As U.S. lawmakers visit, Mideast ponders what comes next

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As U.S. lawmakers visit, Mideast ponders what comes next

By Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers


JERUSALEM — For the first time in nearly a decade, U.S. lawmakers toured the isolated, battle-scarred Gaza Strip Thursday in a high-profile visit that came as the new Obama administration in Washington is developing its diplomatic priorities for the Middle East.

The short, separate tours by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and two other Democratic lawmakers marked the first time that high-level American officials have entered Gaza since the hard-line Islamist movement Hamas seized control of the Mediterranean coastal strip in 2007.

It also was the first time that U.S. lawmakers had gone to Gaza since the second Palestinian uprising broke out in 2000.

Before entering Gaza, Kerry made it clear that his visit didn't mean that the new American administration was preparing to reverse course and talk to Hamas leaders, who refuse to renounce their long-standing pledge to destroy Israel. None of the lawmakers met with Hamas leaders during the tours of Gaza.

However, Kerry's tour, which will take him to Syria this weekend, is being watched closely by Middle East policymakers and Washington analysts, who are waiting to see whether President Barack Obama follows through on his pledge to make Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking a top priority in his first months in the White House.

"It is a clear signal that the American administration is exploring new ideas, because it is hard to believe that this visit would have happened without at least the tacit endorsement of the White House," said Gidi Grinstein, a former negotiator for then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the founder of the independent Reut Institute research center in Israel.

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