alternatehistory.com

It could have, and arguably should have. Hams won by only around 3% -- 30,000 votes out of over a million. The way the votes were apportioned (a mix of list and districts) turned that into a whopping majority in Palestine's Legislative Council -- 74 seats out of 132. But a fairly small shift of votes would have given Fatah the win.

OTL, Fatah lost for a variety of reasons. They were internally divided; they were corrupt and complacent; they'd never run a modern, competitive election, didn't really know how, and didn't try to learn. There seems to have been a vague sense that if Hamas was threatening to win, Fatah could just Do Something -- cancel the elections (which they very nearly did OTL), refuse to accept the results, what have you.

Now, OTL the election results were pretty much a disaster all around. Israel refused to recognize or in any way deal with a Hamas-dominated government. The Palestinian government has two major sources of revenue: foreign aid, and customs revenues -- the latter being collected by Israel at the borders, and then passed along. Both were cut off. Fairly soon, civil servants and police were rioting or walking off their jobs. Hamas moved to replace the absent police with Hamas "volunteers"; Fatah sharply objected. Within a few months the situation had degenerated into a shooting war between the two. When the dust settled, Fatah was running the West Bank, while Hamas was in charge in Gaza. Palestine had been effectively split in two, and remains so today.

Okay, so: what if Fatah had won? Let's flip that 3% and give Fatah a narrow majority in the Council, with Hamas and the minor parties controlling 60 or so seats.

Now what?

Ariel Sharon still has his stroke, so our hypothetical unified Palestinian government is dealing with Ehud Olmert. We probably still get something like Annapolis, but maybe TTL something actually comes of it?

Also, no 2008 invasion of Gaza -- Hamas is busy being an opposition party.

Any chance for a significant breakthrough during Olmert's administration? Or would it end up not making much difference?


Doug M.
Top