The claim is being reported in two Israeli newspapers, and the Obama campaign has yet to respond to the claim.

The Arab daily Al-Hayat on Tuesday quoted a senior Hamas official as saying that United States President-elect Barack Obama’s advisors met with members of the Palestinian militant group before the U.S. presidential election.

Ahmed Yusuf, a political advisor to Hamas’ Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh, reportedly told the London-based paper that, “The connection was made via email and after that we met with them in Gaza.”

Al-Hayat reported that Yusuf also said the relations were maintained after Obama’s electoral victory last Tuesday. He said the president-elect’s advisors requested that the relations be kept secret so as not to aid his rival, Senator John McCain.

Ed Morrissey notes:

Obama told American voters that he would not meet with Hamas until they renounced terrorism.  If this story turns out to be true, then Obama lied to American voters during the campaign.

Of course, Obama also said he wouldn’t take money from lobbyists and wouldn’t have special interests in his administration.  Those promises have been broken, so why not this one?

What’s startling to me about this is...why would Obama even want to have his people meeting with Hamas before the election?  I don’t doubt that Obama has every intention of undermining Israel in the middle east and pandering to Islamic extremists Jimmy Carter-style, but why start with that before the election?  It seems like a needlessly risky political move, and one that certainly wasn’t necessary for him to bring home electoral victory.