Obama camp 'prepared to talk to Hamas'

[doodlebugg 10]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/0...bama-gaza-hamas

The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's ­doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.

The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush ­presidency's ostracising of the group. The state department has designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, and in 2006 ­Congress passed a law banning US financial aid to the group.

The Guardian has spoken to three ­people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp. There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive. A tested course would be to start ­contacts through Hamas and the US intelligence services, similar to the secret process through which the US engaged with the PLO in the 1970s. Israel did not become aware of the contacts until much later.

A UN resolution was agreed last night at the UN, calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire between Hamas and Israeli forces in Gaza. The resolution was passed, though the US, represented by secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, abstained.

Richard Haass, a diplomat under both Bush presidents who was named by a number of news organisations this week as Obama's choice for Middle East envoy, supports low-level contacts with Hamas provided there is a ceasefire in place and a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation emerges.

Another potential contender for a ­foreign policy role in the Obama administration suggested that the president-elect would not be bound by the Bush doctrine of isolating Hamas.

"This is going to be an administration that is committed to negotiating with ­critical parties on critical issues," the source said.

There are a number of options that would avoid a politically toxic scenario for Obama of seeming to give legitimacy to Hamas.

"Secret envoys, multilateral six-party talk-like approaches. The total isolation of Hamas that we promulgated under Bush is going to end," said Steve Clemons, the director of the American Strategy ­Programme at the New America ­Foundation. "You could do something through the Europeans. You could invent a structure that is multilateral. It is going to be hard for the neocons to swallow," he said. "I think it is going to happen."

But one Middle East expert close to the transition team said: "It is highly unlikely that they will be public about it."

The two weeks since Israel began its military campaign against Gaza have heightened anticipation about how Obama intends to deal with the Middle East. He adopted a strongly pro-Israel position during the election campaign, as did his erstwhile opponent and choice for secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. But it is widely thought Obama would adopt a more even-handed approach once he is president.

His main priority now, in the remaining days before his inauguration, is to ensure the crisis does not rob him of the chance to set his own foreign policy agenda, rather than merely react to events.

"We will be perceived to be weak and feckless if we are perceived to be on the margins, unable to persuade the Israelis, unable to work with the international community to end this," said Aaron David Miller, a former state department adviser on the Middle East.

"Unless he is prepared to adopt a policy that is tougher, fairer and smarter than both of his predecessors you might as well hang a closed-for-the-season sign on any chance of America playing an effective role in defusing the current crisis or the broader crisis," he said.

Obama has defined himself in part by his willingness to talk to America's enemies. But the president-elect would be wary of being seen to give legitimacy to Hamas as a consequence of the war in Gaza.

Bruce Hoffman, a ­counterterrorism expert at George­town University's school of foreign ­service, said it was unlikely that Obama would move to initiate contacts with Hamas unless the radical faction in Damascus was crippled by the conflict in Gaza. "This would really be dependent on Hamas's military wing having suffered a real, almost decisive, drubbing."

Even with such caveats, there is ­growing agreement, among Republicans as well as Democrats, on the need to engage Hamas to achieve a sustainable peace in the Middle East – even among Obama's close advisers. In an article published on Wednesday on the website Foreign Affairs, but apparently written before the fighting in Gaza, Haass, who is president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote: "If the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas continues to hold and a Hamas-PA reconciliation emerges, the Obama administration should deal with the joint Palestinian leadership and authorise low-level contact between US officials and Hamas in Gaza." The article was written with Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel and an adviser to Hillary Clinton.

Obama has said repeatedly that ­restoring America's image in the world would rank among the top priorities of his administration, and there has been widespread praise for his choice of Clinton as secretary of state and Jim Jones, the former Marine Corps commandant, as his national security adviser.

He is expected to demonstrate that commitment to charting a new foreign policy within days when he is expected to name a roster of envoys to take charge of key foreign policy areas: Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, India-Pakistan, and North Korea.

Obama has frustrated and confused those who had been looking for a more evenhanded approach to the Israeli-­Palestinian conflict by his refusal to make any substantive comment on Israel's ­military campaign on Gaza, nearly two weeks on.

He said on Wednesday: "We cannot be sending a message to the world that there are two different administrations conducting foreign policy.

"Until I take office, it would be ­imprudent of me to start sending out ­signals that somehow we are running ­foreign policy when I am not legally authorised to do so."

[Yoink 7]

Obama won't deal with Hamas, 'Post' told

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Isn't it ironic that much of Islamic Extremism comes from Saudi Arabia in the form of financing and militants themselves and yet SA has been a very close ally to the Bush Administration? The Palestinians are condemned for not 'containing' the Hamas...a guilt by association...but when it comes to our tough line of, 'we don't deal with these kinds of people,' - we have a huge blind spot for SA. So I suppose if the Hamas were sitting on huge oil wells, the neo-cons would be hailing them as our dear ally.

[doodlebugg 10]

Obama won't deal with Hamas, 'Post' told

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

I believe the very definition of "clandestine meetings" would indicate that the spokespeople wouldn't admit publically to jpost that the president elect has plans on meeting Hamas.

In other news:

http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrele...sreleaseID=1548

ZOA: Why Is President-Elect Obama Refusing Israeli Briefings On Gaza?

January 6, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has expressed concern over reports that President-elect Barack Obama and his senior aides have refused all briefings on the current situation in Gaza from the Israeli government and its officials. In this way, he has been depriving himself of information that will be central to his deliberations on the Middle East, a subject on which he has promised to "hit the ground running" when he assumes office as President on January 20. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Obama and his senior aides have declined briefings from the Israeli government on the current crisis, said two people familiar with the Israeli outreach. Some foreign diplomats said Mr. Obama's apparent reluctance to speak out on the Middle East is feeding uncertainty over how the international community should move forward on Gaza in the months ahead. A spokesman for Mr. Obama's transition team said the president-elect has ruled out virtually all contact with foreign governments ahead of the inauguration so as not to give conflicting signals on U.S. policy." (Jay Solomon, 'U.S. Transition Slows Negotiations Over Gaza,' Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2009).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "The ZOA is concerned about President-elect Obama's refusal to accept briefings from Israeli officials during the current Gaza operations. This is highly unusual – accepting briefings implies no particular policy on behalf of the President-elect, who has taken the unusual step of making no comment on the Middle East on the grounds that George W. Bush is still the President. As we have already noted, this is an anomaly and an approach that has not been taken by President-elect Obama on any other area of policy. He has spoken out on Mumbai massacres, urged President George W. Bush to give loans to automobile companies and made statements on economic policy and the stimulus package.

"Even without endorsing any specific Israeli action, President-elect Obama should have no difficulty condemning a genocidally -minded terror organization like Hamas, which calls in its Charter not only for terrorism and the destruction of Israel but also for the world-wide murder of Jews. More than that, it supports America's Islamist enemies and regularly condemns America and says that America will eventually be destroyed. Hamas is listed on the State Department terror list, so there cannot be any remotely reasonable dissent from the proposition that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

"But even more troubling than his silence is President-elect Obama's refusal to accept briefings from Israeli officials. This merely deprives the President-elect of vital information that will be needed to inform his policy when he enters the White House. To deprive himself thus is even more extraordinary when one considers the fact that President-elect Obama has previously promised to 'hit the ground running' on dealing with Middle Eastern problems from 'day one.' How will that be possible if he forswears learning all that there is to know before he actually assumes office?

"We view this with some concern. It seems to signal a possible unwillingness to show some solidarity with Israel when it is in a struggle – not even with another state, but with recognized terrorists like Hamas. Could this presage any sort of shift away from closeness with Israel? We hope not. We urge President-elect Obama to simply support the position of U.S. President Bush & Secretary of State Rice by stating that Israel has a right to self-defense, to protect its citizens and to make it clear that, if not for the years of Hamas rocket attacks on Israel's civilian population, there would be no Israeli military action

[peejay 327]

Isn't it ironic that much of Islamic Extremism comes from Saudi Arabia in the form of financing and militants themselves and yet SA has been a very close ally to the Bush Administration? The Palestinians are condemned for not 'containing' the Hamas...a guilt by association...but when it comes to our tough line of, 'we don't deal with these kinds of people,' - we have a huge blind spot for SA. So I suppose if the Hamas were sitting on huge oil wells, the neo-cons would be hailing them as our dear ally.

And when you are walking to work in the rain and your car is a funny looking yard ornament you will hail the Devil himself as your dear ally.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Isn't it ironic that much of Islamic Extremism comes from Saudi Arabia in the form of financing and militants themselves and yet SA has been a very close ally to the Bush Administration? The Palestinians are condemned for not 'containing' the Hamas...a guilt by association...but when it comes to our tough line of, 'we don't deal with these kinds of people,' - we have a huge blind spot for SA. So I suppose if the Hamas were sitting on huge oil wells, the neo-cons would be hailing them as our dear ally.

And when you are walking to work in the rain and your car is a funny looking yard ornament you will hail the Devil himself as your dear ally.

No sh!t...so why is it so difficult to see that sometimes having to talk with such extremists is in our best interests? In other words, people who criticized Obama for even mentioning the possibility of talking with Iran, can't see the selective outrage...that only gets applied when it is ideologically expedient. The outrage is ideologically driven but projected as a moral outrage.

Edited January 11, 2009 by Mister Fancypants

[mawilson 2,133]

Isn't it ironic that much of Islamic Extremism comes from Saudi Arabia in the form of financing and militants themselves and yet SA has been a very close ally to the Bush Administration? The Palestinians are condemned for not 'containing' the Hamas...a guilt by association...but when it comes to our tough line of, 'we don't deal with these kinds of people,' - we have a huge blind spot for SA. So I suppose if the Hamas were sitting on huge oil wells, the neo-cons would be hailing them as our dear ally.

And when you are walking to work in the rain and your car is a funny looking yard ornament you will hail the Devil himself as your dear ally.

No sh!t...so why is it so difficult to see that sometimes having to talk with such extremists is in our best interests?

Is Hamas sitting on a huge oil well? No? Then why is it "in our best interests" to talk to them?

[peejay 327]

Isn't it ironic that much of Islamic Extremism comes from Saudi Arabia in the form of financing and militants themselves and yet SA has been a very close ally to the Bush Administration? The Palestinians are condemned for not 'containing' the Hamas...a guilt by association...but when it comes to our tough line of, 'we don't deal with these kinds of people,' - we have a huge blind spot for SA. So I suppose if the Hamas were sitting on huge oil wells, the neo-cons would be hailing them as our dear ally.

And when you are walking to work in the rain and your car is a funny looking yard ornament you will hail the Devil himself as your dear ally.

No sh!t...so why is it so difficult to see that sometimes having to talk with such extremists is in our best interests? In other words, people who criticized Obama for even mentioning the possibility of talking with Iran, can't see the selective outrage...that only gets applied when it is ideologically expedient. The outrage is ideologically driven but projected as a moral outrage.

Talk is great if it is productive to American interests. But if it ends up enhancing the legitimacy of these extremists' position on the world stage at our expense then the joke ends up being on us.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

... why is it "in our best interests" to talk to them?

It's not.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

... why is it "in our best interests" to talk to them?

It's not.

Bringing peace and stability to the region is. Whether brokering a peace agreement will bring about stability remains to be seen, but that has been the objective of most of the last handful of presidents.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Bringing peace and stability to the region is.

Peace and stability is in their best interests, not ours.

Sometimes, Steven, you forget which side you're on.

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

... why is it "in our best interests" to talk to them?

It's not.

Bringing peace and stability to the region is. Whether brokering a peace agreement will bring about stability remains to be seen, but that has been the objective of most of the last handful of presidents.

well there is a way to bring peace and stability to the region.........

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

... why is it "in our best interests" to talk to them?

It's not.

Bringing peace and stability to the region is. Whether brokering a peace agreement will bring about stability remains to be seen, but that has been the objective of most of the last handful of presidents.

well there is a way to bring peace and stability to the region.........

The only alternative to suicide can not be genocide!

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

... why is it "in our best interests" to talk to them?

It's not.

Bringing peace and stability to the region is. Whether brokering a peace agreement will bring about stability remains to be seen, but that has been the objective of most of the last handful of presidents.

well there is a way to bring peace and stability to the region.........

The only alternative to suicide can not be genocide!

well steven wanted peace and stability.......

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Bringing peace and stability to the region is.

Peace and stability is in their best interests, not ours.

Sometimes, Steven, you forget which side you're on.

Camp David?