with strong loyalty norms (large selectorate and small coalition) (Bueno de
Mesquita et al., 2003 420). The Palestinian system is not kind to those seen as
collaborators. Even those seen as genuinely decent have difficulty brokering popular
reforms favorable to Israel and the West. In contrast to Arafat during the Second
Intifada, Mahmoud Abbas was forced to resign his post as Prime Minister believing the
Intifada to be a mistake. His inability to deliver on promises to increase public goods as
President is also severely constrained by his reliance on Israel and US support, and his
conflict with Hamas within the PA. Nevertheless, Israel has been unsuccessful in
exerting direct political control of the Territories through Palestinian actors.
4. The larger the coalition in the victorious state (WA), the more
likely the victorious leader is to replace the defeated leader with a
puppet.
(Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 421).
The course of Israeli negotiations with the PA has created an institutional link that
prevents more radical action espoused by radical Israeli political parties. Nevertheless,
Israel was willing to attempt to depose Hamas, after its election in 2006, both through
Abbas and Mohammed Dahlan. This reveals an Israeli willingness to favor Palestinian
political actors that do not provide public goods like foreign policy that is contrary to
Israeli interests. This concerns the aforementioned caveat that foreign policy aims may
not always be contradictory, especially after the election of Abbas. However, it will be
discussed at greater length in the next section. The commitment of greater resources to
foreign policy is more likely when the loyalty norm is high (Bueno de Mesquita et al.,
2003 420).
5. Subject to puppets not being installed in the largest-coalition
systems, the greater B�s coalition, the greater the prospects that a
puppet will be imposed on B. (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 421)
Installing a puppet in very large-coalition systems may be counterproductive because
the puppet is unlikely to survive domestic competition. Nevertheless a large-coalition
system of the vanquished tends to favor the allocation of public goods. To constrain
the foreign policy capacity of the vanquished, the victor has an interest in
constraining the foreign policy capacity of the victor. Thus, if a vanquished political
system has a weak loyalty norm (as in large-coalition systems), the victor has an
interest in installing a puppet to prevent the greater provision of goods to foreign
policy in the future (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 421). Israeli constraints on
negotiating with the PA have placed many disproportionate preconditions, and the PA
likewise on Israel, that have generally injured cooperation and aided Palestinian
unrest. Because of its progressively increasing reliance on Israel for tax revenue and
maintaining few constraints on the Occupation, Fatah�s public good provision was
externally constrained in a situation fundamentally dissimilar to that of Hamas.
Before 2006, Hamas was unlikely to be seen as responsible for these external
constraints.
Institutional Change and Control:
The last two hypotheses are concerned with when a victor state is likely to seek to
change the selection institution of the vanquished.
6. The larger the winning coalition in the victorious state, the more likely it is to
alter institutions by reducing coalition size and increasing selectorate size in the
defeated state.
(Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 423)
This discussion is similar to the previous hypotheses, namely constraining a vanquished
state�s future investment in public goods like foreign policy. When a victor can
strengthen the loyalty norm of a vanquished state, it reduces the vanquished state�s
investment in foreign policy and increases its own chances at foreign policy success
(Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 423). Israeli constraints at the negotiating table and in
impeding PA implementation of international agreements adversely affected the
performance development of the PA and its policies. In particular, Israel has conflicted
with the PA in its provision of security by imprisoning Palestinians and controlling
violence (imposing its military sovereignty) in PA administered territories.
7. The larger the winning coalition in the losing state, the more likely
a large-coalition victor is to seek institutional changes.
(Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 423)
Strengthening the vanquished state�s loyalty norm weakens its provision of public goods
like foreign policy in the future (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 422). US and Israeli
funding of Fatah and the PA President Mahmoud Abbas after Hamas�s election in 2006
have helped strengthen Fatah�s loyalty norm. Israeli Occupation constraints have also
encouraged Fatah�s corruption, and controlled its provision of public and private goods.
Expectations:
We examine data collected from PCPSR polls, and fatality statistics from the Israeli
human rights monitor B�Tzelem. We apply a similar model to that which will be applied
to Palestinian domestic violence. The dependent variable is a measure of deaths of Israeli
civilians and security personnel in the Occupied Territories, taken from B�Tzelem�s
website, over the period of January 2001 to December 2006. A multiple-variable linear
regression is then done first for WF, WF/S, CivLibs, and CivLibs*W. CivLibs is a measure
of those respondents not positively evaluating PA civil rights. In other words it measures
all respondents less those who evaluate the PA as �positive� or �very positive.� We then
successively add IntDeaths, to examine the effect of Palestinians killed from 2001 to
2006, and SupportPeace, to measure the effect of fluctuations in Palestinian support for
peace. If support for peace is low, violence would be a more highly-preferred good.
IDFPrisoners is not statistically significant, although the slight negative correlation may
show that from 2002 to 2006, Israeli imprisonment tactics had a negative effect on
violence, or indeed were an Israeli public good. The opposite is true for Detainees,
which is statistically significant, and the positive trend appears to show that as short-term
arbitrary detention rates rose, violence increased. The likely correlation suggests that
increased systematic Israeli oppression of the Occupied Territories served the short-term
cause of spurring violence in the Intifada. Over the long-term, however, Israeli
imprisonment may have acted as a credible deterrent to violence. It is unclear that
Palestinian action had any effect on Israeli policy as PA performance at quelling violence
was not acceptable to the Israelis at any point (Tamimi, 2007 202).
It is unclear whether this correlation (of detainees to violence) suggests that a rising
number of detainees had a negative trend on violence against Israelis. Systematic
Occupation has also institutionalized these practices in a manner that makes them
ineffective as deterrents. They therefore have very small effects on overall violence
toward Israelis. The lack of statistical significance for both W and W/S in the final
regression is interesting. The inconsistency of both Israeli and PA policy may explain
why coalition size may not have the most significant effect on Israeli violence when
compared to the Occupation. The succession of Abu Mazen after the death of Arafat
created a leader far more favorable to Israeli policy, signaling a potential change in Israeli
policy direction in 2004, however unfulfilled. SupportPeace may be statistically
significant in these regressions. If we had better data we could be more certain, but its p-
value is slightly higher than the 0.1 cut-off. This might suggest that Palestinian support
for a foreign policy that would be more confluent with Israeli foreign policy increases
violence, because it is not taken into account in Israeli efforts for peace. Selectorate
Theory would suggest that for Israel to �beat� Palestine at a foreign policy game, it
should seek to reduce provision of the peace process.
Selectorate Theory explains that the larger a winning coalition in the vanquished state,
the more likely a victor will seek to install a puppet (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 421) and
institutional changes (ibid 423). The Palestinian political system is a large-coalition
democracy, despite problems with political control and human rights. Thus it would be
impossible for Israel to install a puppet which it directly controls. Nevertheless, it does
appear that Israel�s buttressing of Abbas recently, and its marginalization of Arafat,
represent Israeli attempts to promote certain leadership tendencies and institutional
changes. In 2003, Fatah�s support hit a 2 or 3 year peak, but has consistently remained
above 25%. As Fatah�s support began to increase, and its loyalty norm weakened, Israel
should be more likely to employ means like forcing institutional change and installing a
puppet. Clearly, shifts in Israeli policy after the death of Arafat (that have strongly
favored Fatah) are indications of Selectorate Theory�s value in explaining victor-state
behavior.
Conclusions:
Though Detainees and IDFPrisoners are not statistically significant independent
variables in either of the above regressions, if their effects are to be believed they reveal
something interesting about the high cost of Israeli oppression. The effect of the prisoner
data suggests that if Israel holds 10,000 Palestinians monthly, they might save two Israeli
lives per month. From 2001 to 2006, there have been an average of more than 2,000
prisoners held and an average of 5 Israeli deaths per month. Clearly the effect of
continued oppression reduces oppression�s value as a deterrent �because there is no
connection between opposing the government and suffering the punishment� (Bueno de
Mesquita, 2003 346). Detention would appear to have a positive effect on violence,
helping to spur the First Intifada, and inflaming Palestinian public opinion and militancy
in the short term. Fueling the cycle of hate cannot be a desired or beneficial outcome for
Israel. The theory behind oppression will be examined in the next section, as well as the
shift in direction of Palestinian violence from Israel toward fellow Palestinians.
VI. A House Divided
Until Arafat's death, diplomacy was frozen, and the Sharon government
increasingly embraced unilateral measures, including the construction of
a security barrier in the West Bank and plans to withdraw unilaterally
from Gaza. (Weinberger, 2006 8)
The Presidency of Mahmoud Abbas:
Arafat had lost the support of some within Fatah, Israel, and the United States. The
election of Mahmoud Abbas in 2005 took some of the pressure off of the PA by creating
the opportunity for Abbas to improve the PA�s image in Israel and the West. His task
was arduous and has been met with limited success. Proceeding particularly slowly is the
pace of security sector reform, which is vitally needed if the PA hopes to restore law and
order to the Occupied Teritories. Despite a legacy of corrupt governance and an
infrastructure devastated by the Second Intifada, Abbas managed to negotiate a partial
West Bank withdrawal with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (Weinberger, 2006 16).
Increasingly, Sharon�s Likud government embodied unilateral tactics. The most
important unilateral action taken by the Sharon government was its withdrawal of
settlements and IDF forces (from settlements) in the Gaza Strip in September 2005.
After the Gaza Withdrawal, the US remained relatively hands-off until Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice "reassured [the PA] about arrangements for free passage into and out of
Gaza for people and goods" and EU monitors took up positions with a very limited
mandate at the Rafah crossing in Gaza (ibid 20).
After the Israeli Disengagement from Gaza, civil order quickly degenerated � especially
in the Gaza Strip. Spats of violence in the Territories can partly be explained by the
fractured nature of the security services. Militias are controlled by various individuals
and institutions, including the presidency and factions and their members. In her
examination of security sector reform, Weinberger explains that:
Arafat deliberately fostered competing security organizations with overlapping responsibilities, seeking personal loyalty from their commanders and undermining the rule of law in the transitional political system. (Weinberger, 2006 4)
Attempts to reform the fragmented nature of the security sector have been impeded by a
legacy of PA corruption and mismanagement. Clashes between Hamas supporters and
Palestinian police have resulted from Abbas's decision to incorporate militias directly into
the PA security services without proper training (Weinberger, 2006 9). The balance of
control is extremely tenuous, and according to the forward written by Sela and Mishal for
the reprint of their book after 2006 PLC elections,
�despite the subordination of the security organizations to the PA president, any attempt by the Hamas-led government to conduct major purges or reshuffle the existing command of these security agencies might result in violent confrontation with Fatah. (Sela and Mishal in Weinberger, 2006 p.xxiii)
An early indication of the disruption of this delicate balance came just after the Israeli
withdrawal from Gaza. Hamas began firing Qassam rockets into Israel. When Hamas
supporters were confronted by PA police, they attacked a police station (Weinberger,
2006 17).
In The Peace Process and the Israeli Elections, Rynhold and Steinberger explain that
security constituted the key issue in the 2001 Israeli elections, resulting in an Israeli vote
of no-confidence in the PA (Rynhold and Steinberger, 2004 182). Shortly after Sharon�s
election, he formed a unity government, which increased the size of the governing
coalition. He also managed to foster a very close relationship to President George W.
Bush. Bush has been ostensibly unwilling to place the diplomatic, financial or military
constraints on the Israeli state, applied by previous presidents, creating a situation where,
for the first time in five decades the policy of the US president was closer to that of the Israeli right than to the Israeli left. (Rynhold and Steinberger, 2004 192).
President Bush has extended loans without conditions that Israel freeze settlement
construction, unlike his father, and had delayed the announcement of the Roadmap to
Peace until after Israeli elections at Sharon�s personal request (ibid 192). During
Sharon�s first term, very little actual progress occurred with regard to the peace process.
Arafat�s hand was increasingly tied by Israel, rival Palestinian factions, and the
international community. Sharon, whose visitation of al-haram al-sharif had triggered
the Second Intifada, moved to reoccupy the West Bank and intensify incursions into
Gaza. This prompted just under half of Palestinians to believe the only goal of Israel�s
use of force was destruction (ibid 182). Hamas�s already poor reputation in the West was
hurt further by the confluence of the War on Terror, Israeli unilateralism, and a close
Israeli-US relationship. Sharon�s relationship with President Bush helped the former
convince the latter that Yasir Arafat did not want peace, (Tamimi, 2007 200). The
optimism behind Abbas�s selection abated with the fear that Hamas would undertake
terrorist actions and policies of aggression and destabilization with a freer-hand after its
election. The experiences of the US Iraq War of 2003 and the Israeli Lebanon War of
2006 did not appear to constrain the US�s belief that Hamas, a popular mass-movement,
could be deposed through unilateral military action. The United States feared the
expansion of Hamas power and in early 2006 began implementing policies and applying
pressure with regard to Fatah�s handling of Hamas�s governance. This analysis goes
beyond the scope of the basic Selectorate Theory model, but helps to explain the
importance of external coercion and deterrence.
Examining the Gaza Takeover and the Palestinian civil war:
Ziad Abu Zayyad, the former minister and PLC member, was reluctant to call the Hamas
victory a clear mandate. Its strengthening loyalty norm, after 2006 PLC elections, is
related to two factors. Firstly, the US and Israel quickly moved to isolate Hamas and to
buttress Fatah militarily and financially. Secondly, incumbency provides leaders an
advantage in providing private goods because they have established the reliable
allocation of private goods to supporters throughout their terms (Bueno de Mesquita et
al., 2003 59). Fatah had been given an essentially free mandate for eight years, and many
clearly voted for Hamas as a protest to Fatah and its association with PA corruption
rather than an endorsement of Hamas. These people would have wagered that Hamas
could more reliably reduce corruption, increasing the flow of public goods and producing
a better outcome for the Palestinian condition. After its election, Abu Zayyad, like others
in Fatah, believed Hamas�s ability to successfully govern was contingent on moderation:
To stay in power means that Hamas will have to change its position for one that espouses the same notions and language of the intemational community and which Fateh has embraced since the 19th PLO National Council that was held in Algiers in November 1988, and the historic decisions taken then to recognize UN resolutions 242 and 338 and to accept the principle of a two state solution. If this occurs, the result will be a new Hamas which will be much more akin to Fateh but calls itself �Hamas.� (Abu Zayyad, 2006 110).
The support that Hamas received for its Change and Reform List in the 2006 PLC
elections quickly fell. But as Hamas�s loyalty norm weakened through the election, its
provision of foreign policy would have increased. Observers have contended that despite
Graph 8
Hamas and Fatah Loyalty Norms (1993-2006)
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Hamas�s inability to fully fulfill international expectations, it has altered its discourse on
Israel dramatically. The increasing similarity in the foreign policies of Hamas and Fatah,
coupled with Hamas�s increase in provision of public goods, had a strong potential to
fundamentally threaten Fatah�s political survival. The threat to a core public good like
diplomacy would, according to Selectorate Theory make it more likely that Fatah would
seek institutional change in conflict (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 423). The same
prediction is true with regard to Hamas�s winning coalition. As WH rises and WH/S rise,
the theoretical �Fatah polity� would be more likely to seek institutional change against the
theoretical �Hamas polity� (ibid).21
21 This model is dyadic for states, and so the modeling of the regression assumes an inevitable polarization between two sub-state states � this assumption is explained below.
There are two periods in which Hamas�s loyalty norm weakened dramatically: first after
the municipal elections in 2005, and then the PLC elections in 2006. In the period
between the municipal and legislative elections, Fatah had a relatively weak loyalty norm
in the West Bank, indicating that goods were being distributed to a large portion of the
selectorate. The result of the 2006 PLC elections appears to have been a strengthening of
Fatah�s loyalty norm in the West Bank and a weakening of Hamas�s loyalty norm in the
West Bank. This would lead to an increase in the provision of private goods by Fatah
and likewise for public goods by Hamas. We speculate that the resulting public goods
production was channeled into efforts like Hamas�s attempts to foster a unity government
with an uncooperative Fatah. This shift in Hamas policy, from a Selectorate perspective,
would injure the chances of Fatah�s survival and lead to any number of potential
outcomes. A consistent weakening of Fatah�s loyalty norm throughout 2006 corresponds
to a significant increase in US military aid to President Abbas, and a blockade on the
transfer of money to Hamas. This effective embargo by the US and EU on the Hamas
government meant �as many as 160,000 employees of the PA did not receive full salaries
in the aftermath of the Hamas electoral victory� (Weinberger, 2006 14). Israel also
prevented �the transfer to the PNA of collected tax and customs revenues, which are the
legal property of the PNA� (Hamad, 2006 8). The United States quickly moved to
prevent funding to Hamas, and to buttress Abbas. Executive Order Number 13338,
signed on May 11, 2006 by President George W. Bush, states:
are blocked under United States law for terrorism-related reasons, including, but not limited to, Hamas.
This created a greater asymmetry between the two factions. Additionally, stronger
Hamas support and capabilities in Gaza, despite the monetary constraints of the
embargo,22 posed a significant threat to Fatah especially in Gaza.
Nevertheless, the mandate that Hamas received led it to seek to form a
government. Rather than attempt to do so alone, Hamas�s MPs extended offers
for a coalition government to Fatah, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (DFLP), and Islamic Jihad. Though the latter two elements expressed
interest in sharing power, Fatah �never had any real intention of joining a
coalition, preferring to �wait it out� in the hopes that Hamas�s days in power
would be numbered� (Hroub, 2006 16). Fatah�s political dominance had been
threatened and its political survival was perhaps in question. As WF decreased,
and Fatah�s loyalty norm strengthened, it �put party affiliates in key positions in
the PLC and PNA Departments for Administrative and Financial Control and
Personnel and Salaries� (Hamad, 2006 7). Acts like this served to solidify Fatah�s
residual control over certain institutions of governance as well as to strengthen
Fatah�s network for distributing private goods.
Hamas�s decision to seek a unity government reflects these realities, as Hroub
explains:
As already indicated, one of the major problems confronting Hamas following its victory was external pressure to recognize international conventions and agreements on Palestine. A number of articles reflect Hamas�s attempt to grapple with these issues. Article 5 calls for
22 Note that Hamas�s loyalty norm has strengthened consistently since the election.
�Cooperating with the international community for the purpose of ending the occupation and settlements and achieving a complete withdrawal from the lands occupied [by Israel] in 1967, including Jerusalem, so that the region enjoys calm and stability during this phase.� Two articles attempt to provide assurances that the Hamas-led government will function within the international conventions and agreements on Palestine: Article 9 confirms that �The government will deal with the signed agreements [between the PLO/PA and Israel] with high responsibility and in accordance with preserving the ultimate interests of our people and maintaining its rights without compromising its immutable prerogatives,� while article 10 states that �The government will deal with the international resolutions [on the Palestine issue] with national responsibility and in accordance with protecting the immutable rights of our people.�
Clearly, articles 9 and 10 did not go far enough to satisfy either the international community or Fatah. They did, however, represent a major shift on Hamas�s part, showing an obvious attempt to maintain a delicate balance between appeasing international observers and Hamas�s own constituency. (Hroub, 2006 16-17).
Though Fatah consistently refused to take part in a Hamas-led government, Abbas invited
Hamas�s Ismail Haniya to form a government. The Cabinet Platform submitted by
Hamas, for the formation of a government, in March 2006:
Sought to signal to Israel its nonbelligerency and expectation of smooth interaction in �necessary contacts in all mundane affairs,� even while emphasizing Palestinian suffering from Israeli policies and the Palestinians� legitimate right to resist the occupation (Hroub, 2006 20).
Continuing belief in the importance of retaining the right of resistance to the
Occupation did not meet international or Israeli standards for Hamas�s inclusion
in international politics. Foreign pressure strained ties between Abbas�s
administration and the new Hamas government. By the summer, Abbas had
threatened to host a referendum on Palestinian statehood so as to bind Hamas to
the recognition of Israel and past PLO treaties.23 Abbas�s dissolution of the
Hamas government shortly thereafter, declaration of a state of emergency, and
appointment of Salam Fayyad as acting Prime Minister helped polarize conditions
in the Territories. The same day, June 14, 2006, Hamas seized control of much of
the Gaza Strip.
Oppression and Stalemate:
The Israeli Occupation had a deleterious long-term effect on the Palestinian Security
services, especially since Israel�s Operation Defensive Shield under Sharon in 2002 Rose,
2008 7). US pressure also had a pronounced impact on Fatah�s behavior toward Hamas,
accounting for the low variance explained by the regressions below.
In April 2008, David Rose published an article in Vanity Fair detailing
a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Deputy National Secuirty Advisor Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by [Mohammed] Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America�s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power.� (Rose, 2008 3)
US interference in Palestine began innocently enough with the encouragement of
elections by President George W. Bush. The US had a large role in promoting the idea of
elections in the Territories. Despite the necessity of Fatah to US policy in the Israeli- 23 As of May 2008, still accessible from BBCNews Online: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5068460.stm
Palestinian peace process, the administration did not appear to care that many close
observers and Fatah members warned that Fatah was not adequately prepared to contest a
national election (Rose, 2008 5). Particular pressure was placed on Abbas who, like
Arafat, found himself trapped between US, Israeli, and domestic pressures.
Graph 9: Palestinian Violence
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The previously described attempts at forming a unity government by Hamas, with which
Fatah appeared wholly disinterested, were also de-incentivized by US policy.
Washington reacted with dismay when Abbas began holding talks with Hamas in the hope of establishing a �unity government.� (ibid)
The US appeared to instead favor dissolving the result of the elections completely and
imposing a government of emergency rule through the agency of President Abbas.
Secretary of State Rice traveled to Ramallah to secure a promise by Abbas to attempt to
depose Hamas, and after eating with Abbas at an iftar during Ramadan attempted to
ascertain a specific time at which Abbas would dissolve Hamas�s government (Rose,
2008 6). A US State Department memo to the consul general in Ramallah explained:
Hamas should be given a clear choice, with a clear deadline: �they either accept a new government that meets the Quartet principles, or they reject it. The consequences of Hamas� decision should also be clear: If Hamas does not agree within the prescribed time, you should make clear your intention to declare a state of emergency and form an emergency government explicitly committed to that platform. (ibid 6)
The dramatic weakening of Hamas�s loyalty norm also meant that conflicting powers, in
this case the United States would be more likely to seek both institutional changes and to
install a puppet (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 421). By reducing the loyalty norm of
the governing Palestinian power, they would reduce the likelihood that public goods like
economic growth or foreign policy activity would be able to compete with the goals of
the Quartet and the US particularly.
The US also encouraged the strengthening of Fatah�s loyalty norm, although policy was
not articulated in exactly this manner. Fatah had no doubt appointed certain key
members prior to elections, fearing an electoral loss. The US also shifted power away
from Abbas�s security reform initiatives, like the integration of security services, and
toward clandestine, foreign-trained militias. In particular, the United States sought to
enlist the help of Mohammed Dahlan, chief of a Fatah militia, who �helped found Fatah�s
youth movement� a leading role in the first intifada� [and] spent five years in Israeli
jails� (Rose, 2008 3).
Abbas was also encouraged to �strengthen [his] team� to include �credible figures of strong standing in the international community.� Among those the US wanted brought in, says an official who knew of the policy, was Muhammad Dahlan. (ibid 7)
By empowering Dahlan and pressuring Abbas, the US ensured that the situation in Gaza
would escalate without the requisite understanding of how that assistance would be used
or recognizing the possibility of the plan�s failure. Rather than serving security, or
deterring Hamas from action, US policy served to empower a man with a history of harsh
violence and irregular tactics. As early as January 26, 2006, armed clandestine Fatah
gunmen began attacking bases of Hamas�s support like students of the Islamic University
of Gaza (Rose, 2008 1).
Modeling Civil War:
Expectations:
The conflict between Palestinian factions has been heavily influenced by external forces
like the US. Since January 2006, the US plan was to injure Hamas�s traditional power
base in Gaza. Though there is no statistical model or test for war in The Logic of
Political Survival, we examine some similar assumptions and hypotheses from the
previous section. In modeling this conflict we believe the effect of territorial polarization
between Fatah support in the West Bank and Hamas support in Gaza had a large effect on
power in addition to US machinations. We thus include the independent variables Hamas
support in Gaza (WHGaza) and Hamas�s loyalty norm in Gaza (WH/SGaza), and Fatah
support in the West Bank (WFWestBank) and Fatah�s loyalty norm in the West Bank
(WF/SWestBank). The dependent variable is Violence, measuring Palestinian violence
against other Palestinians. We also assume that Fatah oppression would increase the
likelihood that Hamas would respond to Fatah attacks after taking power in the 2006 PLC
elections. As the incentives for either Fatah or Hamas to oppress the other increase,
oppression is likely to escalate � with the potential of escalating to serious violence. It is
therefore necessary to outline under what conditions governing coalitions decide to
oppress political opponents. Oppression by some definitions is likely to occur in most
political systems. It is difficult to find individuals willing to punish challengers and to
actually �carry out� oppression, but
Systems with a small winning coalition and a large selectorate tend to encourage oppression, both in intensity and magnitude. Such systems present a greater incentive to challenge the leader, a greater incentive for the leader to hang onto power by all possible means, a greater ability to recruit those who will cary out the threats, and greater credibility because of the longer tenure of leaders. (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 344)
However, when a faction decides to oppress rivals by violent means, it is more likely to
mobilize the type of support and resources to fight. It is also more likely to allocate
private resources in order to win. We thus examine the most applicable of the seven
hypotheses presented by The Logic of Political Survival and in the previous section.
5. Subject to puppets not being installed in the largest-coalition systems,
the greater B�s coalition, the greater the prospects that a puppet will
be imposed on B. (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003 421).
Graph 10
Polarizing Support and Loyalty Norms
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%
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Dea
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z
The three trend-lines, in order of distance from the top of the page, refer to WHGaza/S (Hgaza/S), WFWestBank/S (FWB/S), and Violence.
Fatah security initiatives against Hamas had the intention of institutional change, and
removing the democratically elected government.24 Abbas�s attempts to hold new
elections for the Presidency and PLC, were no manner of coup d�êtat compared to the
international conspiracy to depose Fatah heralded a �U.S.-backed Fatah coup� (Rose,
2008 5). Hamas�s loyalty norm in Gaza weakened by almost 30% between January and
March 2006, around the same time Fatah�s loyalty norm strengthened by a little over
26%. As Fatah�s loyalty norm strengthens, we should expect a greater number of private
goods to be allocated to members of Fatah and fewer public goods to be allocated
generally by the PA. This coincides with US funding for Fatah militias and the activities
24 Though Fatah was unsuccessful, egime change raises similar installing a puppet of the PA executive by any other name)
of Mohammed Dahlan. As Hamas�s loyalty norm weakened, Fatah would be more likely
to seek to depose it on the grounds that provision of public goods would severely hurt
Income (-0.073,0.121,0.5479) r2= 0.20317 0.20688 p= 0.001146 0.00247
The variance explained by both regressions does not exceed 20.7%, although it is likely
that all the independent variables except per capita income have a statistically significant
effect on Palestinian violence. In addition, in each regression the cumulative effect of the
independent variables on Violence was statistically significant. The embargo of the PA
after Hamas�s election had created a resilient but progressively demoralized public
suffering from inflation and the withholding of wages. As Hamas�s loyalty norm in Gaza
strengthened, violence increased, whereas as Fatah�s loyalty norm in the West Bank
strengthens, violence decreases. In fact, we find the opposite of what is expected in this
case, that as Hamas�s loyalty norm strengthens, violence in fact increases. A large
portion of this may be explained by the fact that Hamas relies largely on militias, is not a
state actor, and at the time was paralyzed by the Quartet, US, and Israeli embargos on
Gaza. Fatah�s loyalty norm may not be statistically significant (the coefficient switches
signs in the second regression), largely because US and Israeli funding and support for
presidential militias cannot be accurately measured. This also means that international
factors have buttressed Fatah�s policies from the effects Selectorate Theory would
predict. By providing external monetary and diplomatic incentives to the PLO to engage
in attacks against Hamas in Gaza, international actors have spurred violence. Because of
this, WHGaza and WFWestBank have strong and significant effects. As WHGaza
increases, external incentives from the US and Israel couple with Fatah fears for its own
political survival and encourage it to attempt to oppress and depose Hamas. The same
fears escalate as Fatah�s support level in the West Bank falls, thus WHGaza has a positive
effect on violence, and WFWestBank has a negative effect. The pronounced effects of
international interference are immeasurable, as is the damage this interference has done
to Palestinian relations.
Graph 11
Gaza (2001-2007)
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VIII. Conclusions:
Alleviations of the Occupation will not be enough to promote full
Palestinian peace just as it will not promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.
There are questions of Israeli intentions in withdrawing from the Gaza
Strip, and even when disengaging from the Palestinian territory it "retains
the option of retaliation or even reoccupation in response to Palestinian
armed attacks. (Weinberger, 2006 17)
The effects of the Occupation cannot be understated. International involvement has
contributed to the stagnation of real progress on Palestinian statehood and peace. It has
created a complex system of interests for those actors thousands of miles away and those
just beyond the fence. Despite international constraints, particularly in the last half
decade, Fatah�s long-time domination of the institutional structure of the PA has further
hurt Palestinian interests. Fatah has displayed far greater inflexibility in compromising
with Hamas over Hamas�s attempt to join the PLO and form a unity government. This
inflexibility was largely driven by Fatah�s reliance on American aid and Israeli approval.
The necessity of basic things like providing wages to government employees places the
Palestinians in no position to control their own path.
Fatah�s strengthening loyalty norm, over time, has caused its decisions to rely heavily on
personal and political loyalties. Arafat purposely created multiple redundant security
services to foster this trend. Fatah is not all to blame, and Hamas�s various clandestine
security groups have contributed to violence, and DFLP and Islamic Jihad as well. There
has been less attentiveness to public goods like civil liberties, law and order, and anti-
graft measures as a result of the loyalty norm trend. This trend is reversed for Hamas
until very recently, and has helped strengthen both Hamas�s provision of goods through
charities and mosques, and their concentration on public policy issues. Fatah�s
deficiency in providing both public goods and private goods to a suitable winning
coalition was demonstrated by the municipal and 2006 PLC elections. The electoral loss
Fatah suffered was in large part due to the corruption they have fostered from within the
PA as a result of the strengthening Fatah loyalty norm. The United States, in aiding
Mohammed Dahlan and also Force 17 (a clandestine security service of the President of
the PA) has encouraged the strengthening of Fatah�s loyalty norm at the expense of its
electoral success. The Occupation has complicated all of this by decoupling some of the
factors for corruption and ineffectiveness from the PA�s control.
President Bush was a large part of the impetus for the PLC elections in Palestine.
Compared to the Palestinian civil war, deliberately provoked by the United States, the
foundation of pushing elections appears chaste. Truthfully, transparency, civil liberties,
and corruption have all suffered enormously due to the lack of regular elections. Regular
elections tie political survival to candidate performance, and encourage them to perform
better than otherwise. Fatah complained it was unready to contest elections in 2006,
unable to field popular candidates. In reality, Fatah had a decade to prepare for elections,
but instead sought the private benefits associated with corruption and skimming off the
top of international assistance. Abbas, having imposed on himself a one-term limit, may
yet attempt to seriously tackle graft as he has less incentive to skim for political survival.
He also appears genuinely committed to reforming PA institutions and the security
services. Successes have been mixed and his challenges are great. Abbas believes in the
value of assistance from the international community and dialogue with Israel, as
conditions of Palestinian independence. His attempts to cease negotiations with Israel
during the latest wave of Israeli attacks signal his true commitment to bettering the
Palestinian condition, rather than merely echoing the policies and chasing the purse
strings of the US.
Inflexibility, therefore, has been largely induced by US interference. This inflexibility
results from duel US pressures to appear to promote democracy and appear to fight
terrorism. By encouraging Abbas to call elections, Bush was certain to allow Hamas
electoral gains in the PLC. But the US can not promote democracy through elections
without the intention of recognizing the results. Policies such as this help degrade the
normative value of elections in promoting legitimacy. They help induce an external
strengthening of loyalty norms, as groups are constrained from providing certain public
goods and encouraged to provide private goods beneficial to the external force.
Elections, to be meaningful in aiding Palestinians and Palestinian society, must be
regular, free and fair, and binding. Moreover, the security services require reform to
prevent factional warfare that has plagued Fatah and Hamas particularly in the last few
years. These types of socially damaging action have been condemned but unfortunately
extant throughout Islamic history. My interpretation of Chapter 2, Verses 190 � 195 of
the Qur�an offers some account of this:
And fight, in the cause of God, those who slay you but do not
transgress because God does not love the transgressors.
Slay them when you catch them and expel them, for [civil]
disorder [al-fitna] is from murder. Do not fight them at the protected
Mosque until they fight you in it. Thus, if they fought you then fight
them, for that is a component of the blasphemers.
If they stop, God is compassionate in forgiveness [most-forgiving,
most-compassionate].
Fight them until no longer is there discord, but instead they which
are of God. And if they cease, then be there no hostility but over the
oppressors.
The prohibited month [Ramadan] is for the prohibited month and
the sanctity of retribution [refers to the tribal right to respond to violence
of other tribes]. Thus who transgresses against you, transgress against him
in the way he transgressed against you. Fear God and know that God is
with the restrained.
Spend in the cause of God, and do not allow your hands to
contribute to destruction. Be kind, that God loves those who do good.
(2:190-195)25
25 surah al-baqarah: صرة البقرة
واقتلوهم حيث ثقفتموهم وأخرجوآم والفتنة من القتل > 191<وقاتلوا في سبيل اهللا الذين يقتلونكم وال تعتدوا إن اهللا ال يحب المعتدين > 190<> 193<يم فإن انتهوا فإن اهللا غفور رح> 192<وال تقاتلوهم عند المسجد الحرام حتى يقاتلوآم فيه فإن قاتلواآم فاقتلوهم آذلك جزاء الكفرين
الشهر الحرام بالشهر الحرام والحرمات قصاص > 194<وقاتلوهم حتى ال تكون فتنة ويكون الذين اهللا فإن انتهوا فال عدوان إال علي الظالين تلقوا بايديكوم وأنفقوا في سبيل اهللا وال > 195<فمن اعتدى عليكم فاعتدوا عليه بمثل ما اعتدى عليكم واتقوا اهللا واعلموا أن اهللا مع المتقين
.(195-2:190)إلى التهلكة وأحنوا إن اهللا يحب المحسنين
Palestinian factions, particularly Fatah, must display greater flexibility in dealing with
domestic issues. International aid and legitimacy are crucial to the governance of the PA,
but long-term benefits must not be sold out for the benefits of the short-term. Ironically,
an unintended effect of Fatah�s electoral losses in 2006 may provide cause for regular
future elections. Fatah�s losses are indicative of a lack of attentiveness but do not reflect
political collapse or realignment. Abbas, and Fatah�s members and allies in the PA may
yet be able to lobby for electoral reform or regular elections. Though driven by the hope
of returning Fatah�s electoral advantage, such elections would have to be perceived by
consensus as legitimate, unlike Abbas�s dismissal of the Hamas government. Whether
this would encourage republican and democratic norms is still unclear. Still, there must
be stronger internal incentives for elections and normative institutional rule. President
Abbas has a difficult path ahead and must delicately seek a balance between external and
internal forces. He and other Palestinian leaders must tread carefully, or risk ensuring a
cycle of Palestinian violence alongside that of the Occupation.
Bibliography:
Works Cited:
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Denoeux, G. (2005). The Politics of Corruption in Palestine: Evidence from Recent Public-Opinion Polls. Middle East Policy, Fall2005, Vol. 12 Issue 3, p119-135
Dowty, A. (2005). Israel/Palestine. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Fishman, R. (1998) Palestinian human rights suffer from official corruption. Lancet: February 2, 1998.
Gray, M. (2005). Arafat's Legacy, Abbas's Challenges. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 59(2), 127-132.
Hamad, G. (2006). The Challenge for Hamas: Establishing Transparency and Accountability. Geneva: Center for Democratic Control of the Armed Forces (DCAF).
Hroub, K. (2006). A "New Hamas" Through Its New Documents. Journal of Palestine Studies, 35(4), 6-27.
Kristianasen, W. (28). Challenge and Counterchallenge: Hamas's Response to Oslo. 1999, 3(19), 36.
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Sahliyeh, E. (1988). In Search of Leadership : West Bank Politics Since 1967. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.
Sela, A., & Mishal, S. (2000). The Palestinian Hamas. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Sela, A., & Mishal, S. (2006). The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Shikaki, K. (1998). Peace now or hamas later. Foreign Affairs, 77(4), 29-43.
Tamimi, A. (2007). Hamas: A history from within. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press.
Weinberger, N. (2006). The Absence of Human Security in Palestine: International Responses to the Failure of Security Sector Reform. Unpublished Paper.
(January 26, 2006.) Prelminary Statement of the NDI/Carter Center International Observer Delegation to the Palestinian Legislative Council Elections. The Carter Center. http://www.cartercenter.org/news/documents/doc2283.html
Data Sources:
For a greater discussion about the source of various data, please see Appendix B, which contains the source of information from PCPSR, CPSR, B�Tzelem, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, and the Palestinian Central Elections Commission.
Appendix A: Internal Hamas Document August 10, 1992. Partial Reproduction (Mishal and Sela, 2000 124-130):
Appendix B: Sources of Data: This appendix provides the source of all data for regressions, tables, and graphs. CPRS
(the previous name for PCPRS) raw data tends to be at the end of the initial page.
PCPRS raw data tend to begin on the page after the last page of analysis.
(See: http://www.pcprs.org). Data for the selectorate for 1996/January 1996 and
2006/January 2006 are taken from the Central Elections Commission � Palestine (See:
http://www.elections.gov.ps/english.aspx).
The Model We used a model from Web-Enabled Scientific Services and Applications (http://www.wessa.net) that employs an r module method for multiple-variable regression (http://www.wessa.net/rwasp_multipleregression.wasp).
Graph 1 (pg. 18)
Fatah�s supporters from all the below listed CPRS and PCPSR polls.
Graph 2 (pg. 20) PLCPart taken from the percentage of people who said they would participate in Legislative Council elections (1-PLCPart = Disenfranchise). This value is taken as S, against the level of support for Hamas to measure Hamas�s loyalty norm (Hamas W/S). Probability values are calculated from these previously mentioned variables and from Fatah�s support as well. CPRS Polls: Poll # 2 : Palestinian Elections (October 5-10, 1993) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/94/poll2a.html Poll # 3 : Palestinian Elections (November 11, 1993) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/94/poll3a.html Poll # 6 : Palestinian Elections and the Cairo-Agreement (February 19, 1994) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/94/poll6.html
Poll # 10 : Elections, Economic Conditions, Palestinian Prisoners, Palestinian Police, and Jerusalem (June 30, 1994) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/94/poll10a.html Poll # 12 : The West Bank and Gaza Strip (September 29-30, 1994) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/94/poll12a.html Poll # 13 : Unemployment, Jordanian-Israeli Treaty, Armed Operations, Elections and Other Issues (November 17-19, 1994) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/94/poll13a.html Poll # 14 : Negotiations, Palestinian National Authority and Opposition, Jordanian-Palestinian Relations, Elections and the Presidency of the PNA (December 29-31, 1994) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/94/poll14a.html Poll # 16 : Armed Attacks, Negotiations, Jenin Proposal, Elections, Economic Situation, and the Palestinian-Jordanian Relations (March 16-18, 1995) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/95/poll16a.html Poll # 17 : Elections, Negotiations, Strike, Refugee Camps, Criticism of the PNA (May 18-20, 1995) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/95/poll17a.html Poll # 18 : Redeployment Agreement, PNA Performance, Prisoners Release, Electoral System and Other topics (July 6-9, 1995) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/95/poll18a.html Poll # 22 : Armed Operations, Peace Process, Elections, Unemployment (March 1996) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/96/poll22a.html Poll # 23 : The Peace Process After Netanyahu's Elections, Freedom of Expression, Democratization Under the PNA, The Recent Arab Summit, The Performance of the Legislative Council (June 28-30,1996) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/96/poll23a.html Poll # 33: Evaluation of the Performance of PLC and PA, Corruption, Attitudes Regarding new Legislative Elections, Local Elections, and Oslo Peace Agreement (June 3-6, 1998) http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspolls/98/poll33a.html PCPSR: Poll #4 :Palestinians Give Less Support For Bombings Inside Israel While Two Thirds Support The Saudi Plan And 91% Support Reforming The Pa, But A Majority Opposes Arrests And Opposes The Agreements That Led To Ending The Siege On Arafat's Headquarter, Nativity Church, And Preventive Security Headquarter 15-18 May 2002
http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2002/p4a.html Poll #5 : While Sharply Divided Over The Ceasefire And Bombing Attacks Against Civilians, An Overwhelming Majority Supports Political Reform But Have Doubts About The Pa's Intentions To Implement It. 18-21 August 2002 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2002/p5a.html Poll #6 : While Indicating Important Shifts In Palestinian Public Attitudes Toward The Intifada And The Peace Process, Psr Poll Shows Significant Support For The Appointment Of A Prime Minister And Refusal To Give Confidence In The New Palestinian Government. 14-22 November 2002 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2002/p6a.html Poll #9 : With Arafat's Populairty Reaching Its Highest Level In Five Years, Three Quarters Of The Palestinians Support The Maxim Resturant Suicide Bombing And Two Thirds Believe The Roadmap Is Dead. Nonetheless, An Overwhelming Majority Of 85% Supports Mutual Cessation Of Violence, Two Thirds Support Return To Hudna, And 59% Support Taking Measures Against Those Who Would Violate A Ceasefire. 07-14 October 2003 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2003/p9a.html Poll #13 : After Four Years Of Intifada, An Overwhelming Sense Of Insecurity Prevails Among Palestinians Leading To High Level Of Support For Bombing And Rocket Attacks On One Hand And To High Levles Of Demand For Mutual Cessation Of Violence And Questioning Of The Effectivness Of Armed Attacks On The Other 23-26 September 2004 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2004/p13a.html Poll #14 : In an environment of increased realism and hope, in which the popularity of Fateh greatly increases while that of Hamas decreases, a close presidential race between Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazin) and Marwan Barghouti 01-05 December 2004 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2004/p14a.html Poll #16 : Despite Negative Evaluation Of Palestinian Conditions Since The Election Of Abu Mazin, And Despite The Continued Rise In The Popularity Of Hamas, Expected Elections' Outcome Gives Fateh 44% And Hamas 33% Of The Seats Of The Next Plc 09-11 June 2005 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2005/p16a.html Poll #17 : On The Eve Of The Israeli Withdrawal From The Gaza Strip, 84% See It As Victory For Armed Resistance And 40% Give Hamas Most Of The Credit For It; But 62% Are Opposed To Continued Attacks Against Israelis From The Gaza Strip, 60% Support Collection Of Arms From Armed Groups In Gaza, Fateh's Electoral Standing
Improved At Hamas' Expense (47% To 30%), Optimism Prevails Over Pessimism, And 73% Support The Establishment Of A Palestinian State In The Gaza Strip That Would Gradually Extend To The West Bank 07-09 September 2005 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2005/p17a.html Special Poll - Results of PSR Exit Poll For Palestinian Local Elections: Amid Widespread Belief that Corruption Exits in Existing Local Councils, and in Parallel with the Split Within Fateh, PSR's Local Elections' Exit Poll in the cities of Nablus, Ramallah, al-Bireh, and Jenin Shows First Signs of Crack in Fateh's Standing in the Legislative Elections 15 December 2005 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2005/exitlocaledec05.html Special Poll Before the Start of the Election Campaign, and About One Month Before the Elections, a PSR Pre Election Poll Shows Fateh List Winning at the National Level While Showing a Tie Between Candidates of Fateh and Change and Reform in the Electoral Districts 01 January 2006 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2005/preelectionsdec05.html Table 1 (pg. 24) The variables measured are explained in the discussion for Graph 1. CPRS Poll # 2 Poll # 3 Poll # 6 Poll # 10 Poll # 12 Poll # 13 Poll # 14 Poll # 16 Poll # 17 Poll # 18 Poll # 22 Poll # 23 Poll # 33 PCPSR: Poll #4 Poll #5 Poll #6 Graph 3 (pg. 23)
The same source of data for Graph 1, also including the following additional polls: PCPSR Poll #19 : On The Eve of the Formation of the New Palestinian Government, Hamas' Popularity Increases and Fateh's Decreases, but a Majority of the Palestinians Wants the Continuation of the Peace Process and the Implementation of the Road Map and Supports a New Negotiated, rather than a Unilateral, Israeli Disengagement in the West Bank - 16-18 March 2006. http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/p19e.html Poll #20 : In An Environment of Increased Pessimism, Greater Support for Violence and Decreased Support For a Permanent Status Agreement Similar to the Clinton Parameters and the Geneva Document, Three Quarters Agree with the Prisoners' Document, but only 47% would Actually Vote for it if a Referendum is to Take Place Today - 15-18 June 2006. http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/p20e1.html Poll #21 : Despite Dissatisfaction with the Performance of the Hamas Government, Especially Regarding Salaries, and Despite Public Preference for a National Unity Government in which Fateh and Hamas are Equal, Hamas' Popularity Remains Largely Unchanged and the Majority does not Think it Should Recognize Israel - 14-16 September 2006. http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/p21e1.html Poll #22 : With Increased Public Dissatisfaction with the Performance of the President and the Hamas Government and with a Widening of the Gap Between the Popularity of Fateh and Hamas in Favor of the Former, a Majority Supports the Holding of Early Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, and is in Favor of the Arab (Saudi) Initiative, and Prefers a Comprehensive Settlement over an Interim Political Track - 14-16 December 2006. http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/p22e1.html Poll #23 : An Overwhelming Majority is Satisfied with the Make-Up of the National Unity Government but the Public is Split into Two Equal Halves with Regard to its Acceptance of the Quartet Conditions and Almost Three Quarters are in Favor of the Saudi Initiative - 22-24 March 2007. http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2007/p23e1.html Poll #24 : Anger and lack of confidence prevails in the Palestinian Street: While Popularity of Hamas Decreases, and Status of Ismail Haniyeh and Mahmud Abbas Declines, and While the Public Loses Confidence in its Leadership, in Most of the Security Services, and in the Various Armed "Brigades," Three Quarters Demand Early Presidential and Parliamentary Elections and 63% support the American Security Plan - 14-20 June 2007. http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2007/p24e1.html
Poll #25 : While Three Quarters of the Palestinians Reject Hamas's Military Action in the Gaza Strip and While Fateh and President Mahmud Abbas Gain Popular Support as a Result of Hamas's Step, and While a Majority Supports the Presidential Decree Regarding Election Law and Supports Early Elections, 40% Want the Government of Ismail Haniyeh to Stay in Power and Half of Gazans Feel They and Their Families are Secure and Safe in Their Homes - 06-08 September 2007. http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2007/p25e1.html Poll #26 : A Total Lack of Confidence in the Annapolis Process Keeps Hamas's Popularity Stable despite Worsening Conditions in the Gaza Strip - 11-16 December 2007. http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2007/p26e1.html Poll #27: With Increased Dissatisfaction with the Performance of Mahmud Abbas and with the Government of Ismail Haniyeh Seen as Having Greater Legitimacy and Better Performance than the Government of Salam Fayyad, and with Confidence in the Negotiations with Israel Collapsing, Hamas's and Haniyeh's Popularity Increase and Fateh's and Abbas's Decrease While Support for Rocket Launching and Suicide Attacks Increase - 13-15 March 2008. http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2008/p27e1.html Table 2 (pg. 32) & Graph 4 (pg. 33): These values were calculated above, with the addition of HSupPart, which was taken from CPRS polls of Hamas members� intentions of participating in 1996 PLC elections multiplied by WH. CPRS Poll # 2 Poll # 3 Poll # 6 Poll #10 Poll # 12 Poll # 13 Poll # 16 Poll # 18 Table 3 (pg. 37): PCPSR: Poll #9 Poll #13 Poll #16 Poll #17
Special Poll - 15 December 2005 Graph 5 (pg. 39): PCPSR: Poll #9 Poll #13 Poll #16 Poll #17 Special Poll - 15 December 2005 Special Poll - 01 January 2006 Table 4 (pg. 46) & Graph 6 (pg. 45): Data averaged from CPRS then PCPSR data annually from 1996-2006. Table 5 (pg. 62) & Graph 7 (pg. 63): Fatality figures were taken from B�Tzelem: www.btzelem.org � Statistics: Palestinians Killed by Palestinians Data about perception of civil liberties is only available in PCPSR polls from March and June 2004; January, March, June, and December 2005; and March, June, September, and December 2006. PCPSR: Poll #4 Poll #7 :Appointment of Prime Minister, Political Reform, Roadmap, War in Iraq, Arafat's Popularity, and Political Affiliation. 03-07 April 2003 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2003/p7a.html Poll #8 : While Support For Abu Mazin Drops, Support For A Ceasefire Increases With A Majority Supporting Ending The Armed Intifada And Agreeing To A Mutual Recognition Of Israel As The State Of The Jewish People And Palestine As The State Of The Palestinian People. 19-22 June 2003 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2003/p8a.html Poll #10 : While A Majority Opposes The Geneva Document, Palestinian Attitudes Vary Regarding Its Core Components: A Large Majority Opposes The Refugee Solution And The Restrictions On Palestinian Sovereignty, But A Majority Endorses Equal Territorial Swaps And The Deployment Of A Multinational Force 04-09 December 03 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2003/p10a.html
Poll #11 : While Three Quarters Of The Palestinians Welcome Sharon's Plan Of Withdrawal From Gaza And While Two Thirds See It As Victory For Armed Struggle Against Occupation, 58% Of The Palestinians Prefer To See The Palestinian Atuhority And Israel Negotiate The Withdrawal Plan And 61% Believe Sharon Is Not Serious And Will Not Withdraw 14-17 March 2004 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2004/p11a.html Poll #13 Poll #14 Poll #15 : SHARP DECREASE IN SUPPORT FOR SUICIDE BOMBINGS INSIDE ISRAEL AND SATISFACTION WITH THE PERFORMANCE OF ABU MAZIN, BUT HAMAS' POPULARITY INCREASES WHILE FATEH'S DECREASES 10-12 March 2005 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2005/p15a.html Poll #16 Special Poll - 15 December 2005 Special Poll - 01 January 2006 Poll #19 : On The Eve of the Formation of the New Palestinian Government, Hamas' Popularity Increases and Fateh's Decreases, but a Majority of the Palestinians Wants the Continuation of the Peace Process and the Implementation of the Road Map and Supports a New Negotiated, rather than a Unilateral, Israeli Disengagement in the West Bank - 16-18 March 2006 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/p19e.html Poll #20 : In An Environment of Increased Pessimism, Greater Support for Violence and Decreased Support For a Permanent Status Agreement Similar to the Clinton Parameters and the Geneva Document, Three Quarters Agree with the Prisoners' Document, but only 47% would Actually Vote for it if a Referendum is to Take Place Today - 15-18 June 2006 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/p20e1.html Poll #21 : Despite Dissatisfaction with the Performance of the Hamas Government, Especially Regarding Salaries, and Despite Public Preference for a National Unity Government in which Fateh and Hamas are Equal, Hamas' Popularity Remains Largely Unchanged and the Majority does not Think it Should Recognize Israel - 14-16 September 2006 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/p21e1.html Poll #22 : With Increased Public Dissatisfaction with the Performance of the President and the Hamas Government and with a Widening of the Gap Between the Popularity of Fateh and Hamas in Favor of the Former, a Majority Supports the Holding of Early Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, and is in Favor of the Arab (Saudi) Initiative,
and Prefers a Comprehensive Settlement over an Interim Political Track - 14-16 December 2006 http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/p22e1.html Table 6 (pg. 66) Imprisonment and detainment figures were taken from B�Tzelem: www.btzelem.org � Statistics: Administrative Detention PCPSR: Poll #4 Poll #5 Poll #6 Poll #9 Poll #13 Poll #16 Poll #17 Special Poll - 15 December 2005 Graph 8 (pg. 74) All CPRS and PCPSR polls between 1993 and 2008. Table 7 (pg. 84) & Graphs 9 (pg. 79) and 10 (pg. 83) and 11 (pg. 86) Using data points where available for all previously listed PCPSR polls between June 2001 and December 2007, we carried the value of the previous data point until a new value from polling. Ex. A poll offering data on Hamas support in Gaza would exist for June 2001 and May 2002, we would use the June 2001 data until May 2002. However, gaps in data-reporting do not generally exceed 2 or 3 months. GDP per capita figures were taken from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. (http://www.pcbs.gov.ps)