The American Spectator

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McCain and Hamas

By Philip Klein on 5.16.08 @ 2:42PM

In today's Washington Post, James Rubin writes that Johm McCain is a hypoctite on Hamas, because he said after their election, "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another..." A video of the comments made the rounds on liberal blogs, but it struck me as odd, because everytime I have seen McCain quoted on the subject of Hamas, it has been to say that the U.S. shouldn't talk to them unless they changed their ways. Also, his statement would be inconsistent with his opposition to dealing with Iran and other state sponsors of terrorism. Soon enough, the McCain campaign fired back with a video taken the same day, with McCain in the same garb, only this time making it clear that dealing with Hamas would not be unconditional. He said, "hopefully, that Hamas now that they are going to govern, will be motivated to renounce this commitment to the extinction of the state of Israel. Then we can do business again, we can resume aid, we can resume the peace process. It's very, very important though that they renounce this commitment."

The two clips are below. You can decide for yourself.

topics:
Business, Iran, Israel