No Thanks Hamas

What's worse - negotiating demands for statehood with a rogue group of terrorists, or a rogue negotiator without authority?

Radical Islamic group Hamas said it would accept the establishment of a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, but it was not prepared to recognize the Jewish state. That's great, but...nobody is offering.

"We accept a state on the June 4 line with Jerusalem as capital, real sovereignty and full right of return for refugees but without recognizing Israel," Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said, referring to the borders as they stood before the 1967 war. Give you Jerusalem and have you not acknowledge the country whose land you'll be occupying and neighboring? Oh, that's likely. This comes after two meetings in Damascus over the weekend with former president Jimmy Carter.

Washington, which refuses to deal with Hamas and has not backed Carter's mission at all, said it saw no change in the group's positions. An Israeli government spokesman also said the Jewish state was unimpressed by the Hamas statement. And naturally, since they refuse to a unilateral ceasefire with Israel to end the violence threatening the selfsame peace efforts. Hamas doesn't even want to get cozy with Palestinians. Refugees living in exile returning to any future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as would be viewed as "transitional."

Carter, who helped negotiate a 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, must be living in past glory and under delusion thinking he's going to fix the problem. He claims that excluding Hamas, which the United States, Israel and the European Union brand a terrorist group (read: every important nation in Western civilization), "is just not working."

"The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with these people, who must be involved."

Wrong, Jimmy. There's no place at the table for terrorists without a country to sit and try to carve themselves a piece of land under threat of their own actions. It's the same reason every backwoods militia and militant faction in the mountains doesn't get to make New Freedonia on U.S. soil. And nobody wants to deal with them because they're an extremist faction of terrorists, not a legitimate group. While you're hoping to be relevant before you take a dirt nap, you're way the fuck out of line. Both Israel and the U.S. don't back what you're doing, so figure out why that may be. It's not like being the friend trying to get a couple back together - it's a little more complicated, and meddling won't help nor is it welcome.