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World Jewish News
Obama won't deal with Hamas, 'Post' told
10.01.2009
The incoming Obama administration will not abandon US President George W. Bush's doctrine of isolating Hamas, the chief national security spokesperson of the Obama transition team has told The Jerusalem Post.
US President-elect Barack Obama "has repeatedly stated that he believes that Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel's destruction, and that we should not deal with them until they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and abide by past agreements," said Brooke Anderson in a statement to the Post.
Those conditions match the international Quartet's longstanding demands from Hamas, shared by Israel.
The Obama spokesperson was responding to an article in Britain's Guardian daily on Friday, which asserted that three people with knowledge of discussions held in the Obama camp said that while the president-elect will not approve direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, his advisers are urging him to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, in light of the growing recognition in Washington that ostracizing the terror group is counter-productive policy.
"The president elect's repeated statements [about not dealing with Hamas] are accurate," Anderson said. "This unsourced story is not."
The US state department designated Hamas a terrorist organization, and in 2006 Congress passed a law banning US financial aid to the group.
"Secret envoys, multilateral six-party talk-like approaches. The total isolation of Hamas that we promulgated under Bush is going to end," Steve Clemons, the director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, was quoted by the Guardian as saying.
"You could do something through the Europeans. You could invent a structure that is multilateral. It is going to be hard for the neocons to swallow," he said. "I think it is going to happen."
Источник: JPOST.COM
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