Hamas: exclusion will fail US peace efforts
Palestine-Israel-USA, Politics, 8/27/2007

The US said that the Palestinian people "will have to make a fundamental choice at some point as to how to deal with a group like Hamas."

Replying to a question by reporters on that the head of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, gave a television interview in the recent days and he made a lot of criticisms about the Administration. He said that the Administration has exempted key players of the Middle East from the process, namely Hamas, and that at some point the Administration is going to have to deal with Hamas. And he also said that the upcoming conference that the US is planning for the Middle East will fail because Hamas is not invited. And I was wondering if you think that eliminating Hamas from this particular -- from your peace efforts right now, do you think that that's an ill-advised approach, because eventually you're going to need their consent to move ahead?

US Department Of State Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said today "to have a peace process, you have to want peace. And to have a peace process, you have to acknowledge the other party sitting across from you at the table has a right to exist and a right to live in peace. So if anyone is being held out or kept out of a process, it's Hamas keeping itself out by its failure to meet those basic criteria that the Quartet laid out some time ago. And what we are trying to do is work with the Government of the Palestinian Authority as well as other states in the region to give the Palestinian people what they so badly deserve, which is an independent state that can live side in side in peace with Israel."

Casey added "The Palestinian people, though, obviously will have to make a fundamental choice at some point as to how to deal with a group like Hamas, which seems to want to have one foot in the political process and another foot engaged in active terrorist and military operations. But I think it's kind of ironic for anyone from Hamas to be complaining about being exempted from a peace process which they frankly don't recognize and don't believe in."

Asked that Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas are scheduled to meet tomorrow, and any particular goals for that particular meeting, from the US side, Casey said " I'm not sure of the exact timing of their meeting, but this is a continuation of a series of discussions that have been launched, in part through the Secretaries and the US Administration's assistants, to get them talking about what the Secretary Rice called the "political horizon;" some of the broader issues that are out there that will have to be addressed ultimately to be able to have a Palestinian state."

Casey said "And so we're glad that these conversations are continuing. We certainly want to see them make progress towards an agreed notion of some of those 'political horizon' issues. But I don't, as far as I know, expect to see any kind of concrete agreements coming out of this meeting. Again, though, I'd really refer you to Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas's office though for details of their agenda."

Previous Stories:
  Rice sees new momentum in Middle East peace efforts   (7/23/2007)
  Fresh US and European efforts to settle the Palestinian - Israeli issue   (7/9/2007)
  Rice urges continued Israeli-Palestinian dialogue   (6/12/2007)

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