Jimmy Carter "I never met a terrorist I didn't like"

Story here Link to Reuters article.

Ah screw it, here's the story: By Jonathan Saul

DUBLIN, June 19 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Tuesday Washington's support for the Palestinian Fatah group and the blocking of aid to Gaza were part of a mistaken policy aimed at dividing Palestinians.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah dismissed Hamas from the government last week and formed a new cabinet in the occupied West Bank after gunmen from the Islamist group took over the Gaza Strip.

In a bid to shore up Abbas, the United States and the European Union pledged on Monday to lift a 15-month old embargo on the Palestinians imposed after Hamas won elections and rejected their calls to recognise Israel and renounce violence.

Carter, on a visit to Dublin, said the United States and Israel had done "everything they could to prevent accommodation between Hamas and Fatah".

"Lately, the United States has been giving military aid to Fatah in order to conquer Hamas in Gaza," Carter told reporters after addressing a human rights forum in Dublin.

"Fatah could not prevail because of the fervent commitment of some of the Hamas fighters and because of their discipline," he added.

Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas has said he still considers a 3-month-old unity coalition, in which he is prime minister, as the legitimate Palestinian government and accuses Abbas of participating in a U.S.-led plot to overthrow him.

Fatah has rejected a Hamas overture for "dialogue" and banned all contacts with the group.

Israeli and Western officials say Israel plans to tighten a financial clampdown on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip that would choke off all but humanitarian and basic supplies.

Carter, who brokered the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978, said moves to give Palestinians assistance in the West Bank was an attempt to "reward them", while continuing to "punish" the 1.5 million aid-dependent Palestinians in Gaza.

"This effort to divide Palestine into two peoples now, I think it is a step in the wrong direction," Carter said.

"There is no effort being made outside to bring the two together."

BUSH CRITICISED

U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met in Washington on Tuesday and pledged to work together to strengthen Abbas against Hamas Islamists.

Carter, who was president from 1977-1981 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his charitable work, has been highly critical of Bush's Middle East policies. In May he described Bush's presidency as "the worst in history".

Carter told reporters that U.S-run detention camps, such as Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and U.S. anti-terrorism laws, were unacceptable even in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"This departure on human rights is completely incompatible with all the predecessors in the White House," he said.

"It's excused inadequately by the aftermath of 9/11 that the terrorism threat is so great that we can abandon our basic American principles on human rights," he said. "I strongly disagree with that."

Who among us really didn't forsee Carter siding with Hamas?

We shouldn't side with either of them since neither Fatah or Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist.

Abbas is at least trying, Hamas is still taking their marching orders from Iran and Syria.

Carter is at least trying to think creatively.

Care to elaborate on that?
Cause to be honest, I don't see anything creative about what he's suggesting.

Creatively? That means something along the lines of an original idea in this context, right?

Let's look at Jimmy Carter's "original" ideas, shall we?
Inflation is our friend, check.
Cowed by the Iranians in '79, check.
Supported Arrafat, check.
Supported Ortega, check.
Supports Chavez, check.
Now supporting Hamas, check.

Yeah, Jimmy is really working that new, outside the box creativity mojo, isn't he?

carters an idiot, and this whole mess is of fatah's making, with the rest of the world merrily helping it along.

we need to stop our aid packages, and tell iran and syria if they care so much about the palestinians they might try sending food, medical and financial supplies instead of munitions - show they support the entire people and not just the terrorists.

we've stepped up to the plate and been burnt from it, whilst those condemning us have sniped from the sides and doing nothing but hindering fixing the israel/palestinian issue. time to step back and put the ball firmly in their court, with the world watching what they do.

Near as i can tell from a historical perspective, Jordan is the one who should be stepping up and taking these folks in.

Carter really does enjoy making a fool out of himself, doesn't he?

LizK,

Discussion and negotiation should occur in a context that involves all parties -- not just the ones favored by the United States.

Compared with current policy, it's both innovative and worthy of exploration. If something does not work -- as our currently policy patently does not -- then a new approach is called for.

DDR,

Ecky,

This may be so. At some point, an all-party summit should be held.

Bulldog, great ideas have always met with opposition from conventional minds. (I take no credit for this idea, which is a modified version of a well-known aphorism.)

It's the only logical conclusion I can come to. I mean, he must, right? Why else would he do it so often?

i'm thinking the killing of king abdullah and the black september uprising sort of puts them off a bit...

For the terrorist types, sure. But for just ordinary folks who just want to live and let live, why not?

But in order for negotiations to occur with all parties, all parties must want to negotiate.
I don't see that Hamas has shown that they want to negotiate with anything but Uzis or AK 47s or whatever the hell they have that shoots bullets and kills everyone who isn't Hamas.

Nah; this whole mess is the making of a U.S. foreign policy that promotes "democracy" even where it's sure to be highly unstable and sure to result in the election of extremely dangerous governments.

Now Carter's wrong, because the policy flaw isn't about "dividing Palestinians" so much as it's about expecting the impossible, but I think it's safe to say that a lot of the international--not just U.S., though we're the main culprit--meddling in Palestinian politics and their political system has made matters worse. Cutting Arafat off at the knees, then imposing "democracy," and then bemoaning and threatening sanctions over the failure of that "democracy" to produce a pseudogovernment--given the degree of power held by the Palestinian Authority, calling it a real government is more than a stretch--we can avidly support hardly seems like it was a sensible plan.

well, that could be argued if were to ignore why hamas got voted in, which had zip to do with US policy and everything to do with fatah greed.

Of course they want to negotiate. The problem you have is really that they won't accept your pre-conditions, which effectively involve accepting the US terms in advance.

I said it when he was in office, I'll say it again now, Jimbo, go home. Your ideas of how policies should be are far short of the realities of where things really stand. I suppose being an ex-president carries a bit of weight, but for him, not so much, more like a bag of rocks.

I also find it laughable he would openly critisize any administration, his was the worst in my lifetime.

While I respect the office of the president, this man really needs to stick with building houses for poor folk and stay out of the spotlight. He has to know he's looking like a tit in all of this. If not someone please clue him in.

He did give away the Panama Canal. That's out of the box thinking!

Since the Palestinians seem incapable of coming up with a unified voice on their own, dividing them may be the best possible outcome. Washington and Tel Aviv should do everything possible to strengthen the contrast: reward good behavior by Fatah, punish bad behavior by Hamas. Make the world see that conciliatory behavior on the part of the Palestinians leads to a better outcome.

Yeah, because meddling in Mid East politics has worked out so well for us so far.

It's kept us with a steady supply of oil for about 80 years...

If we stayed out of their backwards little corner of the world they obviously wouldn't have shipped any oil to us.

They don't have the technology to extract it themselves. Even if they did want to sell us their oil (and they would; selling oil is their only real source of revenue as their backward economies don't produce anything of value or use to the rest of the world) they would need huge foreign investment just to get it out of the ground. Huge foreign investment (particularly by American firms) = justification for "meddling" in order to protect that investment.

Oil companies invest in regions the United States isn't politically and militarily involved in all the time.

Not sure that this would work with Palestine any more than it's worked with Lebanon, which is similarly divided.

Although Carter's skill with the Middle East is legendary, it's exceptional, and generally it's really far too difficult for the West to understand that area. It's much better for the United States to catch up with the times and invest substantially in renewable energy resources.

Carter has no real skill with the ME anymore than did Clinton. I'm not saying anyone could solve these problems but these two seem to think that merely negotiating is proof of success. True, getting people to talk is good, but it's not the end as these two seem to practice. And, if parties with disputes haven't made any progress in discussions in the past, merely repeating the arguments is actually counter-productive.

Yes, we do need to wean ourselves off ME oil. I can definitely agree with that. But, as always, the devil's in the details.

Well, Bock, if Carter didn't have any real skill with the Middle East, how does that explain his success in brokering peace between Egypt and Israel? It's one of America's most sterling accomplishments in its efforts in that area to date.

Carters claim to fame is the "Camp David Accords" that brought peace between Israel and Egypt.

What most people forget is that was largely the result of Egyptian president Anwar Sadats work.

Sadat had wanted peace all the way back in 1972 but realized he could never get an agreement with the Israelies unless he bloodied there nose. Which is why he planned (brilliantly) the Egyptian/Syrian offensive in October of 1973.

Just four years later, Sadat had a series of meetings with the Israelies to get his peace deal.

But both sides needed a benefactor to pull it off. Sadat needed U.S. economic and military aid since he knew making peace with Israel would cut him off from the Saudis which had backed him.

Israel needed to be ensured of massive military aid since the Europeans had cut them off in 1967.

So they signed the deal in the U.S. and the U.S. picked up the tab for both sides.

Egypt got the Sinai peninsula back (and wrote off the Gaza strip).

Israel got to remove Egypt as a primary threat to its security.

Sadat was assassinated less than four years later.

Carter had little to do with it.

And the Camp David Accords helped cause the cancellation of the original Battlestar: Galactica as news coverage of it preempted the show during some of the prime ratings periods.