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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/08/barack-obama-gaza-hamas
“Obama camp ‘prepared to talk to Hamas’”
SNIPPET: “Incoming administration will abandon Bush’s isolation of Islamist group to initiate low-level diplomacy, say transition sources”
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 9 January 2009 00.31 GMT
SNIPPET: “The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush’s doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.
The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush presidency’s ostracising of the group. The state department has designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, and in 2006 Congress passed a law banning US financial aid to the group.
The Guardian has spoken to three people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp.”
ping to posts no. 19 and 20:
BLOG:
“David Frum: Why U.S. Democrats recoil from Gaza”
Posted: January 08, 2009, 10:00 AM by Kelly McParland
David Frum, Full Comment, U.S. Politics
SNIPPET: “Good for Robert Shrum for championing Israel’s right to defend itself against the Hamas rocket barrage. He is correct, too, that lasting peace will come only when the Palestinians abandon their hope that Israel can somehow be defeated or destroyed.
Unfortunately, Shrum represents an increasingly minority point of view within the Democratic Party. A Rasmussen poll conducted in the last week of 2008 found that while 62 percent of Republicans backed Israel’s action in Gaza, only 31 percent of Democrats did. Almost three-quarters of Republicans blamed Hamas for starting this war; only a minority of Democrats agreed. Republicans are 20 points more friendly toward Israel than Democrats. And while extreme hostility to Israel does not exist among Republicans, almost one in 10 Democrats describes Israel as an “enemy of the United States.”
This is the political environment in which Barack Obama will be forming policy toward the Jewish state. Friends of Israel should find this worrying to say the least.”
ADDING to post no. 19:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2161423/posts
“Question for Barack Obama? Just Ask!”
ABC News ^ | Jan. 07, 2009 | George Stephanopoulos
Posted on January 8, 2009 9:24:24 PM PST by curth