By Dylan Matthews
I guess I'm supposed to be outraged that George Galloway met with Hamas leader and former Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh, but I'm having a hard time mustering it. For one thing, it's George bloody Galloway. He'd have a two-hour sit-down with a cactus if it pissed off Gordon Brown or the State Department. That he would reach out to Hamas is thoroughly predictable.
But what bothers me is that even Galloway meeting with Haniyeh is considered objectionable. This is an utterly inconsequential backbencher, someone with zero or negative influence in the House of Commons, and meeting with Haniyeh gets his picture on the homepage of the Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz. And meeting with the leader of the most popular party in Palestine isn't - or shouldn't be - beyond the pale. It's a necessary step in the peace process, and I sure hope George Mitchell, Hillary Clinton, and the incoming Israeli foreign minister sit down with Haniyeh soon.
If the reaction to Galloway is any indication, however, Israeli public opinion would respond quickly and angrily to any of those three possible meetings. It's beyond cliché to conclude that domestic politics preclude a serious peace process, but this is one tangible indication of the problem.
