Polls don’t always get it right, so proceed with caution. But the results of a recent poll conducted by the University of Birzeit of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank seem worth noticing: if elections were held today, Fatah would get 45 percent of the vote, Hamas 33 percent.

Polls tell a story. This isn’t the first poll to show President Mahmoud Abbas’s party gaining on Ismail Haniyeh’s group since elections last January, but the margin of difference has never been this wide. Birzeit University is financed by the Palestinian National Authority, whose members are closer to Fatah than Hamas. But the University, which was founded in the 1920s, was also the first to declare widespread support for Hamas leading up to the 2006 elections, so the results of the current study would seem to merit serious attention. The finding is particularly relevant now that all obstacles in the road to a national unity government have been removed following the Mecca accords signed on February 9 by both Hamas and Fatah under the watchful eye of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. More than twenty days have passed since then and the new government—which will include members from Hamas, Fatah, and other Palestinian groups—is still forthcoming. It may be that negotiators were unable to iron out all of their differences in Mecca. Still, it’s a good sign that Palestinian economist Salam Fayyad has accepted the key post of Minister of Finance in the new government.

Political stalemate. At least for the moment, Palestinians appear to have turned their backs on the Islamist movement that—after the death of Yasser Arafat—broke an unwritten pact that the Chairman would always be in power. In 2006, Hamas has tried to cash in on the work it has done in the past, in the shadows, for the Palestinian people, while Fatah leaders got rich off funds from the international community. Even though the Palestinians tend towards secularism, they recognized the work Hamas had done on their behalf and rewarded the party with their vote. Results have been, to say the least, disappointing. With Hamas in power just over a year, conditions have deteriorated, particularly in the Gaza Strip where Hamas rules without opposition. The current situation is due in large part to the international aid embargo imposed on the Palestinian government by the European Union and the United States. Add to this Israel’s absolute refusal to deal with a party that—for reasons more ideological than practical—will not recognize the Jewish state. Hamas can certainly point to these as reasonable justifications for the current situation. But the Palestinians have already suffered a great deal and, after the tragedy of the Second Intifada, starvation is simply no longer an option.

Economic and environmental disaster. A recent report issued by Samir al-Afifi, director of the Palestinian Environmental Friends Association, an NGO financed by the United Nations, paints a depressing picture of quality of life for the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, the most densely inhabited region on the planet. The report describes the area as an “open-air prison” overcrowded with “detainees” and calls the region an environmental time-bomb. Al-Afifi has studied pollution in Gaza for 10 years and says the Gaza coast, particularly around Rafah, is unsafe for swimming or fishing. On top of this, chronic lack of basic necessities like electricity, medicine, and food have pushed the Palestinians to the breaking point. And although they understand that the embargo is the real culprit, they are ready for a change. They are, in a sense, ready to give in to the demands of the international community, which insisted on elections—the most transparent and above-board the Middle East has ever known—but then refused to accept the unwanted results.