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Source: https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/A-break-from-the-past-for-US-at-the-UN-563580
U.S. Public Diplomacy Blitz Against Hamas Is a Paradigm Shift
(Jerusalem Post) Herb Keinon - Hamas is the principle reason why Palestinians suffer in Gaza and one of the central reasons why there is no movement on the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic track. For most Israelis, that understanding is no great epiphany. Yet when U.S. officials went on a public diplomacy blitz last week stressing that point, it felt a bit different. To hear this so forcefully pronounced by the U.S. administration is a break from the past. In December 2016 in the final days of the Obama administration, then-secretary of state John Kerry gave his summation speech on the state of the Middle East diplomatic process and used the word Hamas only four times. Then he turned to the settlements, which he mentioned 27 times and essentially characterized as the main obstacle to peace. That approach has been squarely rejected by the current administration.