Extry! Read all about it! Extry! Hamas May Accept Statehood in West Bank!

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The militant group Hamas will accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and a long-term truce with Israel, a leader said Friday, apparently softening Hamas’ hardline stance and boosting hopes for renewed peace efforts after Yasser Arafat’s death.

Sheik Hassan Yousef, a senior Hamas official in the West Bank, told The Associated Press he sees a truce in which Israel and a Palestinian state “live side-by-side in peace and security for a certain period.”

Well. Not to be a party pooper, or to cast doubt on the value of “truces” with radical Islamic terror gangs, but maybe we shouldn’t forget that only five days ago, this was the featured exhibit at a Hamas demonstration at An Najah University in Nablus:

Palestinian supporters of the Islamic Hamas group, holding a big map of what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as they participate in the campaign for students’ council elections in Al-Najah university in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Sunday Nov. 28, 2004. The map reads in Arabic: ‘Muslim Palestine.’ The elections will take place Monday. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)

This overture—if you want to call it that—from Hamas does show one thing; they’ve been seriously hurt, badly enough that they need to buy some time.