The incoming Obama administration in the US plans to abandon president George Bush's doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation.
The incoming Obama administration in the US plans to abandon president George Bush's doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, a London daily claimed on Friday.
Quoting sources close to the transition team,
The Guardian newspaper said 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. Ruling out Obama approving any direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas, the report said there might be
low-level or clandestine approaches.
A tested course would be to start contacts through Hamas and the US intelligence
services, similar to the secret process through which the US engaged with the PLO in the 1970s. Israel was not aware of the contacts until much later.
According to the report, Richard Haass, a diplomat under both Bush presidents who was named by a number of news organisations this week as Obama's choice for Middle-East envoy, supports low-level contacts with Hamas provided there is a ceasefire in place and Hamas-Fatah reconciliation emerges.
The UN Security Council today overwhelmingly voted for an "immediate and durable" ceasefire in Gaza calling for a full Israeli withdrawal. Fourteen of the 15 members voted in favour of the British sponsored resolution, while the US abstained despite agreeing with the goals.
More than 750 Palestinians have been killed and over 3,000 wounded since Israel launched its offensive on the Gaza Strip on December 27.
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