Strategic Assessment

hamas's victory and israel's dilemma. the instinctive reaction to the unexpected victory of hamas in the palestinian legislative council (plc) elections – at least among most foreign observers – was to ask what this outcome means for the israeli-palestinian peace process. but for israel, that is almost certainly the least relevant of the many questions raised by hamas’s political breakthrough. rather than speculating about a peace process in which it is no longer invested, israel will instead focus on dealing with the dilemma that hamas’s victory ostensibly poses: either accepting (and thereby encouraging the region and the world to accept) an unreformed hamas as a legitimate interlocutor or resorting to means that may undermine its own regional and international legitimacy.