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Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/24/AR2006012401486.html
Hamas Poised to Become Insiders
(Washington Post) Scott Wilson - * Mahmoud Zahar, among the most obdurate leaders of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, will almost certainly be among those who emerge victorious as Palestinians vote Wednesday for parliament for the first time in a decade. Zahar is among the sternest personalities in a movement whose members celebrate the grim culture of suicide attacks and hope to establish Islamic law in the Palestinian territories. * Zahar said Hamas will not abandon its goal of establishing a Palestinian state across a territory that includes what is now Israel. He argued that Hamas is not joining the existing Palestinian Authority so much as creating a new government through its presence. * Zahar said Hamas would not give up its military wing after joining the government, which Mahmoud Abbas has said would be required. Zahar also warned that the cease-fire with Israel that Abbas brokered with armed Palestinian factions last year was no longer operative, saying, "We are outside the calm, but it is in our hands." * "Israel must take a chance with Hamas inside the system," said Shalom Harari, a retired senior Israeli military intelligence officer now with the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya. "We're already faced with a failing peace process that had them on the outside. Israel has nothing to lose. They are already here. Let's try to tame them."