With Hamas saying it intends to participate in the Palestinian legislative election now scheduled for November 28 as part of a broad national coalition, it suddenly feels like 2006 all over again.
Why? Because 2006 saw tensions emerge between Ariel Sharon’s government and the George W. Bush administration over whether to allow Hamas to participate in a democratic election.
The Bush administration, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the forefront, was then pursuing its “freedom agenda” – an effort to spread democracy across the Middle East, based on the belief that democratic governments would ultimately produce greater stability and less terrorism.
“Only when Palestinians are able freely to express themselves through ballots rather than bombs will we be able to get on the road to security for Israel,” Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, declared in October 2005.
Nice idea. The only problem was that Hamas wanted both ballots and bombs.
Israel argued that allowing an armed terrorist organization committed to Israel’s destruction to participate in an election was a deeply flawed idea. Washington recognized what it called the “fundamental contradiction” between an armed Hamas taking part in democratic politics, but still did not insist that Hamas resolve that contradiction before standing for election.
The US prevailed. Hamas took part in the elections under the less menacing party name “Change and Reform” and won 44.5% of the vote, compared with 41.4% for Fatah. Because of the electoral system and deep divisions within Fatah, that slim popular-vote margin gave Hamas 74 of the Palestinian Legislative Council’s 132 seats, compared with Fatah’s 45.
An ugly, murder-strewn history
The result caught nearly everyone by surprise, including Washington. Rice acknowledged afterward that the US had failed to anticipate the magnitude of Hamas’s victory.
The rest is history. An ugly, murder-strewn history that might have turned out differently if Hamas had not been allowed to participate.
A little more than a year later, in June 2007, Hamas violently drove Fatah and the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza, turning the coastal strip into an armed fortress from which to launch rockets and, ultimately, an invasion of Israel.
The Americans, in what some may say was innocent naivete, did not imagine that a group intent not on coexistence, but rather on replacing Israel’s existence with its own, would prevail at the ballot box.
That naivete is neither uniquely American nor has it passed from the world. Nikolay Mladenov, director-general of the Trump-led Board of Peace, offered another taste of it in a recent interview with Channel 12’s Amit Segal.
Both Israelis and the people in Gaza, he declared, “have one strong shared interest, and that is to get out of this horrible cycle of violence that has cost so many lives and caused so much destruction on both sides.”
That is a noble sentiment, an echo of the familiar formulation that Israelis and Palestinians alike simply want to live side by side in peace, dignity, and security.
Were that it were only true. This phrase reflects the sentiment of most Israelis, evident in the fact that Israel, over the years – through Oslo, the Camp David negotiations, the 2005 Gaza withdrawal and the statehood proposal advanced at Annapolis by Ehud Olmert – has been willing to make far-reaching territorial compromises to live in peace with the Palestinians. The Palestinians have not shown a similar appetite.
The last Palestinian legislative election, the one in 2006, proves the point. Hamas – whose original charter calls for the destruction of Israel – won. Doesn’t that demonstrate that the phrase “both sides want to coexist in peace and security” is hollow, wishful thinking – at least at this point in history?
Some will argue that the 2006 vote was not as much a vote for Hamas as it was a sign of opposition to the corruption of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority. But that doesn’t even matter. Voters may select a movement because they like its social services, ensure that the trains run on time, or dislike its rivals, but they still hand power to that movement’s entire program, which in this case was “armed resistance” and the erasure of Israel.
The October 7 Massacre cannot be separated from public opinion
October 7 translated that program into action: murder, rape, kidnapping, and pillage on a scale of medieval savagery.
And October 7 cannot be separated from public opinion. In the most recent comprehensive Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll, conducted in October 2025, 53% of Palestinians said Hamas had been right to launch the attack, and of those who said they would vote in an election, Hamas led Fatah 29% to 20%.
What that all means is that if Hamas is allowed to participate in the elections – either standing alone or as part of some broader coalition – then be prepared for the fact that it may win again and use that legitimacy to further entrench its control, not only in Gaza but also in Judea and Samaria.
October 7 is not the only date from which Israel – and the world – needs to learn. January 25, 2006, is another. And the lesson is simple: Never again allow Hamas to take part in an election; never again let it play simultaneously with ballots and bullets. Because if it wins, it is clear what will come next – and it is anything but coexistence, peace, and security.