ENOUGH WITH THE HISSY FIT:

No way to avoid Hamas now: Excluding the militant group won't secure peace in the Middle East. (Helena Cobban, January 29, 2008, CS Monitor)

Hamas, unlike those newly embraced networks in Iraq, is already an established, broad political movement that has proved its support in national elections. In parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza in 2006, Hamas won 76 of the 132 seats.

The US had supported those elections. But, instead of embracing the newly elected Hamas leaders, Washington and Israel confined their contacts instead to the Fatah movement's Mahmoud Abbas. They have encouraged Mr. Abbas to take steps against Hamas and its supporters. Meanwhile, Israel has imprisoned elected Hamas parliamentarians and hundreds of their supporters. And in the past two years, it has tightened the economic screws on Hamas's main stronghold in Gaza several times.

We democrats ought have more faith in democracy.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 29, 2008 6:17 AM