So Hamas seems to have won the Palestinian polls. This is grim, as grim as it gets. Fatah has only itself to blame, of course, for having turned into the corrupt, opportunistic, unrepresentative organization that it now largely is. Much of the blame must, of course, be laid at the door of the Palestinian Authority, or, more accurately, the Repress-Palestinians Authority. Does this mean that the character of a largely secular resistance movement, one with much to its credit, is now going to change beyond recall? Or is it more a symbolic change, given how fucked up things seem to be in Gaza and the West Bank? Does this also mean a breakdown of that myth they call 'the peace process'? More land grabs? More desperate, savage suicide bombings? More Israeli troops rolling into Palestinian territories with shoot-at-sight orders and impulses? Things don't look good, and won't look good for some time to come, either for Israelis who've been living with the daily fear of violent death for several years now, or for Palestinians who've had to live with the same fear every minute of their lives so long it doesn't bear thinking about, and who've had to face the daily humiliations, micro-tortures, and insults dished out by the Israeli regime. A regime whose prime accomplishment is to have extended, in so many ways, the meaning of the words 'apartheid' and 'colonialism'.