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April 21, 2008
Rejoice! Jimmy Carter Says Hamas Wants Peace
Rick Moran
Those of us who questioned Jimmy Carter's ability to bring peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we should be ashamed of ourselves. The former President, it turns out, has everything all worked out and all that Israel needs to do is surrender to the Hamas terrorists and they will deign to allow Israel to "live as a neighbor, next door in peace:"
Carter relayed the message in a speech in Jerusalem after meeting last week with top Hamas leaders in Syria. It capped a nine-day visit to the Mideast aimed at breaking the deadlock between Israel and Hamas militants who rule the Gaza Strip.
Hamas leaders "said that they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders" and they would "accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbor next door in peace,"
Carter said. The borders he referred to were the frontiers that existed before Israel captured large swaths of Arab lands in the 1967 Mideast war — including the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza.
In the past, Hamas officials have said they would establish a "peace in stages" if Israel were to withdraw to the borders it held before 1967. But it has been evasive about how it sees the final borders of a Palestinian state and has not abandoned its official call for Israel's destruction.
Israel, which evacuated Gaza in 2005, has accepted the idea of a Palestinian state there and in the West Bank. But it has resisted Palestinian demands that it return to its 1967 frontiers. How this squares with the Hamas official policy to destroy Israel - which was not rescinded by any official Carter embraced during his trip - is a little tricky. In fact, Hamas made no mention of who might be living in the territory currently occupied by Jews and calling itself Israel. Therefore, there is every reason to believe that Hamas would continue to try and wipe out the Jews because they still see Israel as Palestinian land.
But those are just insignificant details to Carter. He scolded the US and Israel for not talking to the puppy dogs of Hamas who evidently flattered and feted the former President - as they would any western sympathizer who meets with them. He weirdly called Gaza a "prison" while never once asking why the Israelis might feel that Hamas criminals should be locked up. Usually, we send criminals to prison to protect society from their depradations. Evidently Carter feels that suicide bombers shouldn't be hindered from doing their job.
I can't decide which is more disheartening; Carter believing anything Hamas says or the reaction to his mission that is sure to follow - a reaction that will no doubt put pressure on Israel and the US to deal with Hamas.
It makes us ask the same question we have asked about Carter for decades: How in the name of God did this man get to be President of the United States?
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