RICE AGAIN CALLS HAMAS "RESISTANCE" MOVEMENT

Rice again calls Hamas 'resistance' movement (WND)
4th time in recent months Condi avoids terrorist label in unscripted remarks

JERUSALEM – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has again referred to Hamas as a "resistance" movement during a meeting with reporters from the Dallas Morning News, WND has learned.

Rice's remarks, transcribed in full on the State Department website, mark at least the fourth time in recent months America's top diplomat has used that terminology for Hamas during unscripted remarks with reporters.

Meeting with his paper's editorial board Friday, a Dallas reporter asked Rice whether supporting democracy in the Middle East was really in U.S. interests, citing Palestinian elections last year which Hamas dominated.

Rice replied: " ... And what you've at least got now in Palestine and what you've at least got in Iraq now is contestation between healthy political forces and more radical forces.

"Hamas loved it when it could run the streets, faces covered, toting a few guns, and no responsibility for what happened to the Palestinian people. They were the great resistance force, and their only purpose in life was to threaten Israel."

Hamas is responsible for scores of suicide bombings, shooting attacks and rocket firings. It's classified by the State Department as a terror organization. The group's official charter calls for the murder of Jews and quotes widely from the anti-Semitic creed, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

Rice is currently mediating between Israeli and the Palestinian Authority ahead of a U.S.-sponsored summit later this month at which Israel is widely expected to outline a Palestinian state in most of the West Bank. Hamas officials repeatedly have stated they would take over the West Bank if Israel evacuates the strategic territory.

Rice has at other times referred to Hamas as a "resistance movement."