The Israeli soldier slaps his hand against the passenger door in a dull thud. “ID, ID,” he yells in Arabic. The Palestinians in the minibus fumble for their permits as the soldier goes from window to window as if he’s looking for someone. He stops when he reaches a man with a full black beard chewing gum. “What’s your name?” the soldier demands, this time in Hebrew. "Nayef,” says the bearded man. “What?” "Nayef." The soldier stares him in the eyes, hesitates and then waves the minibus through.

Nayef was lucky today. They didn't recognize him. The driver turns up the passages from the Koran spooling off the tape player and steps on the gas. The shuttle bus is traveling from Hebron in the southern West Bank to Al Ayzahriyah, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem. It’s 9 o'clock in the morning and the sun, high in the sky, makes the Jewish desert glow like lava. The bus navigates switchbacks down into the Valley of Fire.

“Recently they left me waiting in the sun for two hours before we were allowed to continue,” Nayef says. For the past two weeks he’s been making the trip regularly. When he was a beekeeper, he didn’t have to leave Hebron very often. But his new job is in Al Ayzahriyah. As the minister for religious affairs, Nayef Rajoub, 48, belongs to the inner circle of Hamas.

A large black Mercedes waits in front of the Institute for Regional Studies at the Al-Quds University in Ramallah. Upstairs on the first floor an advance studies seminar on the "Political System of Israel" is being held. As the teacher lectures about the ultra-orthodox Shas party, a man sits slightly out of the way in a window to the right.

When the instructor explains that the Shas party captured 12 seats in the latest election because of the votes of orthodox Sephardic Jews, the man near the window speaks up. That’s not exactly true, he says, Arab Israelis also voted for the Shas because they want to increase the bonuses paid to families for children. “He’s like a second professor,” a student says admiringly.

The man in the window is Jabril Rajoub, 53, the older brother of the Hamas minister. He was once the most powerful man in the West Bank and led the Palestinian Authority’s feared secret police, the Preventive Security Force. He was a member of the Fatah movement that was unseated at the end of January. Now he’s studying and hoping to write a master’s thesis on Israel.

Although Nayef and Jabril are brothers, they are as divided as Palestine when it comes to politics, and both must now become comfortable in their new roles -- just like Fatah and Hamas. One lost its years-long governing monopoly. The other ascended to popularity through terrorist attacks on Israelis and now runs the Palestinian Authority.

The election unleashed a power struggle among the Palestinians. While the Islamic cabinet of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh governs, President Mahmoud Abbas, head of Fatah, makes all the key decisions. Every group has its own militia and street battles are growing more vicious each week. The militias take hostages and storm government and party buildings.

The situation further deteriorated last week. Because a majority of the security forces are Fatah supporters, the Hamas government has now started its own 3,000 man police force. The street battles could easily devolve into a war between brothers. And this has as much to do with power, money and weapons as it is about relations with Israel.

Although Fatah has supported a two-nation solution since the 1980s, Hamas has refused to acknowledge the Jewish country's right to exist. One wants to solve the conflict through negotiations, the other isn't willing to rule out terrorism as a last resort. Fatah politicians routinely condemn suicide bombings, but Hamas sees such attacks as resistance and self-defense.

This divide cuts straight through the Rajoub family. Jabril was long the clan's uncontested political star. He fought side-by-side with Fatah founder Yasser Arafat in Lebanon and later became his national security adviser.

Nayef, however, shied away from the political limelight, studied Islamic law and joined the radical Islamic Muslim Brotherhood. He was pious, he gave lectures on religious questions and he dedicated himself to his bees. Nayef and Jabril first became rivals when Hamas decided to take part in parliamentary elections. Nayef allowed himself to become the party’s leading candidate and ran against his brother Jabril.

The Rajoubs are one of the West Bank's most influential families. Nayef and Jabril have five additional brothers and six sisters. The brothers all live on the same hill in Dura, southwest of Hebron. Their parents are dead but their house still adorns the top of that hill. The other siblings posted campaign posters of the brothers on the wall that borders their parents’ house. It looked like the same person had been photographed twice -- once with a full, black beard and once with a gray moustache. Nayef and Jabril look almost like twins, sharing high foreheads, small eyes and similar mouths.

Hamas won nearly two-thirds of the seats in parliament, and in Hebron Islamists scored all nine mandates. Nayef received the most votes. For his part, Jabril garnered 20,000 fewer votes and failed to win a seat in the government.

It’s still difficult for Jabril to concede defeat. “That was the first time in my life that I so badly misjudged a situation,” he says. Why? “I no longer had any access to intelligence information,” he answers. He sits in his living room in front of a white apparatus the size of a matchbook. It has a button and whenever Jabril needs something, he pushes it, prompting a shrill bell sound. A boy hurries into the room. “Where’s the food?” Jabril asks.

He’s used to giving orders. He speaks in short sentences and his voice is hoarse. As security chief he enjoyed many privileges, and even now he continues to draw a salary from the Palestinian Authority. He also has a driver and two bodyguards. It's just this kind of luxury living of Fatah leaders that pushed many voters into the arms of Hamas. Jabril's lifestyle also offers a stark contrast to that of his younger brother. When Nayef became a Hamas government official, his first act was to forbid workers in his ministry from calling him "Mister Minister" or "Your Excellency." "Just call me Brother Nayef," he told them. He has eschewed a car and driver and instead takes a shared taxi to work. If he has to stay in Ramallah after a cabinet meeting, a middle class hotel will do. He doesn't have any bodyguards, either.

Nevertheless, Nayef is also learning that contact with the people comes with a price. Someone is always knocking on his door and when a woman in a headdress is let into his office, she asks for a handout -- her husband has diabetes and can’t provide for the family. Nayef sends her to an Islamic charity. His mobile phone number is known, too, and the calls often keep him from getting his work done. "They’re going too far. They even call in the middle of the night,“ he complains. “Everybody expects me to help.“

When asked why it is so hard to govern, he responds: “The occupation. It makes it impossible to govern like a completely normal country.” He complains about the support the international community gives to Israel while freezing aid money for the democratically elected Palestinian government. So why won’t Hamas just solve this problem by acknowledging Israel's right to exist? “Arafat recognized Israel and where did it get him?“ Nayef asks. “Our brothers in the Fatah have become beggars. We won’t repeat this mistake.” First, Israel has to withdraw completely from the West Bank, "then we can negotiate."

But others are always to blame for the miserable conditions in the Palestinian terroritories -- for the unemployment, the economic crisis and the political conflicts. It’s either Israel, the West or the “brothers in the Fatah.”

An employee brings in a stack of papers. “Look what the Fatah did,” he says. “Just before I came, my predecessor in this ministry appointed 17 employees as general directors.” Not because of their qualifications, but because of their Fatah affiliation. Nayef reverses the promotions.

Jabril recently invited Nayef to dine with him. A traditional mansaf was served -- lamb with saffron rice. Both joked to ease the tension. It appears most of the battles are in the Gaza Strip, Jabril joked, the hotheads there eat too much pepper. Maybe we should just resettle some of the level-headed people from the West Bank there, he suggested with a laugh.