The New York Times says that the Bush administration is not talking to Hamas after all:

'The Bush administration, rebuffing the suggestions of some European officials, will continue to refuse to have contact with the militant group Hamas and its leaders even if some of those leaders win elections in Palestinian areas, a senior administration official said Monday.The official said that a ban on contacts with Hamas was required because the group was listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, and that the United States would not follow a practice of some European countries of engaging with the group's political wing even if it also had an armed wing carrying out attacks on civilians."The president has said that Hamas is on the terrorism list, and it's there for a reason," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We don't recognize that you have changed your behavior just because a group is running candidates as well as suicide bombers."

It looks from this as if the administration has been pulled back from its previously reported drift towards appeasement of terror and the cracking of the Bush doctrine (see June 6 post below). There are folk inside the administration who are constantly trying to push it in that direction. From the NYT story, it would appear that today at least, Britain and France are once again left isolated on the wrong side of history in the Middle East, as was ever the case and no doubt ever shall be. But their influence is still toxic, and their capacity to destabilise the US and continue to fan the flames of genocidal terror still considerable.

The story also contained an element of hope:

'The senior administration official said there were signs in the last few days that Palestinian-Israeli talks on turning over infrastructure to the Palestinians in Gaza and parts of the West Bank were proceeding at a better pace than previously.'

We'll see. It's going to be an interesting summer.

Posted by melanie at June 8, 2005