Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday the U.S. position on Hamas as a ‘terrorist’ organization has not changed, despite the militant group's stunning victory in Palestinian elections.
‘You cannot have one foot in politics and another in ‘terror’,’ Rice told the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland via a telephone hookup to the State Department. ‘Our position on Hamas has therefore not changed.’
Rice spoke shortly after Palestinian voters rejected the longtime rule of the Fatah Party, throwing the future of Mideast peacemaking into question.
‘Palestinian people have apparently voted for change, but we believe their aspirations for peace and a peaceful life remain unchanged,’ she said. Rice said those goals will require renunciation of violence and ‘terrorism’ and acceptance of Israel's right to exist side-by-side with a Palestinian state.
‘You can't have a peace process if you're not committed to the right of your partner to exist,’ she said.
She urged the international community to ‘speak clearly and truly to its principles’ and urge Palestinians to renounce violence. Rice is due to meet in London on Monday with U.N., Russian and European leaders as the so-called ‘Quartet’ of nations evaluates the results and tries to decide how to proceed with peacemaking efforts.
On Wednesday, the administration had said in advance of the balloting that it would not deal with Hamas.
The initial speculation Wednesday — as Hamas ran neck-and-neck with Abbas' Fatah Party — was that Hamas would steer clear of a post involving peacemaking efforts and would be consigned to domestic ministries such as education.
But Hamas' defeat of Fatah could change that calculation in a way that might put pressure on Washington to find a way to both uphold aversion to the militant group and also promote peacemaking.