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Ignoring a major player.....at a cost!

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

He is a well-regarded commentator on Middle Eastern affairs.

In his latest piece "George Mitchell and Hamas" on agence global he writes:

"Hamas cannot be avoided any more than the United States could avoid the Viet Cong or the British could avoid the IRA. Hamas is legitimate because of its actions, but mostly because it raises the issues that concern all Palestinians: in the short run, insisting on living in peace, normalcy and dignity rather than in an Israeli-made prison; in the longer run, resolving the conflict with Israel by addressing its root cause in Arab eyes, the status and rights of the Palestinian refugees who were exiled by the 1948 war. This is where peace will be made -- not in the diversionary world of tunnels that Israel wants us to enter and get lost in."

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