Hamas has always rejected calls to join the Palestinian Authority in even a questionably legitimate government. Now talking dead man Rantisi is suddenly showing some flexibility:
Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the new leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, called Thursday for the formation of a “national salvation government” consisting of representatives of all the Palestinian factions. Rantisi’s proposal comes in response to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat’s offer to include Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other radical groups in a united national leadership.
In a non-pathological society, the desire to join the structure and rigor of even a corrupt government is a sign of moderation – submitting oneself to even the veneer of the rule of law being preferable to complete anarchy. Quantitative political scientists have basically proven this thesis through years and years of number crunching and analysis on figures such as embezzlement, accountability to public demands, etc. The Palestinians, always a culture of inventors, have managed to disprove these results, actually creating a government more violent and less bound to the rule of law than the gangs operating in a state of outright anarchy. No wonder Hamas is willing to join – they can actually do more damage pretending to be diplomats and statesmen. This could be because they actually are responding to the demands of their population by continuing their war of terror against Israel. On the other hand, I keep hearing all about how Arab Islam is a great culture because it gave us algebra, so maybe violating equations that political scientists have worked out is just mathematical “innovation” on their part.
