Opinion: Talk to Hamas Now or Fight New Radicals Indefinitely

by Nathan Stock

Oct. 9, 2009

This op-ed by Nathan Stock, assistant director of the Conflict Resolution Program, was published in the Oct. 9, 2009 edition of The Christian Science Monitor.

Obama can't afford to let history repeat itself in the Middle East.

Atlanta - History is repeating itself in the Palestinian territories. Washington refuses to engage a right-wing Palestinian group – and so spawns organizations that are even more extreme.

It happened in the 1980s, when the US balked at recognizing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and hesitated to seek a resolution to the Middle East conflict through the creation of a Palestinian state. Those long delays helped propel the rise of the hard-line Islamist party Hamas. Click here to read the commentary in its entirety >>