Close encounters of the fourth kind

These are, probably, encounters that nobody, aside of the initiating party, wants or needs and help no one but the initiating party. Here is one:

Carter told an audience at the American University in Cairo that the meeting lasted about three hours. Senior Hamas officials Mahmoud al-Zahar and Saeed Seyam traveled from Gaza to Cairo on Wednesday for the meeting. Carter said the two Hamas officials indicated that they would accept a peace agreement with Israel if the plan were approved through "a referendum of the Palestinian community."

Missing from the description above is the manner that these officials used to "indicate" their readiness for peace. Probably it was in some secret fraternity jests, because otherwise these two are known for their public utterances that don't have anything to do with peace. Here's Mr Seyam:

As well as vowing not to arrest militants for carrying out attacks against Israel, Seyam said Hamas would try to coordinate militants' operations. "Talks with the factions in the future will focus on the mechanisms, the shape and the timing (of any attacks)," he said. "But the right to defend our people and to confront the aggression is granted and is legitimate."

And here is his senior colleague, Mr al-Zahar:

Speaking to the Corriere Della Sera newspaper, al-Zahar said Hamas would "definitely not" be prepared for coexistence with Israel should the IDF retreat to its 1967 borders."It can be a temporary solution, for a maximum of 5 to 10 years. But in the end Palestine must return to become Muslim, and in the long term Israel will disappear from the face of the earth."

Oh, and speaking about Mr al-Zahar, let's not forget this:



But we better be quiet: the mega-brain of the Nobel Prize winner is churning out more ideas...

Cross-posted on Yourish.com.

Update: a great (made up, to make sure you don't call CNN) quote by Peter Risdon here.

PIJ Secretary-General Dr. Ramadan Shallah said "We may be a bunch of psychopathic Islamist terrorists, but meeting Carter would be a step too far. The man has no shame. He seems willing to meet every mass murderer on the planet."

And least the Jihadis seem to have a bit of taste.