A FORMER high-ranking US official met two senior members of the Palestinian Hamas movement in Geneva last month, according to the Washington Post.
Thomas Pickering, former US undersecretary of state and ambassador to the UN, held discussions with Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas figure in Gaza, and Basim Naim, minister of health in the de facto government in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Mr Naim said he hoped the encounter “will be the beginning of addressing some of the mistakes of the last three years” since Hamas won a majority in parliament in the 2006 election.
“This was a first meeting to investigate the positions in general terms of both parties without any commitment on any side.”
US officials tried to play down the importance of the meeting by observing that Washington still considered Hamas a “terrorist organisation”.
Secretary of state Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that for the US to reconsider its position, “we would expect Hamas to recognise Israel and renounce violence and agree to abide by prior agreements” fashioned by Israel and the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.
Nevertheless, the timing of the Swiss meeting was significant as it occurred between President Barak Obama’s appeal to the Muslim world delivered on June 4th in Cairo and a speech three weeks later by Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in which he said the movement is prepared to engage the international community in the search for peace.
Hamas signed a text issued in the summer of 2006 by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails which bound the movement to the search for a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Since then Mr Meshaal, who is based in Damascus, and the Gaza leadership have said Hamas is prepared to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, thereby indirectly recognising the existence of Israel.
Hamas is ready to agree to a long-term ceasefire, respect existing agreements and accept any peace deal negotiated by the Palestinian leadership if confirmed by a popular referendum.
Analysts see Mr Pickering’s meeting with the Hamas officials as following the route taken by the US after Robert Pelletreau, a former assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, conducted exploratory talks with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1988 before direct contacts were initiated.
The Pelletreau-PLO talks followed the adoption by the Palestinian-parliament-in-exile of the proclamation of a Palestinian state in the territories Israel occupied in 1967. This event launched what became the “two-state solution” which is now the basis of the stalled peace process.
