Hamas and the peace process: Not at the table ISRAELI officials and members of the Palestinian Authority from the West Bank met for the first time in three years in Washington on July 29th in preliminary peace talks choreographed by John Kerry, the American secretary of state. Conspicuously absent from the meeting in an ornate dining room at the State Department were representatives from Hamas, the rival Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip, an enclave on the coast. The Israelis and the Americans both refuse to talk to the Islamists, whom they accuse of being a terrorist organisation. In the past, Hamas has responded with murderous effect by blowing up buses, turning many Israelis against a peace agreement. This time Hamas is unlikely to resort to such vicious tactics. Treasuring its coastal fiefdom, it has much more to lose than it did before. Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, who has been accused of committing political suicide by Hamas, may offer to bring the group into a national-unity government. Before Mr Abbas dismissed him as his prime minister in June 2007, Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader, had endorsed negotiations with Israel. The group said more recently that it would abide by a referendum on a peace deal suggested by Mr Abbas. Could America follow suit and start talking to Hamas? The State Department appears to recognise that times have changed since the momentous 1993 Oslo Accord when secularists were in sole charge on the Palestinian side. It has wisely refrained from presenting the peace process as a battle between moderates and religious extremists. Regional politics may also help. Since Egypt's army overthrew its Islamist president last month, Hamas leaders have been feeling glum. The army is already making life more difficult for them. Soldiers have destroyed many of the tunnels that have kept the besieged enclave fed and fuelled, and provided Hamas with most of its revenues. Prices have soared, shelves are empty, utilities have suspended operations for lack of fuel and travel is restricted once again. Hamas has banned rallies, even those against Israel, for fear that they might stoke Egypt-like protests. Moreover, its leadership appears to have miscalculated when it severed long-standing ties with the Shia regimes in Syria and Iran last year on the assumption that in future it could look to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, who are fellow Sunnis. Suddenly Hamas finds itself without any big foreign backer. Is it time to make new friends?