WASHINGTON — What do you have to do to be recognized as a revolutionary Islamist group using terrorism, backed by Iran, to seek to wipe Israel off the map and kill the Jews? It isn’t easy. People keep trying to make you into something else – incipient moderate, multifaceted debating society – insisting that you just don’t really mean it.

Such is the case with Hamas. Every day – in speeches, articles, violence, mosque sermons and the media – Hamas makes its positions absolutely clear. And every day, someone in the West just doesn’t want to believe it.

Now Hamas has formed an alliance (of convenience?) with the Palestinian Authority, run by Fatah. It’s a remarkable situation, or would be anywhere outside of the Middle East.

After all, Hamas won an election, made a deal with the PA, and then staged a coup to take over the Gaza Strip that included shooting wounded Fatah fighters dead in hospitals. Fatah and the PA regularly repress Hamas on the West Bank. So why are they ‘working together?