STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

This is on the front page of the NYTimes and it is utterly shocking and appalling. Everyone knows Hamas are a bunch of homicidal maniacs but they were elected by a clear majority and that is that. This is exactly the kind of bullshit that gives Palestinians a legitimate reason to hate us. Not to mention it's hypocritical to the point of obscenity to even think of doing this, after all Bush's sales pitches about Iraqi democracy.

I'm seriously sickened right now.

U.S. and Israelis Are Said to Talk of Hamas Ouster

JERUSALEM, Feb. 14 — The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.

The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement.

The officials also argue that a close look at the election results shows that Hamas won a smaller mandate than previously understood.

The officials and diplomats, who said this approach was being discussed at the highest levels of the State Department and the Israeli government, spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

Today, Israeli and American officials said there was no "plan" or "plot" to destabilize a Hamas government.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying "there was no such plan," and a State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, told reporters in Washington that "there is no U.S.-Israeli plan, project, plot, conspiracy to destabilize a — or undermine a future Palestinian government." He said that the United States continues to work with Mr. Abbas and the existing caretaker government.

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said "there is no plot, there is no plan."

But in the outline provided earlier by the officials and diplomats who said that the approach was under discussion, Hamas would be given a choice: recognize Israel's right to exist, forswear violence and accept previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements — as called for by the United Nations and the West — or face isolation and collapse.

Opinion polls show that Hamas's promise to better the lives of the Palestinian people was the main reason it won. But the United States and Israel say Palestinian life will only get harder if Hamas does not meet those three demands. They say Hamas plans to build up its militias and increase violence and must be starved out of power.