U.S. opens door to Hamas with Egypt mediation

By Sue Pleming - Analysis

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has faced pressure for months to engage Hamas and this week she gave Egypt the nod to negotiate with them to end violence in Gaza.

Analysts see this as a first sign the Bush administration could be tweaking its approach on Hamas, from total isolation to encouraging allies such as Egypt to engage with the Islamist group if it means saving U.S.-sponsored peace talks.

Egypt began talks on Thursday with leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad from the Gaza Strip, part of a U.S.-backed push for a truce between the groups and Israel to stop violence in Hamas-run Gaza that derailed Palestinian statehood talks.

A Palestinian gunman shot dead eight people at a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem on Thursday, exacerbating tensions. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack which was greeted with celebrations in Gaza. Israel said the attack would not derail the peace talks.

During a trip to the West Bank and Gaza this week, Rice was loathe to officially call for a ceasefire or a truce, preferring instead to refer to a need for "calm" so that talks could get back on track.

But on Thursday she made clear Washington supported Egypt's mission to get a truce, an indication that Cairo's role as mediator was acceptable if it could salvage talks launched in Annapolis, Maryland last November.

"I talked with the Egyptians and we fully expect the Egyptians to carry out the efforts that they said they would carry out to try to bring calm to the region, to try to improve the situation in Gaza," Rice said at a news conference in Brussels, where she attended a NATO ministers meeting.

"As you know Egypt is a good ally in the effort to help the Annapolis solution," she added.

Rice declined to provide specifics of the talks, but the green light for Egypt followed strong pressure from European and Arab allies, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for something to be done urgently to stem the violence.

IGNORE AT YOUR PERIL

Middle East analysts say the strategy should not be to make Hamas feel more vulnerable but to bring them into the process.

"In the end, if you send the message that the game is to destroy them, any time there is a prospect of forward movement in the talks they will act (with violence)," said Professor Shibley Telhami, an expert at the University of Maryland.

He said the United States should encourage Arab nations to mediate between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah movement.

Former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy said Rice could not afford to ignore that Hamas could act as a spoiler in talks which the Bush administration hopes will lead to a Palestinian statehood deal by year-end.

"You ignore Gaza and Hamas at your peril," said Levy, now with a Washington thinktank, the New America Foundation.