What does Hamas want? Islamist olive branch could be thorn in the side for Mahmoud Abbas

Ever since it seized the Gaza Strip from rivals Fatah in 2007, Palestinian militant group Hamas has been anything but predictable.

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The reason for that defeat was not only Hamas’s popularity (although that was a significant factor). As Amir Tibon and Grant Rumley explain in their 2017 book The Last Palestinian: The Rise and Reign of Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah botched the election campaign, managing to anger its base to the extent that many of its members ran as independents, splitting the vote and handing an easy majority to Hamas.

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