Yes, fellow campers, there is a opening... 
for some full ironic fate here!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 
Posted on 04/13/2008 2:08:34 PM PDT by COUNTrecount
JERUSALEM - Former President Jimmy Carter brokered the first Israeli-Arab peace deal, but he's getting a cool reception in Israel during his latest visit to the Mideast.
Israeli leaders are shunning the globe-trotting peacemaker for planning to meet with Khaled Mashaal, the head of Israel's archenemy Hamas, and comparing the Jewish state's policies to apartheid.
A schedule released by the Atlanta-based Carter Center showed no plans for the former president to meet any of Israel's key players: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni or Defense Minister Ehud Barak during this week's visit, which began Sunday.
The only high-ranking official on Carter's schedule was Israel's ceremonial head of state, President Shimon Peres. The 83-year-old former U.S. leader held a closed meeting with Peres shortly after arriving Sunday.
A senior Israeli official said "scheduling problems" was the official reason given for the high-profile snub — even though Olmert recently took time to chat with "Prison Break" star Wentworth Miller.
But the real reason for the cold shoulder is Carter's plan to meet with Mashaal when his Carter Center delegation travels later this week to Damascus, Syria, the Israel official said.
Israel's leader are not publicly criticizing Carter out of respect for his former position as U.S. president, the official added. He spoke on condition of anonymity because his explanation went beyond the official position.
Ahead of his Mideast trip, Carter defended his reasons for wanting to engage Hamas and said he feels "quiet at ease" about meeting with Hamas militants.
"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," Carter told ABC News "This Week" in a broadcast aired Sunday.
Hamas is sworn to Israel's destruction and has carried out dozens of suicide bombings that have killed more than 250 Israelis. Israel has no contacts with the Islamic militant group, whose violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June has undercut newly revived efforts by Israel and the Palestinians to strike a final peace deal.
Several State Department officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and others from the Bush administration have criticized Carter's plans to meet with Mashaal.
"The position of the government is that Hamas is a terrorist organization and we don't negotiate with terrorists. We think that's a very important principle to maintain," Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, said Sunday on ABC. "The State Department made clear we think it's not useful for people to be running to Hamas at this point and having meetings."
But Carter is among a growing group of U.S. critics who say shunning enemies is counterproductive. Several months ago, a group of prominent former senior U.S. officials — including Carter's own former national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski — called on the U.S. to engage in "genuine dialogue" with Hamas, not isolate it.
In Syria, senior Hamas official Mohammed Nazzal has said Hamas "welcomes the request" from Carter to meet with Mashaal. He said the meeting would take place Friday.
Carter said the meeting would not be a negotiation, but 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," Carter said.
Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work in mediating conflicts, while president and under the auspices of the Carter Center. In 1979, he brokered the landmark accord between Egypt and Israel, for which Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin were awarded that year's Nobel Peace Prize.
But the goodwill Carter earned here was all but swept away two years ago with the publication of his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," which compares the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories with the racial segregation and oppression that once reigned in South Africa.
Jewish groups and some fellow Democrats strongly objected to the book and more than a dozen members of the Carter Center's advisory board resigned in protest.
In a later afterword to his book, Carter criticized the lack of "balanced debate" in the U.S. about the Middle East and warned officials against being "seen as knee-jerk supporters of every action or policy" of the Israeli government.
In recent years, Carter has embarked upon "a crusade of hate against Israel," Uzi Arad, an adviser to parliamentary opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, told Israel Radio.
"There is no doubt that Jimmy Carter as a former president should be greeted as a matter of protocol, but it does not mean that the prime minister, the foreign minister and certainly the opposition leader have to meet him," Arad said.
While in Israel, Carter also plans to meet several lawmakers and visit Sderot, the southern Israeli town most frequently targeted by Gaza rocket squads.
Carter is also scheduled to visit the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan during his Mideast tour. Carter will not be visiting Hamas-ruled Gaza.
A Carter-Mashaal meeting would be the first public contact between a prominent American figure and Hamas officials since the Rev. Jesse Jackson met with Mashaal in Syria in 2006
ROFL! By the way, thanks for your service. ;-)
I’d love to watch Netanyahu throw a drink in Carter’s face.
You know what I was a kid when Jimmy Carter was in office my first memory of ole Jimmy was him in Oval office smack chat us about our energy use remember
To me he seem like old neighbor down the street who yell at the kids that type of the dude
It is funny Submarine named after Jimmy Carter that priceless LOL!
That way too much Joan Crawford
Maybe having Jimmy Carter get his a*** like Rick James smack around Charles Murphy from Chappelle show that be funny
Carter is an anti-semitic has been. Let him lick the Arab’s boots, but Israel is right to ignore him.
You are welcome :)
for later
Good for the Israelis - tell the Palestinian Pimp to go sell his BS in Gaza.
“Too much Joan Crawford” (re throwing a drink in Carter’s face)
Jimmah Carter is an old man. A physical assault would make him an instant martyr and holy victim of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Net gain for Jimmah.
With the cameras rolling Jimmah insults Netanyahu and praises Hamas. Bibi throws a drink in his face (using a nice big highball glass with plenty of ice and chaser) and it’s all over the internet in a heartbeat. Carter is shown up as the mean nasty Jew-hater he is, and nobody gets hurt.
More effective than a cream pie, IMHO.
Well Today’s You Tube OH YEAH LOL!
Yes, fellow campers, there is a opening... for some full ironic fate here!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
“Why Miz Lillian, you truly have the two biggest boobs ever seen in the state of georgia!”
“Jimmah , git back to them thar peanut fields and mind yur own damn business, before I git my belt outa my pants and tan yur hide boy!”
LOL! I wish he’d take your advice....
Ask Peres & Lieberman. They're meeting with him.
Love it, love it, luuuuuuvvvv it!
Thought the headline I’d like to see is “Israeli Leaders Snub Peanut Head. Refuse to let him off the plane. Force him to eat cold instant grits and a prune stew before permitting the plane to leave Israel.”
MY almost 15-year-old son asked me who I thought our worst president has been. He’s heard me talk about Clinton’s often and was surprised when I told him I thought Carter was the worst US president of all-time.
Anyway, I’m glad Israel refused these services.
Israel is a friend to the US. Carter is NOT.
I note that Israel has “declined security assistence to President Carter.”
It is probably evil for me to hope he gets kidnapped and held hostage for a couple years like the US embassy staff in Iran.
Poor Jimmy, he is so misunderstood.
He knows better than anyone else, what needs to be done! Only he can bring about peace. For Heavens sake, take a look at the work he has already done with the following terrorists and dictators: Arafat, Aideed, the Ayatolla, Castro, Chavez, Aristide, Kim IL Sung, Daniel Ortega, Radovan Karadzic.
After his visit with all of these killers, immediate peace fell on the land, and human rights ascended.
What? It didn’t? What you say? How can that be? Surely this is why he keeps going to these places?
My momma always told me; “Fools names and Fools faces are always seen in public places”...
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