"But in siding so firmly with Mr. Abbas, the Bush administration steered into new territory in its dealings with the Palestinians, as it essentially threw its support behind the dismantling of a democratically elected government. Mr. Abbas’s decision to strip Hamas of its representation in the National Security Council to form a new emergency government has already kindled a legal battle over whether he has overstepped boundaries laid out in the Palestinian constitution...But Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a former Israeli peace negotiator, said the American move to back Mr. Abbas “looks suspiciously like there’s an effort afoot to reimpose single party rule on the Palestinian body politic.”"