You know an idea is making headway when The New York Times finally picks up on it. Two weeks ago the newspaper profiled Alastair Crooke, a former British spy who co-founded Conflicts Forum, a non-governmental organisation that engages in dialogue with Islamists and encourages western governments to do likewise: In this time of “engagement” in the Middle East, dialogue evidently substitutes for policy.
The head of Hamas’s political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, was also afforded space in the paper recently. His interviewers must have been charmed, for they broke a cardinal editorial rule and wrote something amusing, namely that “apart from the time restriction and the refusal to accept Israel’s existence” Mr Meshaal’s terms for peace with Israel “approximate the Arab League peace plan”. The plan’s core is Arab recognition of Israel, so someone missed a beat. Mr Meshaal did not, however, when he said that Hamas would “help” if there was “international and regional will to establish a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders”. Mr Meshaal’s message of accommodation was directed at the Obama administration, and not surprisingly came shortly after Bashar Assad, president of Syria and Mr Meshaal’s host in Damascus, said the US had to talk to Hamas.
Read Full Article »