Well color me surprised when I read that several of Obama’s “advisers” and “friends” have been reaching out to Hamas. In Obama world this all makes sense – if you are reaching out to Syria and Iran, how much of a great leap forward would it be to reach out to Hamas (and maybe one day al Qaeda)?
by Benny Avni
Some of President Obama’s friends are making quiet overtures to Hamas — the terrorists who control Gaza. Even if this doesn’t lead to an official dialogue, the administration’s failure to distance itself from such efforts undermines US allies and US alliances.
A seasoned former US ambassador to Israel, Thomas Pickering, and a key member of Bill Clinton’s team at the 2000 Camp David talks, Robert Malley, sat down in Zurich last summer with top Hamas politburo members, Osama Hamdan and Mahmud Zahar.
A classmate of Obama’s at Harvard, Malley has long argued that Middle East diplomacy should include Hamas and Syria. He was an Obama adviser on Arab-Israeli issues in 2008 — until the campaign had to sever ties in the wake of media attention to his regular meetings with Hamas leaders.
Plus, as the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, State Department official Rachel Schneller was on an Al Jazeera debate panel with Hamdan in Qatar last month — and shared coffee and a private chat with him later.
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With the administration still slapping Israel and reaching out to Syria, all this raises fears that Obama might have one of his most drastic foreign-policy reversals yet in the offing. At the least, suspicion is strong that the president has blessed these contacts with a wink and a nod: Meet these folks, see what you can get, then we’ll talk.
America’s long-stated policy is it won’t talk until Hamas fulfills three conditions: recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce violence and abide by all agreements previously signed by Palestinians and Israelis.
Yet Hamas can’t meet those conditions without rejecting its defining goal, which is to assure that no part of Palestine is controlled by infidels — Jewish, Christian or atheist. The best it can promise — but not necessarily deliver — is a limited cease-fire.
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But in the region, very few people buy the administration’s line. Hamas officials say Obama is different from all his predecessors. As its deputy “foreign minister,” Ahmed Yussuf, told the Journal, “We believe Hamas’ message is reaching its destination” — the White House.
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Read the rest here: Harmful hints of a hand to Hamas
Tags: Benny Avni
