'THE PRESENT strategy of excluding Hamas and excluding Syria is just not working", according to former US president Jimmy Carter, speaking in Jerusalem after he met their representatives in Damascus.
His assessment is correct, notwithstanding the rebuke delivered to him yesterday by US secreatary of state Condoleezza Rice. She repeated that the Bush administration will not be talking to Hamas, which it classifies as a terrorist organisation, and criticised Mr Carter for undermining the existing negotiations between the Israelis and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas.
The trouble with those talks is that they cannot succeed without engaging Hamas, which seized control of Gaza last summer and won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006. Israel cannot make peace with a divided Palestinian nation, bargaining with one side and making war on the other. Even if their leaders do not agree, most Israelis accept that reality according to opinion polls which show they support a ceasefire with Hamas and are prepared to go further if the right conditions are in place. That is the rub, of course.
But movement by Hamas towards a truce brokered by the Egyptians and indications given to Mr Carter that they could accept an agreement reached with Mr Abbas and based on pre-1967 boundaries if it had Palestinian parliamentary or referendum endorsement should be recognised as potentially genuine. Mr Carter said his meeting with Hamas political leader Khaled Mishaal showed Hamas "will not undermine Abbas's efforts to negotiate an agreement", so long as there is reconciliation between the two Palestinian groups. Mr Mishaal said in response to this that Jerusalem would have to be its capital, there would need to be full right of return for Palestinian refugees "but without recognising Israel".
The US and Israel say Hamas must recognise Israel's right to exist as a pre-condition for talks. That is unrealistic given their willingness to accept a two-state settlement, which implies such a recognition. Securing it explicitly should be an objective of the talks and a pre-condition of an eventual agreement. Israeli public opinion recognises the relationship between a military ceasefire and political engagement, as well as the need to reach agreement with a single Palestinian authority. Excluding Hamas in principle because they are rejectionist Islamists fails to recognise the movement already made, whether resulting from the pressure of sanctions or continual military conflict on an exhausted population. Mr Carter's initiative is welcome and necessary.