Hamas' phyric victory

NY Times:

Hamas leaders, savoring their landslide victory in Palestinian elections, faced an array of threats on Friday: a huge government deficit, a likely cutoff of most aid, international ostracism and the rage of defeated and armed Fatah militants.

Of the many questions that the Hamas victory presents, the need to pay basic bills and salaries to Palestinians is perhaps the most pressing. The Palestinian Authority is functionally bankrupt, with a deficit of $69 million for January alone.

That will be an urgent question when the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, known as the quartet, meet in London on Monday to discuss the Palestinian vote, especially if, as some American officials fear, Hamas turns to Iran to make up some of the difference.

"They don't have enough to get through the end of the month," a knowledgeable Western diplomat said. "The United States and the European Union both consider Hamas a terrorist organization, and we don't provide money to terrorist organizations or members of terrorist organizations."

In Washington, President Bush said "aid packages won't go forward" for the Palestinian Authority if Hamas did not renounce violence or its commitment to destroy Israel.

"That's their decision to make," he said on CBS News. "But we won't be providing help to a government that wants to destroy our ally and friend."

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Israel has made it clear that it will not deal with a Palestinian Authority run by Hamas and has said some of those who have won election are wanted for suspected involvement in anti-Israel violence. Most of them are in semi-seclusion, and fear arrest if they try to travel to Ramallah, the site of the Palestinian parliament in the West Bank.

Also in Davos, Joseph Bachar, director general of Israel's Finance Ministry, raised the question of whether Israel would continue to transfer the tax and customs receipts to an authority run by Hamas, which does not recognize the existence of Israel.

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