The Islamic group Hamas, considered "terrorist" by Israel, the US, and Europe, won 75 of the 132 seats in voting for the Palestinian Authority legislature last Thursday, setting up a direct conflict with the European Union, with Israel, and, of course, with the Bush administration, which all refuse to deal with Hamas.

Hamas' victory marks the end of ten years of Palestinian Authority rule for Fatah, the famously corrupt party of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat and of current leader Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas still controls the presidency, but not the legislature.

It's no secret why Hamas won. Factors were both domestic and foreign. Domestic include Palestinian demographics (Hamas' support heavily skews young, and a large majority of Palestinians are under age 25); the failure of the second intifada uprising; and Hamas' reputation, shared by most Islamist groups, for honesty and public service in a region where politicians (including Arafat) are notoriously corrupt and indifferent to the fate of their constituents.

Factors outside Palestine included Abbas' support by the US; the continuing humiliation of Palestinians by Israel, escalated in recent years by the apartheid wall, the continued expansion of illegal "settlements," highways, and checkpoints that carve Palestinian land into ever-smaller Bantustans; and the years of what was essentially the house arrest of Arafat, an ordeal that probably killed him.

Palestinians, by and large, see no hope of a peace process from the current leadership of Israel or the United States--both so that peace and autonomy can be achieved, and so that Palestinians' wretched quality of life can be alleviated. And they had little faith that the leadership of Abbas and of Fatah will get them there. Hence, the overwhelming support for a more radical alternative.

It didn't have to be this way.

Israel is highly dependent upon the United States--not so much for military assistance (though the US gives it freely, Israel has the fourth largest army in the world and is quite self-sufficient in that regard) as for its economic support and for the cover it gives in international diplomacy, where Israel would be a complete, apartheid South Africa-style pariah were it not for American support. As such, the United States is the only international player (the U.N. having long since proven itself wholly ineffective on the Palestine question) with the leverage to get Israel to change its oppressive behavior.

And, true to form, George Bush has enabled Ariel Sharon and the ruling Likud party to change Israel's behavior. For the worse. Bush has almost completely ignored his widely-ridiculed "roadmap" plan for a peace process, being content instead to stand by Sharon and either cheer or wink as Sharon has done it all: expanding settlements and checkpoints, erecting the apartheid wall, launching bloody military operations deep into Palestinian territory at Jenin and other refugee camps, and, as mentioned, the slow murder of the iconic Arafat.

9-11 never would have happened but for the decades of continuing US support of Israel's illegal and unconscionable military occupation of Palestine. It is the reason why the US is despised by the Muslim world. The invasion and bloody occupation of Iraq only confirmed and further inflamed opinions that were already widely held.

Palestinians are choosing to turn to Hamas because they are desperate, and because they are fed up with a "peace process" that allows Israel to illegally move the goalposts further from a viable two-state solution each year. That's a situation the US has control over. If the United States were ever to be serious about preventing terrorism--not to mention encouraging democracy and self-determination in the Middle East--it would stop its deferential enabling of Israeli atrocities and force Israel to seriously come to the table and negotiate a peace settlement that was truly fair to both sides.

And it would encourage, in the strongest possible terms, the participation in that process of the representatives democratically chosen by Palestinians, rather than calling them "terrorists" and refusing to be seen with them. Instead, Bush (and others) are moving to cut off international aid to Palestine if Hamas does not renounce its armed wing (which has observed a truce for the past year, even as Fatah has not) and recognize Israel's right to exist. Due almost entirely to the nature of Israel's oppressive occupation, the Palestinian economy is in ruins, and Palestinians themselves are often dependent on foreign aid for their only source of food or money--survival. Expect Hamas to compromise on this, for the sake of its people.

But don't expect many further compromises. What is it about Bush foreign policy mandarins that renders them incapable of seeing that this is a dilemma of their own making? In Iran, Egypt, Iraq, and now Palestine, voters given even a semblance of democratic choice have punished politicians seen as too close to the US, and rewarded their Islamist opponents. Bin Laden could scarcely have scripted it any better. The US, by threatening to remove an economic lifeline from the Palestinian people, is teaching that our version of democracy is all fine and well--so long as voters select our candidates. Otherwise, we punish the voters.

Rather than launching still further humiliations upon a people who have already suffered quite enough, it might behoove Washington to try to understand the desperation behind their vote--and move to alleviate it. That means restraining the unacceptable actions of Israel--not further collective punishment of Palestinians.