Palestinian Authority
ORG
Palestinian Authority
Israel has already halted most of its dealings with the Palestinian Authority after the January election victory by Hamas, the radical Islamic movement, and that policy is expected to be further entrenched in the coming days. Likud has won past elections, including the last one, in 2003, with tough security policies toward the Palestinians and calls for Israel to retain its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his secular Fatah movement have sought a Palestinian state on all the land that Israel captured and occupied in the 1967 war -- Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem as its capital.