“I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.There was one way this Gaza campaign could have been avoided: Hamas could have chosen not to repeatedly and incessantly attack Israel with kassams. But for the kassam attacks, Israel would not have launched Operation Cast Lead. The problem of course is that but for Israel's existence, Hamas would not be firing those kassams at Israel. Therein lies the rub. Hamas cannot tolerate Israel's existence. Israel just wants to be left alone and to do so, Israel must stop Hamas from attacking. The world, and Carter, seem more interested in stopping Israel's ability to protect itself than getting Hamas to quit its genocidal campaign.
After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.
Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.
We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.”
If Carter truly seeks peace, he should be demanding nothing less than the unconditional surrender of Hamas, but he refuses to make such a case.
Hamas is a terrorist group. Carter speaks up for Hamas and against Israel, which is doing what it can to stop the thousands of rockets fired against Israel since 2000, the hundreds fired during the last ceasefire (6-month hudna that didn’t even make it 5 days before Hamas started firing kassams again), and which has never made a humanitarian gesture of its own unilaterally.
Israel is forced to make concessions in the name of a peace process. Hamas demands concessions while doing nothing.
You want a humanitarian gesture that Hamas should do - release Gilad Shalit unconditionally. That wont happen because Hamas needs him in order to press Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli jails.
Where was Carter to denounce Hamas when it violated the hudna over the summer by firing rockets just six days into the truce? Where was Carter to denounce Hamas for continuing to hold Gilad Shalit for more than two years? Where was Carter to demand Shalit's release as a good faith gesture to Israel? Carter has repeatedly met with Hamas over the past year, and has come away with nothing but egg over his face.
And Carter has the temerity to blame Israel for the current fight in Gaza?
Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005; Hamas and Fatah could have built a state using the greenhouses and other infrastructure left by Israel and/or donated by Israeli and Jewish groups seeking peace. Instead, they razed the greenhouses, turned the former Israeli communities into terror training camps and launch facilities for the kassams. Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza because Fatah wasn't fighting Israel enough. Hamas gave Gazans the war they wanted, and Israel has obliged by going after the Hamas that controls all that happens there.
Jimmy Carter is supporting evil and opposing the good. That makes him evil.
Others slamming Carter include: Jules Crittenden, Don Surber, Macranger, Stop the ACLU, Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom, and Soccer Dad at Meryl Yourish.
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