chicagotribune.com
Carter's foolish journey

April 11, 2008

Former President Jimmy Carter is accustomed to meeting world leaders and beaming his famous smile while getting his photo snapped with them. He may be in for a different kind of visit in Damascus next week. Carter is reported to have scheduled a meeting with Khaled Mashaal, the political leader of Hamas. Hamas says he's coming; the Atlanta-based Carter Center didn't confirm that, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

Mashaal isn't fond of photo ops, or even appearing in public, ever since he survived an Israeli assassination attempt several years back. (And there was the time in 2006 when Israeli warplanes buzzed the presidential palace in Syria as a protest for allowing Mashaal a safe haven.)

We presume the former president knows all about Mashaal. Just in case, however, we'd like to remind him of the Hamas leader's résumé, the better to be prepared for the possible tete-a-tete.

Mashaal is a terrorist leader. He's accused by Israeli officials of ordering the 2006 abduction of an Israeli soldier, triggering Israel's incursion into Gaza. At the time, U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton urged Syria to arrest him and shut down Hamas headquarters in Damascus.

Over the years, Mashaal has claimed responsibility for many of Hamas' suicide bomb attacks in Israel. He leads an organization that praised as "heroic" Palestinian terrorists who crossed into Israel and killed two civilians at a fuel depot on Wednesday. Hamas allows—or instigates—the continuing barrage of rockets into Israel, taking every opportunity to disrupt peace negotiations.

Mashaal could play an important role in the current peace talks if Hamas would renounce violence, embrace previous agreements with Israel and recognize the Jewish state. It's a very low bar to clear with a profound return—a Palestinian state. But it's still too high for Hamas, a group that is sworn to destroy Israel.

Carter hasn't said publicly why he may be going. Maybe the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize laureate is convinced he can turn Mashaal into a peacenik. He better talk fast: Hamas is undertaking the most significant military buildup in its history, according to recent reports.

Or maybe Carter can't resist a public and obvious rebuke to the Bush administration's policy of isolating and weakening Hamas.

Mashaal and his cronies are overseeing the descent of Gaza into further violence, misery and hopelessness, all because they can't envision a Middle East where Palestinians and Israelis can live side by side in peace.

Can a Nobel be revoked?

Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

Dialogue is the only way to produce positive change. If it is preferable to have the killing continue ad nauseum, then yes, Carter is mistaken.


Actually, he has publicly stated why he is going:

"In an interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz published Monday, Carter said he intended to use the Mashaal meeting to press for the return of three Israeli soldiers captured by Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. He said he would also try to get Hamas to accept a pan-Arab plan for peace with Israel.

"The most important single foreign policy goal in my life has been to bring peace to Israel, and peace and justice to Israel's neighbors. I have done everything I could in office and since I left office to do that," the paper quoted Carter as saying."

Full A/P article:
AP Nation/World - Quincy, MA - The Patriot Ledger

My prediction on this meeting.

It will go the way of every other Jimma Cawder initiative. It will turn into

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Its better to have fussed and crabbed then never to have fussed at all - Lucy

You may be right about that.

However, peace will never come to the region through bullets and bombs, only through dialogue.

Peace will never come to the region until one side or the other is completely destroyed. God told the Jews thousands of years ago to kill every man woman and child that opposed them and they did not and now they are paying the price for their disobedience.

Dialogue?? You have got to be kidding

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Its better to have fussed and crabbed then never to have fussed at all - Lucy

Crank,
Dialogue is the only way to produce positive change.
You mean bribes?

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Americans want nuclear power now!

True, but the dialog must be between the combatants, and Peanut won't accomplish that little task. Hell, the only reason he was able to get a treaty between Eygpt and Israel was because Eygpt was tired of getting its ass stomped.

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If you want change stop electing "liberal: democrats and "radical" Republicans. Find and support true Conservatives; those who believe in fiscal responsibilities, individual accountability, and a smaller government, with less control of your daily life.

Peace will only come to the Middle East once the hostile Arab states and the Palestinians are erased from the face of this earth. They will be the first to tell you this, too. They will NEVER stop their war against Israel, no matter how many pretentious former Presidents try to make nice with them.

Also, what good is dialogue when you can't believe the other side? This is the situation in which Israel finds itself. The Palestinians will talk peace, then kill Israeli children for the hell of it. They are dishonest, sick barbarians who don't deserve to inhabit this planet with the rest of us.

Genocide much?

God said to do this 4000 or so years ago. The Isrealites intermarried instead. They should have listened to God

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Its better to have fussed and crabbed then never to have fussed at all - Lucy