Hamas Claims U.S., E.U. Are Reaching Out

The idea that there can be no Israeli-Palestinian peace that bypasses Hamas has lately emerged as conventional wisdom among a broad range of Washington foreign policy experts — and it appears that the U.S. and some of its key European allies may be quietly in agreement. A senior Hamas official has told TIME that Western powers publicly committed to boycotting Hamas, which is officially designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union, have nonetheless initiated discreet contacts with his organization. Osama Hamdan, the organization's top leader in Lebanon, said in an interview in Beirut that Hamas had in recent weeks established "solid, direct contacts" with four European Union countries, and that there had been unofficial talks between Hamas and the team of President Barack Obama's Middle East special envoy, George Mitchell. Hamdan refused to elaborate.