Hamas's apparent victory in the elections for Palestinian parliament creates a thorny dilemma for Israel, the United States, and the European Union: how to deal with a Palestinian government dominated by what all three have branded a terrorist organization. Yet there is a potential silver lining in this development. Not because it may transform Hamas into an ordinary political party that eschews violence and terrorism in favor of "more moderate policies," as suggested by Jimmy Carter among others, but because Hamas's win might trigger a widespread disillusionment with the mirage--created by the Oslo process--of a democratic and peace-loving Palestinian government.

A good place to start is to acknowledge that the Palestinian elections were a contest not between a democratic party and a terror organization but rather between two unreconstructed terrorist groups, which were supposed to be disarmed and dismantled in accordance with the agreements signed by Israel and the PLO and the roadmap to peace announced in 2003 by the Quartet (the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia). While Hamas's terrorist credentials need no elaboration, Fatah boasts a far longer terrorist record, dating back to January 1965 and including bombings, airplane hijacking, and countless massacres of innocent civilians throughout the world--Arab, Israeli, and Western--most notably at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Marwan Barghouti, who headed the Fatah electoral list, is serving five consecutive life sentences in an Israeli prison for murder and attempted murder.

Nor does the PLO-dominated P.A., established in May 1994 as part of the Oslo process, come anywhere near to being a liberal democracy. Rather it is an oppressive and corrupt regime, where the rule of the gun prevails and large sums of money donated by the international community for the benefit of the civilian Palestinian population are diverted to funding racist incitement, buying weaponry, and filling secret bank accounts. Extensive protection and racketeering networks run by P.A. officials proliferate, while the national budget is plundered at will by PLO veterans and Arafat cronies. It is, in fact, this oppressive and corrupt governance that has allowed Hamas to win widespread popular support by creating an extensive system of social-welfare handouts that substitutes for the services the P.A. has failed to provide.

Equally misconceived is the perception of Palestinian society as locked in an ideological struggle between secular modernizers and religious radicals. Since its rise in the early seventh century, Islam has constituted the linchpin of Middle Eastern politics, and its hold on Palestinian society is far stronger than is commonly recognized. Arafat was a devout Muslim, associated in his early days with the militant Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas's parent organization, as were other founding fathers of Fatah. And while the new generation of Fatah leaders in the territories may be less religious, they nevertheless have a draft constitution for a prospective Palestinian state that stipulates "Islam shall be the official religion of Palestine" and Sharia--which relegates non-Muslims to a legally inferior position--"shall be a major source of legislation."

Finally, and contrary to another widely accepted myth, there is no fundamental difference between the ultimate goals of Hamas and Fatah vis-a-vis Israel: Neither accepts the Jewish state's right to exist and both are committed to its eventual destruction. The only difference between the two groups lies in their preferred strategies for the attainment of this goal. Whereas Hamas concentrates exclusively on "armed struggle," as its murderous terror campaign is conveniently euphemized, the PLO has adopted since the early 1990s a more subtle strategy, combining intricate political and diplomatic maneuvering with sustained terror attacks (mainly under the auspices of Tanzim, Fatah's military arm). Hence the refusal of Arafat and more recently Abbas to disarm Hamas (and Islamic Jihad), as required by the Oslo accords and the roadmap; and hence their tacit approval of the murder of hundreds of Israelis by these groups. In the candid words of Farouq Qaddoumi, the PLO's perpetual foreign minister: "We were never different from Hamas. Hamas is a national movement. Strategically, there is no difference between us."

The PLO's duplicity of speaking the language of peace while backing terrorism worked impeccably. Fatigued by decades of fighting, and yearning for a normalcy that would allow them at last to enjoy their recently won affluence, many Israelis, followed by the international community at large, naively clung to the Oslo process, turning a blind eye to the growing terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian territories. And while Arafat overplayed his hand by launching his war of terror in September 2000, his death rekindled the widespread illusion that Palestinian politics have entered a new and far more promising era.

The international community thus ignored the fact that for all their drastically different personalities and political style, Arafat and Abbas were both dogmatic PLO veterans who never eschewed their commitment to Israel's destruction and who viewed the "peace process" as the continuation of their lifetime war by other means. It whitewashed Abbas's adamant refusal to fight terrorism as a reflection of political weakness (as it had done with Arafat in the early Oslo years) and turned a blind eye to his repeated calls for the destruction of Israel through demographic subversion (via the so-called "right of return").

In these circumstances, where the real choice is between a plain-speaking extremist organization advocating the destruction of a neighboring state and a corrupt and repressive regime couching its intentions in hollow peace rhetoric whenever addressing non-Arab audiences, Hamas may prove the lesser of two evils. By leaving no doubt about its true nature and raising no false expectations of imminent peace and democracy, it helps expose the deep malaise of the Palestinian political system and the attendant need for its fundamental overhaul.

There is, of course, the risk that, in its dealings with the world community, Hamas will adopt its predecessor's duplicitous conduct so as to maintain the extraordinary level of international aid enjoyed by the Palestinians since the mid-1990s. This might well dupe naive do-gooders. Yet one hopes that Hamas's victory will cause the international community to pay closer attention to what the Palestinian authorities tell their own people and wider Arab constituencies. As for Israelis, yesterday's election results will have the virtue of creating clarity in their political debate. Now, as it weighs unilateral withdrawal and other policy options, Israel can at least do so without illusions.

Efraim Karsh is the head of the Mediterranean Studies Programme at King's College, University of London.