Gee, President Obama Has Sure Changed His Tune About Negotiating With Hamas

In July 2008, candidate Barack Obama stood in Sderot, Israel and said, "In terms of negotiations with Hamas, it is very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognize your right to exist, has consistently used terror as a weapon, and is deeply influenced by other countries." (see video below).

Last week, John Kerry negotiated with Hamas (via their financial ally Qatar). He eventually presented a proposal of which liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz said, "It might as well have been penned by Khaled Meshal. It was everything Hamas could have hoped for. "

Here is what Obama said in 2008 to court the Jewish vote, asserting that Hamas should not be negotiated with until they recognized Israel's right to exist:

The first job of any nation state is to protect its citizens. And so I can assure you that if -- I don't even care if I was a politician. If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.

In terms of negotiations with Hamas, it is very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognize your right to exist, has consistently used terror as a weapon, and is deeply influenced by other countries. I think that Hamas leadership will have to make a decision at some point as to whether it is a serious political party seeking to represent the aspirations of the Palestinian people. And, as a consequence, willing to recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce violence as a tool to achieve its aims. Or whether it wants to continue to operate as a terrorist organization. Until that point, it's hard for Israel, I think, to negotiate with a country that -- or with a group that doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist at a country -- OK.