The US and Israel absolutely should engage and negotiate with Hamas, just as the US, UK and Irish engaged with the IRA, which was viewed by them all as a terrorist group. The terror in northern Ireland ended when political talks resolved the conflict. The same is likely to happen with Israel and Palestine. Hamas is a major and legitimate player and was also democratically elected. It cannot be avoided.

Its unsavory behavior, such as suicide bombings, must be addressed in a wider context that comprises two crucial elements: 1) Hamas and the Palestinian people must see that they can achieve their legitimate goals (i.e., the goals that are universally accepted) via diplomacy rather than military resistance and attacks, and, 2) the criminal acts of Hamas must be judged alongside the criminal acts of the state of Israel or Israeli rogue terrorists among the settlers. It is hypocritical to shun Hamas because of its military actions when the US negotiated with the Viet Cong, the IRA and others who were equally violent or killed Americans.

Hamas' offer of a long-term truce seems like a no-brainer for Israelis, who should jump on it and call Hamas' bluff.

The Current Discussion: The U.S. State Dept. says China's no longer one of the world's worst human rights offenders. Are they right?

The particulars of China's human rights record are important for the Chinese people, but more significant globally is the presumptuous manner in which the United States designates itself as the human rights arbiter of the world. In view of the damage the U.S. has done around the world in its direct militarism and support for dictators, this is also deeply hypocritical.

American ideals are impressive, and in practice the United States offers a degree of freedom, equality and opportunity that are the envy of most other societies around the developing world. This is why people from all over the world continue to emigrate to the U.S. Washington's voice on human rights is important, but it is demeaned and devalued by the inconsistent manner in which the U.S. promotes democracy in some places around the world and supports autocracy and occupation in others.

Turkish secularists, and others of similar mind in Europe, have gone way overboard on this issue of the headscarves, using a symbol and instrument of personal piety as a surrogate for threats to their country's national identity and governance system. Women and girls wearing headscarves certainly are a symbol of Islamic identity spreading in society, and they do reflect growing numbers of individuals who manifest their religiosity in their dress and behavior. This should not be a problem, any more than holding national prayer breakfasts in Washington, D.C.

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Iran has every right to have a full nuclear power program for research and peaceful purposes, with the appropriate safeguards and inspections as per relevant international conventions. There seems to be no problem with that in Iran, and I wonder why the international community does not call Iran's bluff and establish intrusive monitoring systems to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Or is that not the real problem?

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We can only assess the Annapolis meeting results on the basis of two elements: the words spoken, and the diplomatic procedures set in motion. On both counts, I find the gathering disappointing, though the real test is yet to come. So we should not be too hasty in pronouncing this process a success or failure. There is a very small chance that both sides will make bold compromises in the negotiations to come. The Arab world may yet actively push its 2002 peace plan with Israel. Europe and Russia might weigh in with equal force; the U.S. might finally act as a fair and decisive mediator; Arab and Israeli civil societies might yet play a dynamic and constructive role in pushing their leaders to make the fair and lasting peace that the majorities of both people clearly want and would support.

But the chances of success remain slim, because Annapolis’s words and procedures were unimpressive. That’s mainly because they expect weak and vulnerable leaders in all three principal countries to move ahead by rehashing what’s already failed.

The words spoken at Annapolis are important because they reflect political positions and actions on the ground. Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas reiterated known, entrenched positions and offered nothing new in their texts; that suggested a minimal will to compromise.

The joint understanding between the parties and President Bush’s speech are more significant. The joint statement is problematic because it does not specifically refer to U.N. resolutions as the starting point to resolve the conflict. It also makes the U.S. the judge of both sides’ compliance with the ‘roadmap’ requirements. But the U.S. has played this role before, and failed – though it remains unclear if its past failure was due to pro-Israeli bias, structural diplomatic incompetence, or weak resolve. The U.S. has not proved itself to be either an impartial or persistent mediator in the Middle East (unlike in Northern Ireland, where it gave a stellar performance). Bush’s letter to Ariel Sharon in 2005 supporting Israel’s views on borders, settlements, and refugees disqualifies America as an impartial arbiter.

This is a dangerous attempt to substitute American will for U.N. resolutions and international law as the basis for a negotiated resolution of the conflict. Bush’s references to Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people also brings the U.S. down on the Israeli side of the dispute about whether Israel is a Jewish nation or the state of all its people, including one-fifth of its citizens who are non-Jewish Christian and Muslim Arabs, and Druze.

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For sports fans like George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, the Annapolis meeting is the diplomatic equivalent of baseball's suicide squeeze bunt play: in the last inning of a nine-inning game, with runners on base and everyone wound up with anticipation, the manager tries a daring move that puts all the runners in motion while the hitter taps a soft bunt that aims to bring in a run and win the game. The suicide squeeze is one of the most exciting plays in baseball, perhaps in any sports. But it usually fails, because it is based on a combination of desperation and offensive deceit that rarely add up to a winning strategy.

The Annapolis meeting is a diplomatic suicide squeeze. It is unlikely to succeed, because the conditions and/or motives of the principal players -- the U.S., Israel and half the Palestinians represented by President Mahmoud Abbas -- are not conducive to the sort of daring moves and substantive compromises that are needed to achieve a full and fair peace. The Americans seem motivated primarily by a desperate need to elicit Arab and Iranian support on Iraq. They are not playing the fair mediator's role, but rather persisting in supporting Israeli positions more often than coming down in the middle of Israeli-Palestinian issues. America’s sudden, urgent exuberance for Arab-Israeli peace-making within a year, after six years of total neglect or blatant pro-Israeli bias, is neither convincing nor sincere. Trying to force through a peace accord on an American presidential timetable is likely to fail, as it did in 2000 when Bill Clinton tried the same thing, albeit with a bit more sincerity.

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Threatening China with a boycott of the Olympics if it does not pressure Myanmar is the epitome of the sort of diplomatic foolhardiness and amateurism that have emanated from the United States, in particular, in recent years. Boycotts and threats are the scoundrel's and the bully's tools in relations among states, and they should only be used when there is a clear global consensus on issues of law and political morality, such as the boycott of the South African Apartheid regime.

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The idea that the White House can lay out a scorecard for progress in Iraq after the death, destruction and regional turmoil it has unleashed with its invasion of that country is politically incredible, intellectually offensive and morally deficient.

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Blair should consider the lessons of his successful peace-making efforts in Northern Ireland and the failures of the Quartet's efforts to date in the Middle East, and re-launch a peace-making effort that includes all the principal parties in the talks.

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It is not politically fair or intellectually honest to make a straightforward comparison between Hamas and Fatah in today's circumstances. Fatah has held power for nearly 40 years in the Palestinian national community, and Hamas has shared power for just over a year under conditions of an international financial and political boycott and an Israeli military and economic siege. We don't know what Hamas can or might do when it can exercise power under normal conditions.

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