Yasser Arafat was the President of the Palestinian Authority; the governing body of Palestine. The US and Israel (via MOSSAD) set up Hamas in order to thwart peace talks, by giving Israel the excuse that they did not know who to talk to. When Arafat died, possibly by Thallium or Polonium poisoning probably courtesy of Mossad, the Palestinian Authority fell apart and all of a sudden, Hamas became the government of Palestine, and much to the US and Israel’s chagrin, started acting like one!.