Does America make terrorists hate and kill? Is it time for the United States to ‘befriend” Hamas?

Last Thursday, a report emerged from England that President-elect Obama is planning to open up “low level” contact with Hamas, and that such contact will likely be initiated through U.S. intelligence channels. Suzanne Goldenberg, a journalist with the Washington, DC bureau of the UK’s “Guardian” publication, reported that the forthcoming Obama Administration wishes to abandon President Bush’s policy of isolating Hamas, believing that this policy has failed to produce desirable results.

Without getting sidetracked, I must point out that this is the third time in approximately four months where bizarre news about Obama has emerged from England. The fact that our wealth re-distributing President-elect has a brother living in a hut - - and in abject poverty - - in a rural part of Kenya, and the fact that Obama has an Aunt living as an illegal alien in Massachusetts, were both news items that first emerged from British journalists. Apparently, information about Obama’s extended family, and his purported desire to “work with” Hamas, is information that is either un-interesting, or un-knowable, to American journalists covering the soon-to-be American President.

But more importantly, the notion that President Obama needs to abandon the Bush policy on Hamas because of its supposed failure is a notion that invites several questions. And as I talked about this “breaking news” last Thursday on my radio program at Washington, DC’s 630 WMAL, several questions emerged in the discussion.

Why, necessarily, is the American policy of isolation with Hamas a “failure?” Because despite the isolation, Hamas still attacks Israel, and still poses threats elsewhere. And why does Hamas still threaten and attack and kill? Because it is left isolated by the West, and especially by the United States.

This was the rather circular reasoning that emerged from several callers to my radio show. And both lines of reasoning dismiss the Hamas organization from responsibility for its own murderous behavior, and lay blame for that murderous behavior on a “third party” - - in this case, the U.S.A.

Other callers to my show took more of a “can you feel their pain?” approach. “How would you like it” I was asked by one particular caller, “ if you were cut-off from the rest of the world, and barely had enough food to provide your children or had no access to education, or adequate clothing, or healthcare?”

“I would not like it” I told the caller, “but I would still not choose to murder.”

“Actually,” another caller stated to me, “Hamas didn’t need to behave this way until Bush began treating them the way he has..”

“In what sense does Hamas have a need to murder?” I asked. Continued...