Jimmy Carter has announced his intention to meet with Hamas leaders. Barack Obama has said that, if elected president, he'd meet with the leaders of several U.S. foes, including Iran.
So, bored political pundits--both liberals and conservatives--decided to "connect the dots," and have concluded that, if elected president, Obama would want to negotiate with Hamas (Q.E.D.).
Here's
an excerpt from the April 10th edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:
HANNITY: And still to come tonight, Jimmy Carter is headed to visit Hamas. Yes, Hamas. Is this what the Obama foreign policy will look like when he says he wants to talk to everyone, including Ahmadinejad? Lots more to come as Hannity & Colmes continues straight ahead.
[...]
HANNITY: In Gaza, Jimmy Carter reportedly makes plans to meet -- get this -- with Hamas. The same Jimmy Carter has been accused of anti-Semitism. Could this be a preview of Barack Obama's foreign policy strategy?
However, the left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters was quick to dismiss this speculation, noting that, in early March, Obama
explicitly backed the Bush administration's policy of shunning contact with Hamas. Obama stated: "You can't negotiate with somebody who does not recognize the right of a country to exist so I understand why Israel doesn't meet with Hamas."
Apparently, though, this distinction was lost on Ezra Klein, at the liberal magazine The American Prospect, who argued that Obama would logically want to meet with the leaders of Hamas, but
blamed you-know-who for the alleged reversal of his position:
So Obama, despite his willingness to negotiate with most every other dictator on earth, would not negotiate with Hamas, despite the fact that they're the popularly elected government in much of Palestine. This doesn't really track with his past approach to foreign policy, so one has to wonder why he's taking such a hard line. It's almost as if he fears pressure from some sort of organization, maybe a lobby, centered around Israel issues...
Klein's post prompted
this commentary from Jonathan Chait at The New Republic:
I think there's a pretty clear principle operating here. When you merely have strong differences with an adversary, like the Soviet Union, you can negotiate. When your adversary is committed to your destruction, there's nothing to talk about.
Refusing to negotiate with Hamas is clearly a consistent application of that thinking, and I would argue that it's the most consistent application of that thinking. Klein's post is telling, though, because it reflects a common tic of lefty foreign policy types: to assume that their position is so obviously correct that the only reason Democratic politicians could possibly oppose it is the muscle of the Israel lobby.
