Palestinian children walk past

Fatah campaign posters of

Yasser Arafat and jalied

Tanzim leader Marwan

Barghouti.

have made slightly softer public
announcements.

Hamas Rules
Sheikh Mohammed Abu Tir, No. 2
on Hamas' national list, did not
rule out negotiations with Israel,
saying Hamas has adopted "new
rules to the game." He told •
Ha'aretz that "we will negotiate
with Israel better than the oth-
ers."
The party's political manifesto
is one of the most moderate doc-
uments the organization has pub-
lished since its establishment.
Unlike Hamas' 1988 charter, which
denies Israel's right to exist and
says its land is part of the Islamic
trust (Waqf), the new platform suf-
fices with a general demand for the
establishment of an independent
Palestinian state with Jerusalem as
its capital — the same election
slogan used by Fatah and the PLO.
The manifesto does call, howev-
er, for the right to use "all means"
to put an end to occupation, imple-
ment the "right of return" that the
Palestinians demand for millions
.of refugees, and make Islamic leg-
islation the source of P.A. legisla-
tion.
Thanks to llamas demands, the
electoral system has changed.
'
Previously, each of 10 districts
voted for representatives, whose
numbers were decided by the dis-
trict's population size. Hamas
pushed for a national vote with a
proportional system, similar to the
Israeli one.
The result is a compromise: The
number of members of parliament
was increased from 88 to 132, half
of whom will be elected in the
regional system, and half in a
national proportional system.
The new system created a special
challenge for Fatah, forcing it to
form a list for the national half of
the elections. This brought to the
surface the struggle between the
Young Guard and the Old Guard.
The party's younger generation
threatened to split Fatah and run
its own list of candidates, and gun
battles have broken out between
the factions. Ultimately, it was
agreed that Fatah's list on the
national ballot will be headed by
Barghouti — who is serving five
life terms in an Israeli jail for his
role in terrorist attacks — and will
include mostly new, young and rel-
atively unknown candidates. 1-1

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