Opinion

A perfidious pact

It took years, but the Palestinians finally struck a peace deal this week.

Only problem is, it’s not with the Israelis — it’s with themselves.

On Wednesday, the West Bank power Fatah signed a unity pact with Hamas terrorists to try to craft a government, and then to hold elections next year.

Which pretty much means Mideast peace plans are a lot like Osama bin Laden these days: dead in the water.

Not that the Obama administration cares.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won’t rule out dealing with a Hamas-heavy Palestinian Authority.

“We are going to be carefully assessing what this actually means, because there are a number of different potential meanings to it,” she said.

Wrong.

There’s just one meaning here, what an old saw referred to as the marriage of the butchers in kaffiyehs (Hamas) to the bandits in suits (Fatah).

Hamas is a client and cat’s-paw of Iran; its charter calls for the eradication of the Jewish state, which it has hungrily set at for the past two decades.

So what on earth makes the White House think the organization is even remotely a partner for peace?

Perhaps Clinton missed Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal’s public mourning for bin Laden, whom he called an “Arab holy warrior.” Or maybe she missed Meshaal’s declaration Wednesday that “our only fight is with Israel.”

Sure, the PA can heave a sigh of relief.

But Israel can’t.

Last week, Hamas was a terrorist organization. This week, they’re terrorists with friends in high places.

Does Clinton want to be their friend, too?

The Hamas-Fatah union may be short-lived: A similar deal quickly dissolved and turned bloody in 2007.

And members of Congress have rightly called for an end to US funding for the PA.

But President Obama has an obligation here: He must not endorse a Palestinian terror state, and he must not force Israel to negotiate its own demise.