HAMAS IS IN THE DETAILS. While Olmert and Abbas trudge on with the most general discussions, everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train named Hamas. Here is a summary from an article in the Jerusalem Post from today's Daily Alert:

Full Gas in Neutral? - Herb Keinon (Jerusalem Post)

• As swell as it might be that Olmert and Abbas are holding these talks, all the optimism and good cheer and willingness to revisit what are essentially the Clinton parameters of 2001 cannot paper over the fact that Abbas can't implement any agreement on Jerusalem, borders, or refugees. Abbas does not rule Gaza, and his grip on the West Bank is not all that tight.
  
  
• The Israeli public, following seven years of unrelenting terror, is - according to all opinion polls - not in the same giving mood that it was before the onslaught of Palestinian violence that began in September 2000.
  
  
• The major challenge facing both Olmert and Abbas is not producing a paper that will please Secretary of State Rice, but rather what to do with Hamas - Iran's new local proxy. Any agreement that Olmert and Abbas might work out will be meaningless if Hamas retains its current strength in Gaza. Unless Hamas is defanged, it will retain its ability to scuttle any agreement through terrorist actions.
  
  
• The idea that if you just show the Palestinians a skeleton of a potential agreement, then they will eject Hamas and hop on board the peace train seems somewhat simplistic. What if they don't (as they didn't in the past when this same political horizon was offered by Clinton and Barak), or what if Hamas simply doesn't let them?

Of all the details that Olmert and Abbas are ignoring, Hamas is the one that is most likely not to go away.

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