It was hardly surprising that Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, scolded former President Carter yesterday for meeting leaders of Hamas. Insofar as the US has a Middle East peace strategy, it hinges on isolating Hamas rather than engaging it, and with good reason: Hamas has still not explicitly accepted Israel's right to exist. Far from renouncing violence, it seized control of Gaza last year and continues to terrorise Israelis with rockets and attempted suicide bombings. And it is so fractured that no single leader can reliably speak for all its members. Yet Mr Carter's seven hours of meetings in Damascus were significant. Afterwards, in a statement agreed by all concerned, he said that under certain conditions Hamas “would accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbour next door in peace”. In public, Dr Rice had no option but to dismiss this as empty rhetoric. In private, she should take note.

This was not a breakthrough, as Mr Carter has admitted. The Damascus meetings and communiqués had no official status. Any acceptance by Hamas of Israel as a neighbour would depend on a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, a return by Israel to its pre-1967 borders and a referendum involving all Palestinians. The list of caveats is long enough for Mr Carter's critics to dismiss his optimism as meaningless. The trouble for Israel, Washington and moderate Palestinians is that the same can be said of the peace process in its current moribund state.

Five months ago, in Annapolis, President Bush committed his Administration to achieving a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian settlement by January 2009 with the involvement of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President and Fatah leader - but not Hamas. The goal was honourable and the choice of Palestinian partner predictable, given Hamas's terrorist status. Yet Hamas controls Gaza and won the Palestinian parliamentary elections of 2006 by a landslide. In the search for a two-state solution, it is the unconsulted but pivotal third party.

Meanwhile, Mr Abbas has little to show for his co-operation. To have any chance of success the Annapolis approach must not only isolate Hamas in Gaza. It must also reward moderate Palestinians on the West Bank with greater freedom of movement where possible without jeopardising Israeli security, and with meaningful negotiations on the future of illegal settlements. Instead, the building of new settlements has continued. In this context, praise from Dr Rice for Mr Abbas's leadership is not enough.

Mr Carter may seem naive for a 83-year-old, but he is right that the peace process is “not working”. New approaches are needed urgently. Syria's involvement as a mediator is one worth pursuing; President Assad has signalled that he may at last be serious about peace with Israel even at the cost of distancing himself from Iran. Initiatives like Mr Carter's are, likewise, important. They commit the US to nothing. Still less do they legitimise acts of terror by Hamas. But they give valuable insights into Hamas thinking, which for good or ill will determine the fate of the formal peace process. For its own part, Hamas should seize this moment to call a unilateral ceasefire and release its three Israeli prisoners. That might earn it a hearing from more powerful figures than the peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia.