MR, Sept. 8, 2006:

In pathetically trying to justify why the EU is not a terrorist-appeasing hotbed of moral sanctimony... Ambassador De Bernardin talked up the hardline stance that the EU has taken toward Hamas: "He boasted that it was in 2003, when Italy held the rotating EU presidency, that Hamas was listed as a terror organization by the block. "As you know when it comes to Hamas, Italy and the European countries are very firm in maintaining that Hamas need to accept Israel before accepting them as a political interlocutor," he said.... he went on the record saying that the EU will not accept the Hamas government until Hamas accepts Israel. We suggest to you that, within a couple of months, this will turn out to be a demonstrable lie.

France Jan. 20, 2008:

Paris will talk to the Islamist Hamas movement when it shows it is ready to seek peace with Israel, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Tuesday. "It is our opinion -- and we realised this long ago -- that Hamas was one of the interlocutors" in the Middle East peace process, he told French lawmakers. "We believe we will have to talk to them when they accept the peace process, when they agree to start negotiations," Kouchner said. Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas called Monday for the formation of a national unity government between his Fatah movement and its Hamas rivals, who have ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007.

An elegant example of anti-Israel goalpost moving. In 2006 it was "Hamas has to accept past agreements." Now it's "Hamas has to be willing to negotiate over what past agreements they will accept." So after a decade and a half of making irreversible territorial concessions to Palestinian governments, Israel is now expected to start negotiations from scratch. Weird how that would be the result of the assymetric tangibles-for-intangibles land-for-peace formula.

For the record: while it's true that my EU backsliding prediction was off by a couple years, I really couldn't have expected Hamas to so vigorously suffocate all of the nudge-wink excuses that anti-Israel partisans kept offering up. Although it's not like Hamas didn't know what they were doing: they correctly gambled that Europe would eventually start talking concessions even while Hamas showed zero willingness to reduce their genocidal intransigence.

References:
* Italian Ambassador Comments III: This Is Where He Probably Fibs [MR]
* France ready to talk to Hamas 'when they accept peace process' [France 24]
* Hamas Decides to Be Helpful, Illustrates Many Ways International Law is Structured Against Israel [MR]

Previously:
* French Disarmament Efforts Train Sights On Israel's Deterrent
* France 2 Indulges In Some Fauxtography, Says "Dozens Of Dead Bodies" From 2005 Hamas Explosion Are Cast Lead Victims
* European Muslims Doing Their Best To Cleanse France Of Jews