Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has postponed parliamentary elections scheduled for mid-July, to ward off a challenge by the Islamic terrorist group Hamas. The heavily-armed Hamas seeks the destruction of Israel, so a victory by the group could derail Abbas' efforts to revive the peace process. Hamas condemned the decision to postpone elections as anti-democratic, saying it's a violation of the four-month-old cease-fire agreement with the Palestinian Authority. But the group stopped short of calling off the truce. Abbas expects to get a boost from the Israeli pullout from Gaza because it will enable him to show Palestinians the benefits of “peace.” So he prefers to hold elections after that.