"The election results in the West Bank assured there is no way to run from Hamas," said Abu Zohri, the Hamas spokesman. "The results showed the Palestinian people want change and want Hamas."
The new mayor of Obeidiyeh, Maher Radaideh, a leader of the Reform Bloc, denied any political ties to Hamas, many of whose leaders have been arrested or killed by Israeli forces. The Hamas Web site, however, lists Radaideh and his colleagues as Hamas candidates, and voters saw them as such.
"The security situation in our country is bad, so many people don't want to give the Israeli government a reason to take them to prison," Rateb Abayat, 33, Obeidiyeh's architectural engineer, said this week as the new town council was meeting in an adjoining room.
Ali Issa Issawi, 43, an unemployed construction worker, offered another reason council members were reluctant to be labeled as members of Hamas: "All the municipality's money comes from the outside, from foreign countries, and when people from abroad hear 'Hamas,' they think it's a terrorist organization, and so they won't give money to the town of Obeidiyeh."
While Hamas leaders acknowledge that the organization, founded in 1987, has an armed wing that has conducted dozens of suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians, they say a key objective of the group is operating a vast network of social welfare programs in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Israeli officials say they make no distinction between the various wings of Hamas, asserting that its political and social activities are directed at building support for terrorist operations.
Many Palestinian and Israeli political analysts said that the group's goals were more nuanced and that its leaders recognized it eventually would have to evolve into a more moderate and mainstream political organization to survive and grow. One of the first steps, they said, was the participation of Hamas in local elections, giving it a grass-roots base for parliamentary elections this year. Eventually, they said, Hamas would contest the presidency and aim to become an internationally accepted political party.
"We will participate in local elections and parliamentary elections, and we will find power there in those two groups," said Hamad, the Hamas editor. "The local elections prove we can succeed. . . . It was an important step that can lead us to establishing a democratic process."
Walid Abu Sirhan, 32, a senior editor at Al Quds newspaper who won as the only independent in the Obeidiyeh race, called the elections "a tweak of Fatah's ear. The message was: Correct your ways and be careful. There is an alternative."
Moore reported from Gaza City.
