Vladimir Putin has invited Hamas leaders to Moscow, and the world press has dutifully reported the yowling from certain quarters of Israel and from their amen corner abroad (most particularly, in the US government and mainstream American media). As usual, there are voices in Israel that undermine the party line, but one rarely hears them. At the end of an Agence France-Presse report the reader finally stumbles upon this:
“Even if Israel is officially against it, it is not so catastrophic,” Amnon Sella, a professor of international relations at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told AFP. “It could provide certain benefits for Israel.”
Yossi Beilin, the chairman and veteran dove of the left-wing party Meretz, said there should be no obstacle to talking with Hamas, whether or not it had renounced violence.
“We have no terms for dialogue, but we do have terms for negotiations,” said Beilin, one of the chief architects of the now largely defunct 1993 Oslo autonomy accords.
Justin Raimondo notes the irony in Putin’s Middle East pragmatism:
Putin’s challenge to the U.S. in the Middle East is given strength and credibility by his latest intervention. As the Russians mediate between the Iranians and the West and sell arms to Syria, Putin is emerging as the principal counterweight to American supremacism in the international arena — an ironic and historic reversal of roles. Whereas once it was the Russians who spouted ideological bromides and exported their “revolution” and the West united in resistance, today it is the Russians who are the center of opposition to a self-avowedly “revolutionary” nation with global aspirations.
