Carter In Syria

The odious former President Jimmy Carter is now in Syria, where he will meet with still more Hamas officials to discuss how best to carve up Israel and force Israel to make still more concessions that will ultimately best serve Hamas interests.

And not only is he being played as a willing dupe for Hamas, who has no interests in negotiating fairly or without preconditions, but he's spouting off their propaganda against Israel willingly and at every turn. He's their most useful mouthpiece since he lends his prestige as the former President of the United States, despite the fact that he's clearly supporting the terrorists' efforts against a US ally; Israel. They want the whole kit and caboodle:

Carter, who is on a Middle East tour to hear views on solving the historic conflict, will meet Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and senior Hamas members in one of the highest profile encounters between the group and a Western figure.

The former statesman, who brokered the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt when he was president, met two senior Hamas officials in Cairo on Thursday after Israel refused him permission to enter the Gaza Strip, where they live.

Carter said the Hamas leaders he had met in Cairo told him they would accept a peace agreement with Israel negotiated by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the rival Fatah faction, if the Palestinians approved it in a referendum.

But one of them, Mahmoud al-Zahar, wrote this week that a peace process could not start until Israel withdrew from all the land it occupied in the 1967 war, ended its military presence in the West Bank and Gaza, dismantled all settlements, repudiated its annexation of Arab East Jerusalem, released all prisoners and ended its air, sea and land "blockade" of Palestinian land.

"Given what we have lost, it is the only basis by which we can start to be whole again," Zahar wrote in an article published by the Washington Post this week.

Zahar wrote far more than just that - he wants to supplant Israel altogether and attacks Israel's very existence to say nothing of Israel and Judaism's attachment to Jerusalem.

All of Carter's meetings with Hamas are set against the very real terrorism that Hamas engages in on a near daily basis. Mortar and rocket attacks against Israel. Attempts to infiltrate Israel to carry out bombings and shootings. Attacks against the fuel supplies.

Carter plays up their propaganda, claiming that Gaza is starving. Nothing could be further from the truth. Gaza has plenty of food, if only Hamas would actually release it and not take its customary 50% cut of whatever comes into the country. One thing that Gaza is awash in is weapons, which continue to be smuggled in by every conceivable method, including by sea.

Carter complains that for every Israeli killed, 30 to 40 Palestinians are killed. Boo hoo. That's yet another attempt to claim that Israel is somehow using disproportionate force against terrorists and those who are behind attacks on Israel. It also ignores that most of those Palestinians killed are terrorists intent on killing Israelis.

There is one way that the Palestinians can stop the carnage, and that's to stop attacking Israel. Period. There is no such thing as disproportionate force in a war - a nation can and should all the force necessary to defeat its enemies, and thus far, Israel has not even done that much, despite the casualties on both sides.

UPDATE:
Apparently, I'm far from the only one sick of Carter's antics and sucking up to Hamas terrorists - a terrorist group that has American blood on its hands.

UPDATE:
Rep. Sue Myrick's (R-NC9) statement:

Today, Rep. Sue Myrick (NC-9) called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to revoke former President Jimmy Carter’s passport. This is in response to the former President traveling to Syria to meet with Hamas, an organization officially designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

“Former President Carter has acted in contradiction of international agreements to isolate Hamas. He has acted in defiance of both United States policy and international policy. His actions reward terrorists, lend support, and provide legitimacy to their belief that violence will eventually get them what they want,” said Rep. Myrick.

After Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections the Quartet (US, UN, EU and Russia) called on Hamas to renounce terror, recognize Israel and recognize the previous agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel as they seek an agreement to make peace. Hamas has categorically rejected these three conditions for more than two years.

Congress granted the Secretary of State the power to grant and verify passports. In 1981, the United States Supreme Court held in the case of Haig v. Agee that the Secretary of State has the implied power to revoke passports as well (453 U.S. 280).

Democrats keep running into a problem where all their current and former leaders have no problems meeting up with terrorists (for Obama and Clinton, it's Weather Underground and FALN) or seeking them out wherever they are (Carter with Hamas). It's going to cause them more than a bit of grief come the Denver convention and in November.

UPDATE:
Another sob story from Gaza. Palestinian athletes have to dodge gunfire and artillery.

What about Israeli kids who can't play outside for fear of being hit by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire directed at Sderot, Ashkelon or other areas within range? What about the fact that the Palestinians cheer when Israeli schools, day care centers, and homes are hit with Israelis killed or maimed?

The story avoids the very basic fact that if the Palestinians ceased firing rockets and mortars at Israel and stopped plotting to kill Israelis by all means at their disposal including infiltrating the Israeli border with Gaza, the Palestinian athletes could practice without worrying about gunfire disrupting their training. [ed: left out the best part - this:

Masri's own house was struck by a militants' rocket aimed at nearby Israeli towns. It damaged walls and smashed windows, but the runner and his family escaped unharmed.

In other words, the Palestinian athletes actually have more to fear from Hamas and other terrorists firing their weapons at Israel than the Israelis themselves. It's terrorist gunfire that they have to worry about.

UPDATE:
Once again, Carter is caught in a lie. Only a few days ago he was saying that he wasn't going to engage in diplomacy and that he was simply going to listen to what everyone had to say - that it was a fact-finding mission.

Well, it's clear that he's working overtime to push his own ideas for how to reconcile Hamas' need to destroy Israel with the leftist Israeli need to dismember their own country.

Aides to Carter said they plan to hold a second round of talks with Hamas on Friday night to discuss proposals for a ceasefire with Israel and for the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, that Carter made when he met Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

Mohammad Nazzal, a member of the Hamas leadership, said the talks would study the details of proposals put forward by Carter in more than four hours of talks with Mashaal.

"Carter's aides and the members of Hamas' political bureau will meet to discuss the price for Shalit's release as well as halting the rocket fire on Israel," said Nazzal.

Nazzal also said that the talks with Carter proved that the political isolation imposed by the US on Hamas was beginning to crumble.

A group of senior Hamas officials from the Gaza Strip will travel to Damascus on Saturday to hold talks with carter, al-Jazeera TV network reported Friday.

The delegation will be led by Hamas' Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar.

Before Friday's meeting began, Abu Marzouk said that calming the situation between Hamas and Israel as well as the fate of Shalit would be on the agenda.

There's a very simple way of calming the situation between Hamas and Israel - Hamas has to stop its war against Israel. No rockets. No mortars. No infiltration attempts. Nothing. Even as I write, kassams have come crashing down on Sderot. One of the kassams caused a power outage in Sderot.

Then you'll have a calming of the situation.

As for Gilad Shalit - he should be released unconditionally as a good faith measure. Hamas doesn't believe in those - except when they demand Israel release hundreds of their terrorists from Israeli jails so that they can go back to attempting to kill Israelis again.