In West Bank, Hamas Is Silent but Never Ignored - New York Times

In West Bank, Hamas Is Silent but Never Ignored

A crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank has led to concerns that all religious activities and institutions like this soup kitchen in Hebron will face higher scrutiny and more difficulties.

HAWARA, West Bank, June 26 — A new code was born here overnight. No one, it seems, belongs to Hamas in the West Bank anymore. Everyone now is an “Islamist,” a word that neatly, and maybe more safely, shears the religious from party affiliation amid the uncertainty of a Palestinian people newly divided.

“I don’t want to spend my life in jail!” a 35-year-old restaurant owner said, refusing to give his name after expressing pro-Hamas sentiments in an interview here.

Hamas, shrewd as it is deadly, has gone to ground in the West Bank, which is controlled now by its secular rival Fatah and supported by the United States, Europe and Israel as the territory with the only workable Palestinian government. more