The conventional wisdom has it that Palestinians chose Hamas despite its Islamist platform. Conversations with voters in the West Bank, however, reveal that many chose Hamas because of it.

AROUB REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank --Here at the grass roots of Palestinian society, the imam of the local mosque is unequivocal about the root of Hamas's appeal: strict, unyielding Islamic faith.

Nizar Aweidat, 27, doesn't look the part of a typical cleric, wearing the frayed, plaid, buttoned-down shirt favored by secular Palestinians and a faint strip of peach fuzz on his upper lip instead of a beard. But Aweidat has shepherded a surge of support for Hamas in this tiny refugee camp that once unanimously supported the secular Fatah faction.

Fatah suffered a stunning defeat in the Jan. 25 Palestinian legislative elections, in part because of the success men like Aweidat have had in luring voters to Hamas. How Aweidat lured those voters is instructive: He attracted supporters not through the web of social services typically cited as the source of Hamas's appeal, or with talk of the extravagances of Fatah, but through religion...

...An important and largely overlooked poll confirms the impression that secularism has been vastly eroded in the Palestinian territories (as well as in Egypt and Jordan). The Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan in Amman published the results a year ago, under the title: "Revisiting the Arab Street: Research from Within." The pollsters drew all sorts of dubious conclusions from their data (I visited the center last spring and heard them first-hand). But one set of findings was impossible to spin, and should have constituted a flashing red light.

The pollsters asked Muslim respondents what role Islamic law, the shari'a, should play in legislation. The results were astonishing...

...responses didn't vary with level of education: "Pooled data from Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt indicate that 58% of respondents with low education, 59% of those with moderate education, and 56% with higher education believe that Shari'a must be the only source of legislation in their countries."

This is the force driving the Islamist surge across the region, and it's why Islamists will carry any free and open election. The call for shari'a is the prime marker of Islamism, and if two-thirds of any public desire it, an astute campaign by an Islamist party can readily translate this into ballots. Shari'a allegiance may be an even more reliable indicator of voting behavior than straightforward questions about voting preferences...