Hamas in power

This article challenges the static approach to Hamas as a simple fundamentalist organization by analyzing its political documents. It shows that Hamas' Islamist ideology has not prevented it from moving from fundamentalism to radicalism. Hamas has innovated ways of allowing its leaders to declare or acquiesce in political positions that contradict its fundamentalist creed. Hamas accomplished this change in the course of a domestic debate. The international boycott of its government did not create the change - Hamas began to talk in two voices before winning the 2006 elections.