On January 26, 2006, “the radical Islamist party of Hamas won a landslide victory in Palestinian legislative elections over the moderate, secular leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas and the governing Fatah party. The outcome gave Hamas–considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, and the European Union–the right to form a new government and determine the Palestinian political future.”
– Elisabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, Page 279