While largely unnoticed in American discourse on the topic, much has been said and written to debunk the sanctions regime imposed on Hamas government administrations since its resounding victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections of January 2006. These calls and reports show with compelling logic that the sanctions regime is wrong and misguided and, equally important, that it is a reaction to the excessively intense pressure that the U.S. administration has exercised over other nations to induce them to boycott and besiege a government democratically elected by the people and to punish the Palestinians for their democratic choice. The Quartet has been spearheading this campaign of isolation against Hamas, and in the process is advancing a U.S.-Israeli agenda whose goal is to delegitimize Hamas and prevent it from exercising its right to lead the Palestinian people, even though the latter have elected it in a transparent, internationally monitored electoral process. A variety of underhanded methods, both internal and external, have been used to undermine the Hamas-led government, including destabilization from within the fragile Palestinian political system.

The U.S. government expected the first Hamas government to fall in under three months. When that didn't happen, Washington delegated to a faction inside Fatah the responsibility of overthrowing Ismail Haniyeh's government, an effort aimed at reinstalling Fatah. Hamas' ability to rule has been hampered, indeed paralyzed, by crippling Western pressures, which have only been strengthened by the collaboration of regional powers as well as local Palestinian players.

In both of its roles, as a government and as a political movement, Hamas has tried to avert local feuding and bloodletting, sometimes with the help of the Egyptian security delegation that was stationed in Gaza and at other times through coordination with other Palestinian groups. Yet all of these attempts, genuine and persistent as they have been, crashed into the iron wall of international sanctions and local machinations and power plays.