A number of active and retired politicians who style themselves as “former peace negotiators” have signed a letter to The Times calling for negotiations with Hamas.

The Great, the Good and Gerry Kelly,

… believe it is of vital importance to abandon the failed policy of isolation and to involve Hamas in the political process.

However, they don’t say how or in what sense they believe the policy of isolating Hamas has failed. Sure, there’s still no Palestinian state but the letter offers no evidence in support of the idea that cold-shouldering Hamas has been the only or main reason for this being the case. It simply affirms the wisdom of international dinner party chatter and gives no consideration to the possibility that Hamas itself might have some responsibility for the present situation of the Palestinian people.

The peace negotiators go on to say that,

An Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement without Hamas will not be possible.

I don’t see how the support of a particular party, on either side of the conflict, can be held to be a sine qua non for a settlement, especially when the party in question is explicitly dedicated to the destruction of its enemy - not just the obtaining of a particular concession from it - and has repeatedly rejected any sort of permanent compromise. Of course Hamas currently enjoys a wide degree of support among Palestinians but nothing is forever in politics and there’s no reason to think that its participation in negotiations is any more essential than that of, say, Yisrael Beiteinu on the other side of the conflict.

The platoon of well-intentioned grandees and superannuated terrorists maunders on,

As the Israeli general and statesman Moshe Dayan said: “If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.” There can be no meaningful peace process that involves negotiating with the representative of one part of the Palestinians while simultaneously trying to destroy the other.

It’s always good to get in a quote from a Jew - and better still an Israeli general no longer in a position to provide us with his analysis of the current situation - when you want to criticize Israel. So, the signatories haven’t missed a classic rhetorical move in discussions of this kind. Well done, chaps!

In the sentence that follows the quote from Dayan they inadvertently put their fingers on a key aspect of current difficulties. Israel hasn’t taken negotiations with the PA anywhere near seriously enough and has failed to offer sufficient concessions to those Palestinians who recognize it. It has also displayed far too much toleration for the pretensions of Hamas, a failing that the recent Gaza Campaign has only partially put right.

The apostles of peace continue,

Yes, Hamas must recognise Israel as part of a permanent solution, but it is a diplomatic process and not ostracisation that will lead them there.

How can the signatories of the letter be so confident about this? They don’t say that a diplomatic process “has the best chance” of leading Hamas to recognize Israel, or “must be given a chance”, or some other such formulation. They say that it will do so.

The letter goes on,

The Quartet conditions imposed on Hamas set an unworkable threshold from which to commence negotiations. The most important first step is for Hamas to halt all violence as a precondition for their inclusion in the process. Ending their isolation will in turn help in reconciling the Palestinian national movement, a vital condition for meaningful negotiations with Israel.

It’s good that the signatories call on Hamas to renounce violence. That’s one of the Quartet’s conditions for ending the isolation of Hamas and seeing that signatories of the letter find themselves able to accept one of them, it’s hard to see why they reject the other two; that Hamas recognize Israel and ratify previous agreements and commitments made by the Palestinian side.

Note the words “recognize Israel”. Not embrace, like or adore Israel or approve the settlements in the West Bank, or endorse every jot and tittle of Israeli policy; just recognize that Israel exists as a state in the world like any other, with all the rights and duties that go with that condition. The peace negotiators regard that as an “unworkable threshold from which to commence negotiations.”

A final word about Gerry Kelly being one of the letter’s signatories. This is a man who dedicated decades of his life to an armed campaign the aim of which was the expulsion of the British state from Northern Ireland and the forcing the Protestant community of that region into a united Ireland against its will. That campaign was defeated and now Kelly devotes himself to the better administration of British rule in Northern Ireland.

If the day ever comes when Hamas is willing to perform the kind of ideological volte face performed by Kelly and his comrades in recent years, then the moment will indeed have come to negotiate a settlement with them.