Obama May Talk With Hamas

Incoming President Barack Obama may break with American diplomatic tradition and begin talks with Hamas. This comes despite the fact that the United States officially lists the organization as a terrorist group. This also flies in t

There are a number of options that would avoid a politically toxic scenario for Obama of seeming to give legitimacy to Hamas.

"Secret envoys, multilateral six-party talk-like approaches. The total isolation of Hamas that we promulgated under Bush is going to end," said Steve Clemons, the director of the American Strategy ­Programme at the New America ­Foundation. "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."

Well, it is a change. Hamas may use this as an opportunity to declare itself a political party or movement and continue attacks. In this sense, they could be legitimized by the U.S. government as the legitimate rulers of Gaza while attacking Israeli civilians.

Change I can believe in.