Obama and Israel/Palestine: The Significant One-Liner

It is only one sentence, tucked away at the bottom of a story in the Washington Post on a completely different topic, a phone call from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Barack Obama. It is only one sentence, but it is far more important than any controversy over the selection of Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.

The story notes that the statement of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal that he is ready to talk to Obama with "an open mind" and that the election of an African-American President is a "big change". It then gives the response from Obama foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough:

"President-elect Obama said throughout the campaign that he will only talk with Hamas if it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel's right to exist and agrees to abide by past agreements."

That position is no different from the one taken by the Bush Administration. Indeed, it is no different from the American position from 2006 when Hamas rose to power in the Gaza Strip.

In May of this year, I listened to another Democratic foreign policy specialist predict that a President Obama, soon after he entered office, would shift American policy and recognise Hamas as a legitimate actor in the Middle East peace process.

That exchange is now a distant --- possibly obsolete --- memory.