Fresh from its self-declared victory of forcing the Israeli army to leave the Gaza Strip, Hamas, the militant Islamic resistance movement, is shifting into election mode.
Hamas is hoping to use the widely held perception that its Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades armed wing blasted Israel out of Gaza as a way to win votes in its first foray into parliamentary elections, due in January.
It also is hoping to exploit security chaos, perceived corruption on the part of the Palestinian Authority and president Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, and the sense that advocacy of negotiations with Israel has gone nowhere.
The movement's spokesman in the West Bank, Hassan Youssef, touched on all of those points in a fiery speech to thousands at a rally in Ramallah, the de facto Palestinian capital.
Mr Youssef flatly ruled out that Hamas might amend its covenant calling for Israel's destruction despite statements to that effect by another Hamas leader, Mohammed Ghazal, last week. Mr Ghazal and Mr Youssel were arrested at the weekend in an Israeli sweep against Palestinian militants.
'Our weapons and our covenant are not tactics or a game, and we make no choice but them,' Mr Youssef said. Rather, he said, Hamas, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings against civilian targets, would participate in national politics while 'adhering to the resistance'.