Outraged by Israel’s devastating three-week assault on Gaza, much of the world has given an enthusiastic welcome to President Barack Obama’s pledge to seek — ‘actively and aggressively’ — a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. His appointment of former Senator George Mitchell, an Arab-American, as his Middle East envoy, is a clear sign that he means business.
Obama’s refusal, however, to engage with Hamas until it recognizes Israel and renounces violence may turn out to be his first mistake. These conditions, imposed by the U.S. and Israel when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections of January 2006, need to be set aside. They are an obstacle to a settlement.
Mutual recognition between enemies occurs after a peace settlement is reached, not before. In any event, most Arab countries do not recognize Israel, and will not do so until there is peace. As for renouncing violence, Israel is by far the greater offender. Quite apart from its cruel siege of Gaza, it has killed over 2,000 Palestinians since it withdrew from the Strip in 2005, whereas Hamas in the same period killed fewer than 20 Israelis. If terrorism is killing civilians for political ends, there is no doubt that Israel is the greater culprit.
Hamas is deeply rooted in Palestinian society.

It has survived Israel’s attempt to annihilate it and continues to govern Gaza. It has considerable support on the West Bank. It is a central element of the Palestinian-Israeli equation and cannot be ignored. To refuse to engage with Hamas is to rule out the possibility of a settlement.
Three basic facts about Hamas are relevant. First, it believes that Israel’s occupation needs to be challenged by armed resistance. Resistance, it claims, is legitimate so long as occupation continues. In this, Hamas differs starkly from the position of Mahmud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority since January 2005. Abbas is a founder of Fatah, Hamas’s bitter rival. He chose to abandon resistance in favour of negotiations with Israel, but, unfortunately for him, Israel made him no concessions. It continued to expand its West Bank settlements and to tighten its grip on Arab East Jerusalem. It stifled Palestinian life on the West Bank with over 600 checkpoints, with a security wall built deep into Palestinian territory, a special network of settlers-only roads, and repeated raids and arrests. Because many Palestinians see Abbas as a quisling, it is hard to see how he can play the lead role in an Obama-sponsored peace process.
Secondly, even if Islamic in tone, Hamas is essentially a nationalist movement. Israel has sought to demonize it as a ‘terror organisation’ indistinguishable from Al-Qaida and, after 9/11, portrayed its fight against Hamas as part of George W Bush’s ‘Global War on Terror.’ In fact, Hamas’s national aims have nothing to do with Al-Qaida’s global jihad.
Thirdly, Israel regularly claims that Hamas is dedicated to destroying the Jewish state. It claims as its evidence Hamas’s 1987 charter, which contains anti-Semitic references to a global Jewish conspiracy. In fact, ever since it won the 2006 elections, Hamas has distanced itself from its charter, and now says that its sole ideological reference point is the political platform on which it fought the elections. Far from calling for Israel’s destruction, Hamas’s top leader Khaled Mishaal told former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in April 2008 that Hamas would accept ‘any peace agreement that might be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas, provided it was approved by a majority vote of Palestinians in a referendum or by an elected unity government.’ The quotation is from Jimmy Carter’s article, ‘An Unnecessary War’, The Washington Post, January 8, 2009.
Palestinian legislative and presidential elections are an essential pre-condition for peace negotiations. These elections should be held as soon as possible, preferably this spring. They need to be monitored by international observers, perhaps from the EU and the Carter Center, Their aim will be to produce a new Palestinian leadership leading to the formation of a unity government, empowered to negotiate peace.
In resolving this long-running conflict, the main problem lies in Israel, rather than with the Palestinians. Israel’s ultra-nationalists, land-hungry settlers and religious fanatics do not want peace, but more land.  Moreover, Israel’s political system, based on proportional representation, allows small extremist parties to hold the country hostage. Israel’s elections on 10 February are most unlikely to produce a ‘peace coalition.’
That is why American muscle will be required to persuade Israelis that, six decades after the creation of their state, the time has at last come to define their frontiers and make peace with their neighbours. This is the difficult task Obama has set himself.