This week’s visit to Washington by members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, demonstrated just how much has changed in US-Arab relations in the wake of the Arab uprisings. The high-profile Egyptian delegation coincides with visits by representatives of other Islamist parties from Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Libya also in town this week for various meetings and conferences. While skepticism (and in some circles open hostility) toward Islamists persists, the unspoken boycott of political Islam by the US administration and most of the Washington policy establishment has officially come to an end.

To be sure, this newfound openness is rooted in pragmatic rather than sentimental or intellectual considerations. Islamists have long been the most formidable opposition forces in the Arab world and are now poised to take power in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere in the region. Yet there is one electorally successful group that is unlikely to be welcomed in Washington anytime soon: Hamas. While the Palestinian Islamist group’s status and circumstances differ from those of other Islamist movements around the region, its continued shunning by Washington may be just as outdated and counter-productive.

Unlike Egypt’s Brotherhood or Tunisia’s Ennahda, of course, Hamas is officially designated by the US as a “foreign terrorist organization,” and the organization has indeed carried out numerous attacks against Israeli civilians over the years. As a result, the United States maintains a strict no-contact policy with Hamas members and US anti-terror laws prohibit any dealings with the organization. So entrenched is Hamas’ pariah status that even the pursuit of national unity, which necessarily entails ending the nearly five-year feud between Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, is considered a punishable offense in Washington.

Even so, Hamas remains a major force in Palestinian politics, one that cannot be wished away or boycotted out of existence. Like its Egyptian and Tunisian counterparts, Hamas is first and foremost a political organization with its own constituency and base of support, as demonstrated by its surprise electoral victory in 2006. The group’s political success is less a function of its Islamist ideology or acts of violence than of its culture of defiance and, perhaps more importantly, its ability to channel the frustration of many Palestinians, for whom five decades of Fatah domination produced few economic or political gains — least of all on the promise of national liberation through negotiations.