Strategic Assessment

“Human nature finds it harder to endure a victory than a defeat.”Nietzsche’s insight on the individual will is pertinent to the situation in which Hamas finds itself following the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections of late January 2006. In the aftermath of the elections, observers of Palestinian politics can ignore neither the strength of Hamas’s electoral victory nor the impact of the resulting far-reaching changes to the balance of forces within the Palestinian political system. They also cannot ignore the intense reactions to the election results expressed on the regional and international levels.