JERUSALEM – The Palestinian Authority is willing to accept a compromise with the terrorist group Hamas, an organization expected to win significant support in tomorrow’s Palestinian parliamentary elections.

In an interview with reporters here yesterday, a Palestinian Authority Cabinet minister, Samir Huleile, said he was more willing to work with Hamas, an organization Israel and America have asked his regime to disarm, than with the Israelis. Those words were in direct contrast to warnings from Secretary of State Rice, who yesterday publicly reminded the Palestinian Arabs of their obligations under the roadmap to renounce violence.

“One foot in terrorism and the other foot in politics. It simply doesn’t work,” Ms. Rice said.

Polls predicting Hamas will win about 40% of the vote Wednesday, and perhaps more, presage a problem not only for Israel but for American policy as well. The Israelis have demanded that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, disarm Hamas and other terrorist groups, a prospect that appears unlikely if Hamas is part of the government expected to disarm it. At the same time, President Bush has embraced elections for the Middle East and praised votes that have empowered Islamist parties in Iraq and Lebanon. The case of Hamas is different in that the organization likely has more firepower at its disposal than the Palestinian Authority, and the organization’s charter calls for the destruction of Israel, the negotiating partner for a future Palestinian government if it hopes to create an independent state.

“I am willing to compromise with Hamas, but not with Israel because they are not offering us anything right now,” Mr. Huleile said yesterday with a group of American reporters here. Mr. Huleile added that at this point the Palestinian Authority also lacks the ability to confront Hamas militarily in Gaza. He said he thinks the “elections will help because all the parties are involved.”

The Palestinian Authority has complained in the past week that Israel has helped legitimize Hamas to voters because of Israel’s recent activities in northern Gaza targeting Palestinian fighters launching Qassam rockets into Israel. The interim Palestinian Arab government is also critical of Israel’s decision to allow only six polling stations to open for Wednesday’s elections in Jerusalem, a move which it contends will favor Hamas, whose presence is weak in the Jewish state’s capital.

For its part, a Gaza leader of Hamas, Mahmoud Zahar, yesterday said,” Negotiation is not a taboo,” according to the Associated Press. “If there is something from the enemy side to be offered, like stopping aggression, releasing our prisoners, we could find a way.” In rallies last week, however, Mr. Zahar was quoted as saying his group would never recognize Israeli sovereignty over 1 “inch of the holy land.”

Hamas’s political leader in Damascus, Khaled Mashaal, yesterday said in a televised interview, “We don’t have to make political concessions to Israel,” adding that the battle for Palestinian sovereignty was a long one. One woman running on the Hamas list in Gaza is known as the “mother of martyrs,” because three of her sons were suicide bombers.

One Arab diplomat yesterday said that Mr. Mashaal succeeded in increasing Hamas’s foreign stipend from Iran last month in a visit to Tehran where he met with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. According to one Arab diplomat, Iran subsidized Hamas for $120 million last year, a figure that tracks with Israeli figures.

If Hamas were to win a substantial number of seats in the elections Wednesday it still would not likely join the government officially, according to a senior Palestinian Authority official. Instead, the official said the organization would likely submit members who are technically independent to form a coalition government, while the organization itself remains an opposition party inside the legislature.

This compromise, which would create an appearance of a separation between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, may be an easy way to avoid censure from Western sponsors. In December, the European Union hinted that it would suspend any funding for the Palestinian Authority if Hamas played a role in it. Last month, both chambers of Congress passed resolutions urging the suspension of American support for the Palestinian Authority if Hamas played a role in the future government.

The threats from Western countries have played a role in the Hamas campaign.

One of the group’s campaign posters says, “Israel and America said no to Hamas. What do you say?”