Today's Wall Street Journal tells the story about all those anti-Israel Obama advisers who were supposedly fired, but are now engaged in actively providing a channel between the White House and Hamas:
Several high-profile former U.S. officials, some with close ties to the Obama administration, met with leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in recent months, raising hope inside the group that its views are being heard at the White House.
White House officials and participants in the talks emphasize the meetings weren't sanctioned by Washington. U.S. officials say there has been no change to Washington's insistence that Hamas take a number of steps before official dialogue can begin.
Ri-ight, they weren't sanctioned. By keeping these people officially off the payroll, Obama can still keep a channel of communication open with Hamas while not actually breaking US law on the matter, since Hamas is still an officially designated terrorist group.
Still, the talks have been interpreted by some officials inside Hamas, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which is run by the Palestinian Fatah party—a rival to Hamas—as a sign Washington may be softening its position toward Hamas {...}
Such informal “track two” meetings aren’t uncommon between former U.S. officials and Hamas. But the ex-officials involved in recent talks are seen as higher-profile figures in Washington’s diplomatic establishment. They are also seen as enjoying more foreign-policy heft with the administration than U.S. officials in the past.
“This administration is different from the previous administration,” said Hamas’ deputy foreign minister, Ahmed Yussuf, said in an interview. “We believe Hamas’s message is reaching its destination.”
“There were many meetings like this” in the past, Mr. Yussuf said. “But now, we know the people coming to see us are so much more connected to the White House.”
Indeed they are more connected.
The recent meetings between Hamas and ex-U.S. officials were held in Zurich, Damascus and other cities, according to current and former Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. officials familiar with the talks. While the talks weren’t sanctioned by the White House, their contents have been shared with Obama administration officials, say participants and administration officials.
“To refuse to listen—particularly if the visitor is seen as an experienced individual who knows what he/she is talking about—would be negligent in my view,” a senior Obama administration official said in an email response to questions about the meetings.
In a meeting last summer in Zurich, Thomas Pickering, a former undersecretary of state and U.S. ambassador to Israel and Jordan, and Rob Malley, a top Mideast adviser to President Bill Clinton, met with Hamas’s foreign minister, Mahmud Zahar, and Mr. Hamdan, the movement’s top official in Lebanon. Recently retired European officials also were present. The meeting, detailed in minutes reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, was confirmed by Messrs. Pickering and Malley.
The meeting focused largely on practical issues, such as scenarios for how Hamas could meet the three Quartet conditions, according to the minutes—which participants said accurately reflected the meeting. Participants also focused on how to establish a mechanism to ease the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip, an Obama priority.
“It was an effort to clarify what Washington’s policy is and understand what Hamas’s views are,” Mr. Malley said.
Yes, Hamas views are certainly a huge, unknown mystery. What was that from the unidentified Obama Administration official about 'experienced individuals who know what they're talking about'?
Mr. Malley is currently director of the Mideast and North Africa program at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. Mr. Pickering is co-chairman of the group’s board, a post previously held by George Mitchell, the Obama administration’s envoy to the Mideast peace talks.
As a special assistant to then-President Clinton on Arab-Israeli affairs, Mr. Malley worked closely with people who are now advisers to Mr. Obama. He attended law school with Mr. Obama and advised him on foreign policy during the campaign. He severed ties with the Obama team after his previous contact with Hamas, during his work with ICG, became a campaign issue.
(ummm, that and his rabidly anti-Israel views)
In a separate move that raised eyebrows in the region, U.S. diplomat Rachel Schneller met Hamas’s Mr. Hamdan in Doha last month for a debate sponsored by the Doha-based al Jazeera television channel. Ms. Schneller is on sabbatical from the State Department at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank.
Ms. Schneller said she alerted the State Department to the invitation, and Washington approved it. “They gave me permission to go, which I found interesting,” she said. After the debate, she met one-on-one with Mr. Hamdan over tea, Ms. Schneller said.
“He was really genuinely interested in how to make a breakthrough in negotiations and how to engage constructively with the United States,” she said.
I'm sure that Obama has plans to invite some of his Hamas contacts to the White House as part of his ultimate Mideast 'peace plan'.After all, if Clinton and Carter could pal around with Yasir Arafat, why would genocidal murderers like Ishmael Haniyeh or Khalid Meshaal be a problem? And I guarantee they'll get a better reception at the Obama White house than Bibi Netanyahu did.
2 comments:
Surprise sur[rise, Obama and his minions are a bunch of appeasers, antisemites and libnuts. Anyone who thought these people were actually gone woudl do well to stay away from those selling bridges in Brooklyn. Unfortunately that includes the majority of Jewish-Americans. Luckily while a Jewish American I can proudly say, I'm smart enough to know a liar when I see it.
The American people elected Mr. Obama to do two things. In this order, 1.)fix the economy, and 2.)improve America's image abroad.
With regards to fixing the economy I suspect Mr. Obama and his team have until early summer for the economy to start showing marked improvement before they will start to suffer substantially politlically for this. With regards to international relations, this is not as quickly acute to the American people as the economic situation is. As such, Mr. Obama and his team probably have a couple of years here for his approach to start to bear positive fruit before the American people will become impatient.
As part of the approach to improve America's international relations, it was believed and is still believed by alot of people that by putting some distance between traditional allies and ourselves and striking a more concilitory tone with traditional adversaries this would encourage traditional adversaries to reciprocate and strike a more concilitory tone towards us. So far this approach has not worked and frankly I don't expect it to but the American people are still largely on board with this approach and are willing to give it some time.
As stated before, I don't think it is going to work. The approach might actually work, if the United States would or could improve its military capabilities.
Most of our adversaries, if not all of them, are strongly supported by Russia, China, or both of them. Right now Russia enjoys full sprectrum dominance over the United States in all military areas. The Russian advantages are lopsided and getting larger almost daily. As far as the Chinese are concerned, they enjoy lopsided military advantages over the United States in every area as well, except perhaps in the nuclear arsenal. Furthermore the Chinese know the Russians will assist them in any confrontation with America.
Given these geopolitical realities, there is little incentive for Russia, China, or their allies to reciprocate American actions. Given these realities I suggest an entirely different approach, one that is not being seriously considered by policy makers yet.
ALL American forces EVERYWHERE around the world should be IMMEDIATELY withdrawn and redeployed to defensible positions along the American borders. This should help to lessen tensions with Russia, China, and others and it will give us a fighting chance to defend America and its people.
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