So sure, deal with these people. They’ll moderate their stance. Sure. The Telegraph interviewed Mahmoud Zahar, the leader of Hamas who was not assassinated after Yassin and Rantisi.

“We are not going to recognise Israel,” he said, putting paid to suggestions that Hamas may alter its 1988 charter calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. But he added: “We can reach out to them with a long-term hudna (truce).”

He then called on the world to recognise Hamas.

“The outside world must not fear us,” he said, adding that while Hamas did not yet have official contact with the west, “we have channels of communication”. He paused, then added: “We meet all the time.”

Mr Zahar first rose to power in Hamas in 1989, a year after Ahmed Yassin was jailed by Israel for ordering the execution of alleged collaborators with the Jewish state. Almost two decades on, spies remain a constant concern.

“Spies and thieves must fear us,” he said, in his pastel-coloured reception room, where he was holding court as the new most powerful man in town. The “thieves”, he added, in a reference to Israel, “are those who steal our land”.

You want to find for me the hopeful world bit that expects Hamas to moderate its stance? Because I’m just not seeing it.

Reader Hugh S. sent me to this Spielberg interview with Der Spiegel about the film, Munich. The interview is pretty much what has already been said, with Spielberg insisting that he’s being misinterpreted, bullied, misunderstood, and attacked by — wait for it — “right-wingers.” Yeah, okay.

But that isn’t what I found interesting. Der Spiegel also decided to bring back the editorial they wrote after the Munich Massacre occurred. And I read this paragraph, written before the bodies had cooled:

The conflagration in the Middle East, prematurely thought to have been extinguished, was raging once again. Israeli bombers penetrated more deeply than ever into Syria, almost reaching the Turkish border. The extreme “Jewish Defence League” called for the murder of Arab diplomats. The Jewish state found itself once again fixated on the revenge that its political survival, but not its moral integrity, demands.

The Arab governments, halfway willing to compromise, again felt forced into at least a verbal solidarity — against the Jews and the Germans — with the Palestinians, whom they had already abandoned before.

What is missing from these statements is any Arab responsibility for the situation in the Middle East. Five years after the Six-Day War — five years after the infamous three no’s from the Arabs (No recognition of Israel. No negotiations with Israel. No peace with Israel.) — the damage had already been done. It wasn’t the terrorists’ fault. They were driven to it by Israeli actions. I’m sorry, Israeli “revenge,” because as everyone knows, retaliation is for everyone except the Jews.

Interesting reading, no? The more things change….

Oh, please don’t tease me like this:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - The leader of Hamas suggested Saturday that the Islamic group could create a Palestinian army that would include its militant wing - responsible for scores of deadly attacks on Israelis - in the aftermath of its crushing victory in parliamentary elections.

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