Speculation over Israel-Hamas talks

Occupied Jerusalem: War ends in the Gaza Strip, a new US president is sworn in, and suddenly this week there is new talk about talks between sworn enemies Israel and Hamas.

Already, Egypt hosted Israeli negotiator Amos Gilad yesterday and a delegation from Hamas soon after for talks aimed at turning both sides' unilateral ceasefire declarations into a single, lasting truce agreement.

A member of Hamas' negotiating team said yesterday that a date had not yet been set for further talks between Hamas and Egyptian officials, but that he expected they would take place within the next few days.

Isolated incidents aside, relative calm has returned to Gaza since Hamas and Israel agreed to stop shooting. But Hamas agreed only to a one-week pause in fighting, and demanded the withdrawal of Israeli troops and an end to the blockade of Gaza.

The talks in Cairo over the next few days will likely focus on means of opening the the border posts to humanitarian aid and trade, a key Hamas and Arab demand, while securing the Egyptian-Gazan border against weapons smuggling, a key Israeli demand.

But talk may be as far as it goes. Neither the contenders in Israel's election nor Barack Obama seem to share a view that, with the Islamists blooded but unbowed in Gaza where people now require massive aid, Israel and its allies should end a boycott of Hamas in both Palestinians' interests and their own.

Seizing on signs that Europe, disturbed by killing and poverty in Gaza and emboldened by change in Washington, might reconsider its ban on contact with the Palestinian Islamists, Hamas leader Khalid Mesha'al claimed "victory" and said on Wednesday: "I tell European nations ... it is time for you to deal with Hamas."

It is a sentiment that is finding some echo elsewhere, even if a dramatic front-page appeal by leading Israeli writer David Grossman in Haaretz newspaper remains a marginal view in Israel:

"Instead of ignoring Hamas ... we would do better to take advantage of the new reality that has been created by beginning a dialogue with them immediately," he wrote in Tuesday's piece.

Only dialogue could avert mutual destruction, Grossman said.

"The option of negotiating with Hamas has never been really taken into consideration," French expert Olivier Roy wrote in an opinion piece in Wednesday's Saudi Gazette, looking at Obama's options in the region.

"It is time to consider that option."

Hamas won a parliamentary election in 2006 but was shunned for espousing ambitions to destroy Israel.

Its seizure of Gaza from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007 reinforced its pariah status, paralysed his peacemaking with Israel and locked 1.5 million Gazans behind a blockade. Roy contested views of Hamas as an implacable enemy bent on an Islamist takeover of the Jewish state. Unlike, say, Al Qaida, Roy said, Hamas's aims were primarily national, and negotiable.

Obama, who offered "a new way forward" with the Muslim world at his inauguration, has prompted speculation he may be readier than his predecessor to talk to enemies. But he has given little indication of change in the policy toward the Palestinians.