Pitfalls of outreach

David Hazony writes that Secretary of State Clinton has promised not to deal with Hamas unless Hamas fulfills three conditions.

That any governing party must (i) recognize Israel, (ii) renounce terrorism, and (iii) remain committed to all previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

However if the administration is insistent on having a “process” regardless, it could perhaps relax those requirements a bit:

But is this really the case? There are two scenarios I can think of where the Obama Administration could still justify (in its own eyes) massively pressuring Israel to make further concessions to the Palestinians. One would be if a unity government were formed that somehow accepted the three principles publicly, but still allowed Hamas some measure of deniability, somehow fudging the gap between what the government says and what one of its biggest factions says. The other is if it turns out that we cannot take Clinton’s words at face value — and the administration chooses to recognize Hamas or a Hamas-inclusive coalition, dropping the three principles.

Matthew Levitt points out the pitfalls of dealing with Hamas, including:

Perhaps most disturbing is not Hamas’ acts of violence targeting civilians, but their strategic and successful radicalization of Palestinian society. They are engaged in a broad-based radicalization campaign that seeks to shift the Israeli-Palestinian conflict away from an ethno-nationalist conflict over how to compromise over disputed land, to one based on demonization of the “other” and mutually exclusive religious principles. To the extent Hamas succeeds in this radicalization, peace-making becomes infinitely more difficult.

In other words, if the administration allows Hamas a shortcut in meeting the conditions for inclusion in the government, it will likely have the effect of making peace less, not more, attainable.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.