Palestinian 'third way' rises

"The [new list] will be liberal and will be anticorruption, and that's what's attracting people to Hamas," says Mr. Jarbawi.

But the list faces stiff competition. A poll released Sunday showed the Fatah party holding at 50 percent of the Palestinian vote and Hamas with 32 percent.

The first Palestinian Legislative Council, set up by the 1993 Oslo Accords, was elected 10 years ago this January, and no parliamentary elections have been held since. At that time, the only party that ran was Fatah, Yasser Arafat's mainstream faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Some independent candidates were associated with the communist-oriented PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) or DFLP (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine); others ran as independents loosely affiliated with Hamas. But neither the secular-leftists nor Hamas were willing to recognize the Oslo Accords - nor Israel itself - and so did not officially participate in the elections.

This time around, the field looks quite different. Hamas is preparing to run candidates in the elections, raising objections from Israel and the United States, both of whom deem it a terrorist organization. "We don't deal with them now," says one US official who handles Palestinian issues, "and if they get elected to the council, we're not going to deal with them then."

The new list will include other known names in Palestinian politics such as Yasser Abed Rabbo, a former minister, and Abdul Qader Al-Husseini, the son of the late Faisal Al-Husseini, who used to be the PLO's top official in Jerusalem, the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported. But perhaps the most significant person on the list is Mr. Fayyad, who is seen by the international community as one of the few officials in the PA who fought corruption and the misuse of donor funds.

He was often reported to be at odds with Mr. Arafat. After Fayyad announced his resignation as finance minister several weeks ago, which he said was necessary for him to run in the elections, there were rumors that Fayyad would run for a top leadership position in the Palestinian Authority.

Like the Likud, Fatah has been in a state of factionalization for some time. After the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada five years ago, some breakaway factions decided to return openly to armed struggle against Israel. Other voices in Fatah, especially President Mahmoud Abbas, said that a return to armed conflict was not in the Palestinians interest. Since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, there has been an upsurge in infighting between small breakaway militias tied to Fatah, and that has made it increasingly difficult for Mr. Abbas to claim control over all of the organization.

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