Originally Posted by Joby This is what Israel is scared of.

Originally Posted by Joby This is what Israel is scared of.

As an interesting exercise to see how President Carter's rosy description of the outcome of his meeting with senior Hamas officials played to a wider audience, I took a look at the online prediction market as no opinion polls had been published on the matter.

Just as many here correctly noted that Hamas' rejection of Israel remained fundamentally unchanged despite President Carter's assessment, the online prediction market never brought its expected odds of Hamas' recognizing Israel on or before September 30, 2008 to 5%. Currently, the expected odds of such a development are 2.8%.

Originally Posted by Vader Israel is afraid of Hamas terrorist attacks. Nothing more.

Originally Posted by donsutherland1 As an interesting exercise to see how President Carter's rosy description of the outcome of his meeting with senior Hamas officials played to a wider audience, I took a look at the online prediction market as no opinion polls had been published on the matter. Just as many here correctly noted that Hamas' rejection of Israel remained fundamentally unchanged despite President Carter's assessment, the online prediction market never brought its expected odds of Hamas' recognizing Israel on or before September 30, 2008 to 5%. Currently, the expected odds of such a development are 2.8%.

Originally Posted by obvious Child More like annoyed. The only thing Israel is truly afraid of, aside from US cutting off the welfare line, is of nuclear weapons.

By refusing to recognize Israel, Hamas does not accept Israel's existence and it does not indicate a willingness to embrace a two-state solution. Indeed, after President Carter's remarks, Hamas senior officials made that quite clear that they were not offering permanent peace to Israel in offering a 10-year hudna (truce, not peace) and citing the "transitional" nature of the arrangement in which Israel would be confined to pre-1967 war boundaries. Carter achieved no breakthroughs and no meaningful softening of Hamas' position.

Not surprisingly, public sentiment (at least as measured by Intrade.com's predictions market) with respect to Hamas' position vis-a-vis recognition of Israel shows that the public continues to view such an outcome as remote.

Originally Posted by donsutherland1 By refusing to recognize Israel, Hamas does not accept Israel's existence and it does not indicate a willingness to embrace a two-state solution. Indeed, after President Carter's remarks, Hamas senior officials made that quite clear that they were not offering permanent peace to Israel in offering a 10-year hudna (truce, not peace) and citing the "transitional" nature of the arrangement in which Israel would be confined to pre-1967 war boundaries. Carter achieved no breakthroughs and no meaningful softening of Hamas' position. Not surprisingly, public sentiment (at least as measured by Intrade.com's predictions market) with respect to Hamas' position vis-a-vis recognition of Israel shows that the public continues to view such an outcome as remote.

Originally Posted by Bad Biscuit Carter proved it is quite possible to meet Hamas and come out unscathed. To expect Hamas to change its positions on the basis of one humanitarian ex-president chatting to them about peace over a nice cup of tea is ludicrous (despite tea's obvious benefits), and so is blaming him for going and Hamas for not changing anything. Why? Because he has no power and they have no reason. Thats why the public views the possibility of any such outcome as remote.

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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.