Is US Now Talking to Hamas?

Update (9 p.m.): Hamas has written a letter to President Obama and attempted to send it to Washington via Senator John Kerry, one of three US Congressmen visiting Gaza.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency confirmed that it had received the letter from Hamas but did not say whether Mr Kerry had then accepted it.

Anne Penketh of The Independent of London offers a huge disclosure:

In the first meeting of its kind, two French senators travelled to Damascus two weeks ago to meet the leader of the Palestinian Islamist faction, Khaled Meshal (pictured)....Two British MPs met three weeks ago in Beirut with the Hamas representative in Lebanon, Usamah Hamdan.

The diplomatic line is that "the lawmakers’ contacts with Hamas were at their own initiative". The British Foreign Office says that members of Parliament “were not engaged in back channel or officially sanctioned talks".

Fair enough, but Penketh fails to connect dots that would make the story even more significant. On his way back from the his first Middle East tour, US envoy George Mitchell stopped in Paris for talks with the French leadership and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. We noted at the time, "There is the possibility that France, Qatar, and George Mitchell have agreed, either in consultation with Mahmoud Abbas or overriding his objections, to set up an interlocutor with Hamas."

Of course, we may be making connections that aren't there and, even if the US is considering third parties to establish a link with Hamas, there are immediate challenges. "Experts" opposed to any engagement will be throwing cold water on the idea. Martin Indyk, Bill Clinton's former point man on Israel and Palestine, wags his finger: it would be "a huge mistake” to talk with Hamas, as it would “undermine the Palestinian leadership that wants to make peace with Israel”.

And Hamas will not be making concessions, at least in public. Khaled Meshaal told his French visitors that "Palestinian unity" was the key issue, by which he meant recognising Hamas' ascendancy: " The Palestinian Authority no longer represents anything."

Despite all of this, there has no denunciation of the visits by the French and British delegations, either from their home governments or from Washington. So there is still a glimmer, and maybe more, of a long-awaited US approach to Israel and Palestine which includes all key parties.