Daybreak: Clinton Open to Hamas

• While insisting that Hamas had to recognize Israel’s right to resist* and fulfill other basic qualifications, Secretary of State Clinton notably did not rule out continuing talks with a Palestinian government including the group. [NYT]

• Defense Minister Barak argued that Iran would never drop a nuclear bomb on Israel and that Israel should stop scaring people to the effect that such a thing was possible. He did say the ayatollahs are unreliable. [Haaretz]

• Prime Minister Netanyahu’s military attaché had to bow out of his boss’s trip to London for fear of war crimes prosecution. [AP/WP]

• Nathan Thrall argues that Israel is most effective when it works to improve Palestinian life and engages Palestininan moderates—including some Hamas elements—to deter the real radicals. He discussed reconciliation in The Scroll last week. [NYT]

• Various directions the Arab spring has taken have actually undermined Turkey’s hegemony. [NYT]

• A 10-year-old allegedly shot his father, a member of the country’s largest neo-Nazi party, to death, although the father’s beliefs appear not to have been a motive. I feel bad. For the kid. [AP]

* This was a typo; it should read “right to exist.” However, it is a compelling enough typo that it will remain.