The Mayor Is No Terrorist

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To get a sense of how Hamas might govern, consider the stoplights in al-Bireh. Many of the busiest junctions in this West Bank town didn't even have traffic signals until a few weeks ago. But after Hamas won power in municipal elections in December, city officials bought new lights from an Israeli contractor and dispatched teams of laborers who worked overtime to install them just before last week's legislative vote. Election gimmick? Perhaps. But in the West Bank, where services have deteriorated under years of Fatah misrule and the violence of the intifadeh, people appreciate even the smallest effort.

This reputation for getting things done helped Hamas sweep to power in local elections across Gaza and the West Bank last year; in some areas it won every contested seat. And when voters saw the militant group follow up on its election promises rather than line its pockets, they concluded it was a viable alternative to Fatah and delivered Hamas' unexpected win last week. "We have credibility on the street," says Hamas party official Omar Hamayel, 29, who was elected in December as al-Bireh's mayor. "The media has always talked only about violence. Now people are seeing that we can run things as well."

Hamas' can-do reputation has been decades in the making. Even before its strategic shift into mainstream Palestinian politics last year, the party was operating its own services: medical clinics, schools, soup kitchens. Since the party's success in local elections, which took place over several months, Hamas officials have concentrated on what they call "cleaning the Palestinian house." Just take a look at the West Bank town of Qalqiliya, where the Islamic party prevailed in local elections last June. In the past few months the Hamas-dominated council has paid off the town's debt, balanced its budget, raised salaries and begun rebuilding roads. "We stick to our principles, and we do what we say," says Sheik Mohammed Abu Tir, 55, Hamas' most influential official in Jerusalem and No. 2 on the party's national list of candidates last week.

It doesn't take much for Hamas to outdo its predecessor. In al-Bireh, Hamayel is winning praise just for coming to work on time. Previous city leaders often arrived late, if at all. But Hamayel is trying to set a new tone. "The fact that when the staff comes to work I am here and when they leave I am still here means that they see a sense of responsibility becoming a reality," says Hamayel, a former chemistry teacher whose soft voice belies a fierce determination. His employees have noticed. Hamayel "is at his desk by 8 a.m. and works through after the doors are closed and people leave," says Ahmad Arqoub, a civil servant who has worked for the town since 1980.

Though remittances from the Palestinian diaspora make al-Bireh relatively wealthy, the town has long shared many of the West Bank's most intractable problems: piles of garbage, broken streetlights and water pipes, high unemployment. Hamayel's first task was to ask municipal workers to write job descriptions for every position. "That way we all know what their responsibilities are," says Hamayel. "We don't want people drawing a paycheck unless they are helping build the community."