Hamas Less Sophisticated than Assad First

Bill Clinton spent most of the year 2000 in a frantic attempt to get into the history books for something more admirable than That Woman. Since he'd already spent 7 years doing nothing on the domestic front that was particularly history-book worthy, he put his money on the Mideast, and tried to make peace. His first attempt was to make peace between Syria and Israel, and if memory serves, he had two meetings with Assad. At one of them he tried to put on a brave face, and told the media that Assad was willing to make peace with Israel. Assad was standing about three feet away, and you could have expected him to confirm that yes, what the President of the United States just said in my name is true - but alas, Assad didn't. He merely stood there silently.

Now compare that with Jimmy Carter, who already has a Nobel Prize and probably will be a bit higher than Clinton on the "Remembered by History" charts, though neither of them will be remembered by school children in the 22 century. Carter went to talk to some Hamas leaders, and after doing so

Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that Hamas — the Islamic militant group that has called for the destruction of Israel — is prepared to accept the right of the Jewish state to "live as a neighbor next door in peace."

Now if true, that would be pretty dramatic news. Assad 1 in a mildly similar scenario was clever enough to keep his mouth shut, allowing people to infer that maybe he'd changed his positions. Not so with Hamas, who don't even have the sense to shut up when it would be advisable:

Carter said Hamas promised it wouldn't undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel, as long as the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum. In such a scenario, he said Hamas would not oppose a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri in Gaza said Hamas' readiness to put a peace deal to a referendum "does not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum."