If Jimmy Carter doesn't regret his meetings with Hamas, he should.
The group has humiliated him. And of course, Carter humiliated himself.
JERUSALEM -- Former President Carter said Monday that the Islamic group Hamas was willing to accept the Jewish state as a "neighbor next door," but the militants did not match their upbeat words with concrete steps to halt violence.
Hamas, which advocates Israel's destruction, instead recycled previous offers, including a 10-year truce if Israel takes the unlikely step of withdrawing from the West Bank and Jerusalem first.
Hamas has repeatedly confounded observers with its conflicting messages. Actions on the ground — seven rockets were fired on Israel from Hamas-ruled Gaza Monday, including one that wounded a 4-year-old boy — contradicted the Islamic militant group's positive words about coexistence and a truce.
And a leader of the Hamas military wing, which carried out a twin suicide bombing on the Gaza border Saturday, said his group would step up attacks against Israel in coming days.
The salvo of rockets came despite a last-minute phone call from Carter, urging a one-month halt to attacks on Israel, to gain some international goodwill and defuse tensions.
"I did the best I could," Carter said of his conversation with Hamas supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, pressing him to declare a one-month truce. "They turned me down, and I think they're wrong."
This is ridiculous. Carter continues to claim that he didn't go to the Middle East to negotiate anything.
He said so again in an interview with Reena Ninan on FOX News.
NINAN: One Israeli official actually said to me, 'We don't know whose behalf he's negotiating.' Why are you doing this? And would you have appreciated someone undermining your administration?
CARTER: First, I'm not undermining anything. And secondly, I'm not negotiating. I have no role to play as a mediator or a negotiator. I'm just here representing myself and the Carter Center, no one else, with no authority at all. I don't want any authority. And my decision was just to talk to people who must be involved in the final peace agreement, who are excluded at this point from any discussions leading to a peace agreement.
One minute, Carter says he has no authority and he's not negotiating anything. Then the next, Carter says he did the best he could and Hamas turned him down. That sounds like negotiations to me.
One-month truce. Ten-year truce. Hamas is ready to accept the Jewish state's right to "live as a neighbor next door in peace." Whatever.
On Monday, Hamas fired seven rockets on Israel, wounding a 4-year-old boy.
The New York Times reports:
Jimmy Carter said here on Monday that in talks in Damascus, Syria, over the last several days, he obtained a significant concession from the militant group Hamas regarding Israeli-Palestinian peace and found Syrian leaders eager for a full peace treaty with Israel.
Mr. Carter said he extracted a promise from Hamas to respect the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip negotiated by Hamas’s rivals in the Palestinian Authority if it were ratified by a referendum of the Palestinian people.
Furthermore, Syrian leaders told him, he said, that “about 85 percent” of the issues between Syria’s government and Israel had been resolved in prior negotiations and that it wanted a peace deal “as soon as possible.”
Given the general pessimism surrounding Israeli-Arab peace, Mr. Carter’s upbeat assessment had a contrarian quality to it, as did his decision to meet in Damascus with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and the Hamas leadership. The Bush administration has shunned Syria and considers Hamas a terrorist group, as does Israel, and had asked him not to hold the meetings.
Israelis have not generally welcomed Mr. Carter on this trip. Many of them consider him hostile to Israel’s interests, especially since the publication of his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” in 2006.
On Monday, Mr. Carter called the agreement on a Palestinian state, obtained from Hamas in writing, important because it appeared to mean that Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip last June, would not disrupt negotiations or implementation of any accord if the Palestinian people supported it in a free vote.
“If the agreement calls for a two-state solution and the recognition of Israel and Palestine, Hamas will, in effect, recognize Israel, if the people agree on the plan,” Mr. Carter told the Israel Council on Foreign Relations in a speech here.
In a subsequent interview, Mr. Carter struck a more cautious note, saying, “I’m not claiming it’s a breakthrough.” He added, “I don’t have any control over whether or not Hamas does what they tell me.”
Hamas’s charter calls for Israel’s destruction, and it has consistently refused to recognize Israel. But Mr. Carter says that Hamas is coming around to the idea of a two-state solution.
...Mr. Carter had made several other requests to Hamas but was turned down. Those included a prisoner exchange and the declaration of a 30-day unilateral cease-fire with Israel.
I think someone needs to explain to Carter what "negotiate" means.
His claims of obtaining a significant concession and extracting a promise of an agreement on a Palestinian state, obtained from Hamas in writing, sounds like he was taking it upon himself to negotiate. Carter says that Hamas turned down his several other requests and the declaration of a cease-fire.
OF COURSE, HE WAS NEGOTIATING AND ACTING AS A MEDIATOR.
He was acting against the wishes of the Bush administration. Carter says he was just talking to people.
I don't consider his meetings with Hamas to be just typical talking to people, chit chat.
...Mr. Carter said in the interview that he found the Hamas leadership, including Mr. Meshal, to be clear-thinking, educated people who gave no sign of fanaticism, although he did condemn in harsh terms their use of violence. During his meetings, he said, they did not break for prayer or talk of holy land or God. “It was secular talk,” he said.
Mr. Carter also said that what he learned about Syrian intentions toward Israel might prove more significant than the Hamas agreement.
He asserted that Mr. Assad had said that there were only a few details left to work out on a full peace treaty but that the Bush administration was discouraging Israel from proceeding because of the Americans’ other concerns about Syria, especially related to Iraq.
“All of our group were surprisingly impressed with his strength and knowledge of the details in contrast to what we had heard from propaganda,” Mr. Carter said of the Syrian president. He emphasized that for Syria, a deal with Israel had to be brokered by the United States.
Once again, Carter has high praise for terrorists.
They're "clear-thinking, educated people who gave no sign of fanaticism."
I guess Carter didn't watch any Hamas TV programs for kids, like the puppet show of a child stabbing Bush to death and turning the White House into a mosque. No, nothing fanatical about that. That's the product of clear-thinking, educated people.
It sickens me that Carter is charging the U.S. government with spreading propaganda about Syrian president Bashar al-Assad while he disseminates Assad's lines about the Bush administration discouraging Israel from proceeding with a peace treaty because of the Americans' concerns about Syria related to Iraq.
Carter paints Assad as the good guy and Bush as blocking peace efforts.
What an anti-American tool!
This is another disgrace for Carter. He doesn't understand the terrorists' goal. It's not peace. It's the destruction of Israel.
I think Carter may be clinically delusional.
The fact is by continuing the terrorism and lobbing the seven rockets at Israel on Monday, the day Carter was bragging about the Middle East being on the verge of peace, Hamas spit in Carter's face; sort of the way Carter spit in the face of the Bush administration.
What goes around comes around.
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