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Against the backdrop of even worse news about Iran’s inching toward nuclearization, the news about Iran’s vanguard on the southwestern border of Israel—Hamas—also isn’t good.Despite Israel’s attempt, during and immediately after Operation Cast Lead, to focus U.S. and European attention on the problem of Hamas’s arms smuggling under Egypt’s none too watchful gaze, that problem continues unabated and the rocket attacks are steadily mounting again. And not only is it militarily recovering, the terror group is making diplomatic progress as well.With Hamas and Fatah now meeting in Cairo for talks on establishing another unity government like the one they had briefly in 2007, there are indications that this time such a government would be accepted as a diplomatic player by the West.The Bush administration, for its part, shunned Hamas, and continued to do so while it allied with Fatah. But George Mitchell, the Obama administration’s Middle East envoy, has signaled a different attitude and said Hamas-Fatah unity would be “a step forward.” Former British prime minister Tony Blair, now Middle East envoy of the Quartet, said more explicitly that he thought it was important to “find a way of bringing Hamas into the peace process”; and current British foreign secretary David Miliband says talking to Hamas is “the right thing to do.”Earlier U.S. Senator John Kerry-while claiming U.S. policy toward Hamas had not changed-took a rare step for U.S. officials by visiting Gaza. While there he inspected damage caused by Israel’s military offensive-and appears to have accepted, or at least conveyed once he discovered it was in his possession, a letter to Obama from Hamas.Seemingly Israel’s outgoing, compliant Olmert government, which played the Western game by showing enthusiasm for a Palestinian state and whitewashing Fatah-while insisting that, nevertheless, Hamas remained a bad guy and beyond the pale-must be seeing its worldview crumbling around it. But the situation is yet worse.Haaretz has reported that U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton has been angrily warning Israel over delays in delivering humanitarian aid to Hamas-ruled Gaza. Senior EU officials have also been complaining to Israel about aid getting held up at the crossings into the Strip.Israel is protesting that, with its kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit still being held in Gaza, its control of the crossings is the main thing giving it leverage; and also that since Cast Lead ended a good deal of aid-nearly 200 trucks a day-has been getting through in any case.The U.S. and EU, though, together with the UN, are demanding that it be upped to 500 trucks a day-with growing pressure on Israel to allow cement and steel to enter the Strip even though those are used for Hamas weapons production....By P. David Hornik
P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/
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