Foreign governments stunned at Hamas victory

updated 9:29 p.m. ET Jan. 26, 2006

PARIS - Western powers warned on Thursday that they would not deal with a Palestinian government led by Hamas — regarded as terrorists by the EU and the United States — unless it renounces violence and recognizes Israel’s right to exist.

“The United States does not support political parties that want to destroy our ally Israel,” U.S. President Bush said after Hamas won a landslide election victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections. “People must renounce that part of their platform.”

That Hamas had won so overwhelmingly and fairly — former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said the elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were “completely honest” — only compounded the dilemma for foreign governments.

They both hailed the smooth vote, and expressed dismay at Hamas’ taking nearly two-thirds of the 132 parliament seats.

The militant group has carried out dozens of suicide bombings, seeks Israel’s destruction and has said that it opposes peace talks and will not disarm.

“We must respect the election result, although it was not the outcome we had wished,” said Denmark’s prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

In France, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said renouncing violence, accepting progress toward peace and recognizing Israel and existing peace accords were “indispensable” conditions for working with “a Palestinian government of any kind.”

Peace process interrupted
Hamas’ unexpected victory threw the future of the peace process between Palestinians and Israel into turmoil, and raised immediate questions about how the United States and other countries might still be able to influence the process— especially if they refused to deal with the militants.

“Hamas won,” said Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. “Hamas is surely not a democratic movement. Its ideas are surely not humanistic ideas. What do we do now?”

There were calls from the Arab and Islamic worlds for Western governments to accept the result.

“One has to adjust to ground realities,” said Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

European governments and the United States planned meetings to coordinate their response. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was due to meet Monday in London with U.N., Russian and European officials.

“You cannot have one foot in politics and another in terror,” Rice said, adding that for the United States, Hamas was still a terrorist organization.

Concern crossed political divides, with traditional supporters of the Palestinian cause— such as Italy's center-left opposition— among those expressing worry. The Italian government said Hamas’ victory could indefinitely postpone any chance of Israeli-Palestinian peace and make the creation of a Palestinian state more difficult.

“It is a very, very, very bad result,” Premier Silvio Berlusconi said.

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