UK and Hamas: Political Wing? It's the Bloody Beak!

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Naturally, I was censorious when the UK government said it was going to meet with the political wing of Hizballah. But they've done even worse now with Hamas. All the main contacts with that organization so far are with Khalid Mashal who is:

1. The closest thing the organization--"political" and "military" wings--have to an overall leader. It's like meeting with Usama bin Ladin on the pretext of engaging with the al-Qaida "political wing."

2. He is the most hard-line leader of the group. This is not to say that the others are great moderates but if you are going to pretend to be encouraging the less genocidal (and the difference is minimal) why empower the worst of them?

One more proof that the engagement racket is precisely that.

And what's the effect: to convince Hamas (or Hizballah, or Iran, or Syria, or the Muslim Brotherhood, for that matter) that they can go on doing precisely what they've been doing and receive Western concessions and even surrender.

It is the opposite of a policy that will bring moderation. It's a strategy that will ensure there won't be any.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org