May 12, 2015 | Quote

In Sign of Palestinians’ Mood, Hamas Wins Vote at a West Bank University

Lina Halsa certainly made a splash at the student rally for the Islamist Hamas movement here at Birzeit University last month. Wearing a sleeveless top, tight jeans, and with her hair in a ponytail, Ms. Halsa’s attire was revealing even by the standards of this liberal, secular campus. But it was downright scandalous according to Hamas norms.

Yet, Ms. Halsa was the very image of Hamas success on the campus, where the Islamist party beat out the more moderate Fatah faction in student elections. A photograph of her waving the faction’s signature green banner rocketed around social media, followed by a video in which she explained that she voted Hamas in part because her clothing “shows how much they are able to embrace other people.”

A headline in the Pan-Arab daily Al Hayat trumpeted: “A Blonde Turns Birzeit Green.”

The April 22 election was about far more than clothing, of course. Student elections are seen as an important benchmark of the Palestinian political mood, particularly since there has been no national balloting since Hamas won the legislative contests in 2006, and president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is starting the 11th year of what was to be a five-year term. The nod to Hamas was broadly interpreted as another indication of just how unpopular President Abbas and his government have become.

Hamas, which does not tolerate dissent in Gaza, has not allowed campus elections there since it took control of the territory in 2007 — a point that its student activists in the West Bank shied away from discussing. Of the West Bank’s nine major Palestinian universities, two had elections this year that included Hamas on the ballot: Polytechnic in Hebron, where the Islamist movement tied with Fatah, each winning 15 seats, and Birzeit, where Hamas won 26 of 51 seats to Fatah’s 19.

In the days after the surprising results, two dozen Hamas activists from West Bank campuses were detained by Palestinian Authority security forces, according to Human Rights Watch, citing Addameer, a Palestinian prisoner-rights group.

Gen. Adnan Damiri, a spokesman for the security service, said the detentions had nothing to do with political affiliations, though a Hamas student at Birzeit said the activists had been interrogated about how and why they won.

Grant Rumley of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is frequently critical of Mr. Abbas, said the detentions had “the characteristics of state-sponsored involvement in student elections.”

Yet, he noted, at least Mr. Abbas allowed some form of student elections to occur. 

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Issues:

Palestinian Politics