Posted on 04/13/2008 5:15:42 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
Former President Jimmy Carter said he feels "quite at ease" about meeting Hamas militants over the objections of Washington because the Palestinian group is essential to a future peace with Israel.
Carter, interviewed Saturday for ABC News' "This Week," airing Sunday, also said he would oppose a U.S. Olympic boycott and hopes all countries will join in the Beijing games.
He spoke from Katmandu, Nepal, where his team of observers from the Carter Center monitored an election that appeared likely to transform rule by royal dynasty into a democracy with former Maoist rebels in a strong position, judging by incomplete returns.
Several State Department officials, including the secretary, Condoleezza Rice, criticized Carter's plans to talk in Syria this week with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in the first public contact in two years between a prominent American figure and the group. Carter said he had not heard the objections directly, although a State Department spokesman said earlier that a senior official from the department had called the former president.
"I feel quite at ease in doing this," Carter said. "I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process."
Although he said the meeting would not be a negotiation, he outlined distinct goals.
"I think that it's very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah as a group that unites the Palestinians, maybe to get them to agree to a cease-fire — things of this kind," he said.
The State Department says it advised Carter twice against meeting representatives of Hamas, which Washington considers a terrorist organization.
"I find it hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace," Rice said Friday, after reports of the planned meeting surfaced.
Carter said he'd be meeting Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudi Arabians and others "who might have to play a crucial role in any future peace agreement that involves the Middle East."
Asked whether it was right to meet a group that has not renounced violence or recognized Israel, he said, "Well, you can't always get prerequisites adopted by other people before you even talk to them."
Pressure to drop the meeting has come from his own party. Democratic Reps. Artur Davis of Alabama, Shelley Berkley of Nevada, Adam Schiff of California and Adam Smith of Washington state wrote a letter to Carter saying the meeting could confer legitimacy on a group that embraces violence.
"I've been meeting with Hamas leaders for years," Carter said.
The Carter Center said his "study mission" was taking him to Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan this week.
Carter, a broker of the 1978 Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his conflict mediation as president and since.
As president, Carter led the boycott of the Moscow Olympics in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. "That was a totally different experience in 1980, when the Soviet Union had brutally invaded and killed thousands and thousands of people," he said, rejecting the idea of boycotting the Beijing games to protest China's crackdown in Tibet. He did not address whether just the opening ceremonies should be boycotted.
But of course. They're like family.
Jew haters of a feather flock together, Jimmy.
Always so much easier to receive one's marching orders directly, and in person.
(PING)
Jimmy Carter defends meeting with Hamas (says he feels “quite at ease”)...
of course this anti-american anti-semitic a-hole feels at ease with terrorists....he is the #1 cause of islo-facist terrorism in the second half of the 20th century!!!!
Go JIMMAH the Obama’s ambassador...It says everything!
No difference between Obama and McCAIN? Sure!
Oh, I thought it read, “Quite an ass.”
His stupid face bathed in a toothy grin he says "Finally, I get to see some friendly faces for a change!"
Jane Fonda was quite at ease meeting with the Communist Vietnamese representatives.
There, fixed it.
Carter is the biggest POS to ever occupy the oval office. He is nothing more than an a commie/terrorist sympathizer who hates America.
It is a shame Bush does not have the intestinal fortitude to pull his passport.America would be better off if (Peanut Brain Face) were placed in a mental institute where he belongs. Carter helped Chavez steal the elections in Venzuela.
I am willing to bet carter was one sad excuse for a naval officer.
Enough Said,
NSNR
How could this psychopath have been president? Since when does one "include in the process" the very people who are stealing his property and murdering his children?
Are you sure?
Oh Jimmah, he’s much too senile and stupid for our good.
He is such an embarrasement to us sw Georgia folks.
No question about it.
And it actually makes a perverse sort of logic for the Buffoon from Plains to say that he feels ‘at ease’ meeting with his Hamas handlers, after all - after the Soviet Union collapsed, there were few Communist despots willing to take on Jimmy’s portfolio of America-hating, Jew-bashing activities.
I’m already thinking about the concession stand for the inevitable crowds that will be lining up to p*ss on Jimmah’s grave when Satan finally calls him home.
I am just so sure the carter’s favorite’s , the Nepal Maoists, will be ready to schedule the next democratic election as well.???
Carter promotes the worst scum of the earth. The tragegies he has brought about around thw world is almost unspeakable.
I hear I had thought his leagcy would be bringing some of georgia biggest crooks ,like Bert Lance, to DC.
And don’t forget the 8-year Iran-Iraq War, instigated by Jimmah’s boy Zbigniew (Nat’l Security Advisor), that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, many of them children recruited to serve as human mine sweepers for the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Oh, Jimmah’s got plenty to answer for.
That’s ok,
GOD works in mysterious ways.
Jimmy Carter is such a jerk that GOD figured the way to get back at him for being such a p.o.s. was to gave him the ugliest daughter in the world.
How’d ya like to have to live with that?
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