PLAYING PIANOS FILLED WITH FLAMES:

In Ramallah tonight, in the coffee shops and falafel stands of the city, its people are talking over politics, attempting to make sense of a political reality where certitude lies only in that all is changed utterly. Tonight, as in previous nights it had been Fateh’s, it was now the turn of Hamas’s supporters to parade through the streets after dinner, under green flags and to shouts of Allahu Akbar.

Today, the stock market declined by five per cent as it has each day since the results, its maximum it is allowed to fall before trading is halted. Dr Hassan Yassin, its head, speaks now of a one-week trading holiday.

And what of the word on the Arab street? Munib Masri of Nablus, the richest man in a city known for its business acumen, is it’s said being courted by Hamas as a technocratic prime minister. Hassan Khurayshi, who had been in the PLC as Fateh, and in these polls ran on the Hamas list from Tulkarem, is being tipped as head of parliament.

Zuhair Khalaf, a Christian and erstwhile Fateh member who in running as an independent in Ramallah attracted 8,000 votes, had his house shot up by Fateh sympathisers.

None of this is in the news.

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