The Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections Jan. 25 has been met with shock and revulsion in the Western world.

In the week since the elections, there have been discussions as to why Hamas made such a strong showing at the polls. And the vast majority of these opinions have tried to cast the election as being less a victory for Hamas and more a loss for Fatah.

The longer we talk about the election in purely political terms the longer we delay facing the inevitable -- there is serious support from many in the Arab world for a group that is seen as defiant against the West.

There is something about Hamas' aggressive and violent opposition to Western influence that rings true with Palestinian voters. The undeniable underpinning of this election is that the sentiment against the perceived Western imperialism is a driving factor for the people of the Arab world.

This perception has given many malicious satisfaction. There have been many people who have chosen to wag their fingers at the president and tell him to be careful what he wishes for. Bush may well end up having the last laugh though because he has been handed an unprecedented opportunity to advance peace and democracy in the Middle East. After the pre-war justifications for invading Iraq were proven to be false, Bush has talked about establishing a beacon of democracy in Iraq that will be a catalyst for reform across the peninsula. The idea is honestly laughable. It is easy to play Iraq off as an exercise in American imperialism, and you can't get a groundswell of support behind that.

This brings us back to Palestine. Bush is going to have to engage with Hamas, and as unsavory as the notion may be, the alternative is isolationism, which plays right into Hamas' hands. The U.S. will be cast as an imperialist aggressor that only wants democracy when the notion is suitable.

Bush has already taken a step in the right direction by not cutting off Palestinian Authority (PA) funding in a knee-jerk response.

Bush really needs to truly engage with Hamas. It represents an angry and frustrated Arab world, and if Bush truly wants to win people's "hearts and minds," he's going to have to bite the bullet and sit down with the leaders of Hamas to talk. Let this be our moment to show that a civil society can deal with even the most extreme elements. Show the Arab world that in a free and democratic society we can sit down and work out compromises for our differences.

Obviously, there are some serious hurdles between where we stand now and a serious lasting compromise. Hamas needs to come to the table as politicians. They should be ready to negotiate and compromise, not to simply spit in the eye of Israel and the West for political points. First and foremost they have to recognize Israel and denounce violence -- there is no compromise that can be reached between peace and driving the Israelis into the sea.

Bush is going to have to find a way to deal with Hamas in spite of its atrocious history. Perhaps the most insidious effect of terrorism is that it derails the debate by drawing everyone's attention to the atrocities and away from the debate. Bush is going to have to find a way to hate the sin and not the sinner. Walking the delicate line between condemning terrorism and dealing with Hamas will be a hard sell in a country that lives in the shadow of Sept. 11, but he's going to have to spend the political capital and do it.

The chances of this situation working out neatly are slim. I have a hard time believing that a man who will preside over the executions of the mentally handicapped is ready to make hard compromises with Hamas. Hamas for its part is too steeped in Islamic Fundamentalism and anti-Semitism for me to believe they will be able to make peace with Israel. What is important to remember is that the world is watching.

If Bush and the European Union are even capable of forming a lasting, if uneasy, truce between these two bitter enemies they will go a long way to advancing freedom and democracy in the Arabian Peninsula. Much farther than any bomb or bullet will ever take them.