Interesting. I don't remember the Bush involvement but it's quite possibly true.

The Wikipedia article does not mention this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Palestinian_general_elect... but that doesn't mean anything given the current sorry state of that site, and this article supports this idea: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/was-hamas-electe...

This is relevant to the coup: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/04/usa.israelandt...

Thanks for the extra colour here.