CLINTON: OBAMA MIGHT ALLOW TALKS WITH HAMAS

A day after the main Palestinian factions signed a unity agreement in Cairo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton refused on Thursday to rule out further negotiations with a Palestinian side that includes Hamas, the militant Islamic group that runs Gaza and is defined by many in the West as a terrorist organization.

But she also reiterated the Obama administration’s call for Hamas to accept basic conditions that included renouncing violence and recognizing Israel’s right to exist.

Mrs. Clinton’s striking openness to dealings with Hamas emerged in Rome as she spoke before a meeting on Libya.

OBAMA'S KEY ADVISERS - LIKE SAMANTHA POWERS - HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ORIENTED NO SURPRISE: TOWARD TALKING TO AND WITH TERRORISTS.

WE SHOULD NO MORE NEGOTIATE WITH HAMAS THAN AL QAEDA. IT'S IMMORAL AND POINTLESS; THEY WANT TO DESTROY ISRAEL.

JUST BY ANNOUNCING THEY'RE CONSIDERING IT, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION WEAKENS ISRAEL AND AIDS TERRORISTS WORLDWIDE.

UPDATE:

The Hamas leader in Gaza urged militant groups Thursday to stick with a de facto truce with Israel, announced after fighting last month, so as to give a Palestinian reconciliation deal with Fatah rivals a chance.
Reuters

"I call for giving the coming government a chance by maintaining" the ceasefire deal, Ismail Haniyeh said in a speech, a day after Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement signed a unity pact in Cairo.

"We do not fear threats. We do not fear the occupation," he added, referring to Israel.

"We always said that we seek and have sought to avoid a new war," Haniyeh said in a two-hour address.

Haniyeh's comments seemed the first concrete sign of progress for the unity deal brokered by Egypt for which security had been envisaged as a potential pitfall.

The agreement seeks to resolve a four-year split in the Palestinian national movement that had hindered the quest to achieve statehood in land captured by Israel in the 1967 war.

In reaching the deal, the sides had set aside the issue of bridging their policies toward Israel.

Unlike Abbas's group, which recognizes Israel, Islamist Hamas refuses to recognize the Jewish state, hostility to which often results in cross-border violence.

THERE CAN ALWAYS ON;LY BE A HUDNA WITH HAMAS, AND NEVER PEACE OR MUTUAL RECOIGNITION.