As I posted prior to President Carter's meeting, I expected no breakthroughs of any kind from the terrorist organization. Instead, I believed that the meeting would grant the terrorist organization perceived legitimacy that it does not merit and embolden the terrorist organization to continue its rejectionist path of violence. In the wake of the meetings, one witnessed both a fairly significant Hamas terrorist attack along with Hamas' claiming that the meeting demonstrated that the organization was not a terrorist entity.

Carter went into the meetings seemingly under the assumption that Hamas was a pragmatic entity along the lines of what he encountered during his mediation role between Egypt and Israel in 1978 and 1979. He went to the Middle East believing that his meeting would demonstrate that Hamas could be receptive to peace.

He came away empty-handed. Hamas merely reiterated its offer of a long-term/10-year hudna (temporary truce and not full peace) only after Israel made substantial concrete concessions e.g., withdrawing to pre-1967 war boundaries. Hamas also made clear that such an arrangement would be "transitional." It ruled out both present and future recognition of Israel even as mutual recognition is a starting point in any diplomatic process from which the parties then work out arrangements that would define their mutual accommodation.