Secret democracy elevated Hamas Underground campaign unified voters

Ramallah, West Bank -- Even though more Palestinians voted against Hamas than for its candidates in the Jan. 25 election, the militant Islamist group used the skills it had honed in organizing attacks on Israel to outwit the ruling Fatah party in capturing a comfortable majority of seats in the new parliament that was set to open Saturday.

Still basking from their stunning victory, Hamas leaders recently described how they won -- and how close they came to losing. In a series of interviews, senior Hamas election strategists told The Chronicle that their success was greatly helped by the failure of Fatah to unify its own ranks.

"We used scientific methods based on our study of the polls. We stayed united. We had a program which won the confidence of the voters. The Fatah candidates were split and they were putting up too many people in each district. It split their vote," said Farhat Assad, the West Bank campaign manager for Hamas.

Small secret cells of Hamas members gathered in the spring of 2005 to undertake their campaign, Assad and others said. Highly disciplined couriers moved through the underground, avoiding capture by Israeli forces and keeping their communication routes free of collaborators and possible discovery. Running the risk of arrest or assassination by Israeli security forces, these couriers brought back the decisions of local cells to the Shura Council, the secretive ruling body of Hamas, for final approval.

SF Chronicle

but what struck me more than anything...they anaylised their situation, had goals, developed methods to acheive those goals..and took it upon themselves to do it, create something out of "nothing'....no excuses no "crying" no "its in "allahs hands"......perhaps they'll be just as pragmatic in governing the people.

In any case this sort of cohesion and organization does offer the possibility of someone to negotiate with, in the sense of someone who is capable of keeping an agreement, once made, even if not necessarily on the terms one might prefer. And that is a good thing, IMHO, compared to the prospect of neverending violent chaos.

political groups could learn some lessons from this.

wing billion dollar tv cable and network partners pumping for them and controlling Hamas voices to counter the propaganda against them.

They had an underground.

In this country, too many Democrats ignore their Underground.