Your editorial on “Hamas-Fatah Reconciliation” (April 1) asks some of the right questions. Some years back, I recall the then-leader of Meretz, Yossi Beilin, pointing out that the Bush administration had blown it at the time because without endorsing the principle of peace with Israel, Hamas had not qualified under the Oslo Accords to run in the elections of 2006. The requirements of Oslo could have been used as leverage to try to moderate Hamas.
Yet this editorial does not point out that the PLO’s endorsement of a two-state solution with Israel, and the on-again, off-again years of negotiations (including the near-agreement documented recently in The New York Times Magazine by Bernard Avishai) have not yet rewarded the Fatah party with a peace agreement that would have been a powerful blow against Hamas if it held out for continued conflict.
Ralph Seliger
Manhattan
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