Carter: Hamas Ready To "Live" With Israel

Ex-President Says U.S., Israel Must Talk To Militant Group, Which Accepts Two-State Solution

(CBS/AP)  Former President Jimmy Carter on Monday said Hamas is prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbor next door in peace".

His comments came after he met last week with the top Hamas leaders in Syria.

Carter also said Hamas won't undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel. He said Hamas is ready to accept a Palestinian state made of the West Bank and Gaza.

Carter made the comments during a speech in Jerusalem on Monday.

The former U.S. president also said it's a "problem" that Israel and the U.S. refuse to meet with Hamas.

"The problem is not that I met with with Hamas in Syria," he said. "The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved."

Carter also said Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking has "regressed" since a U.S.-hosted Mideast conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November.

Speaking about the possibility of renewed peace talks between Israel and Syria, he said Syria wants the U.S. to play a "strong role" in bringing to two sides together.

He also said Hamas has promised to let captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit send a letter to his parents.

The State Department twice advised Carter against meeting Hamas leaders before he left on his Mideast trip early last week. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized Carter's plans to meet Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal in Syria. It was the first public contact in two years between a prominent American figure and Hamas' leadership

Several members of Congress also urged Carter not to meet Mashaal, saying it would confer legitimacy on the group behind some 250 suicide bombings against Israelis that have killed numerous civilians.

But Carter, who brokered the 1978 Israeli-Egyptian peace and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, defended what he called his personal peace mission, saying Hamas must be engaged in order to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The United States designated Hamas a terrorist organization in January 1995, which made it a violation to conduct any financial or business transaction with the group.

Shortly after Hamas claimed responsibility for an August 19, 2003 suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 20 people including four U.S. citizens, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control named a number of Hamas leaders as "specially designated global terrorists." They included Mashaal and Abu Marzouk and the designation made it illegal to conduct any transactions with them.

Israel also brands Hamas a terrorist organization and has accused Mashaal of masterminding the kidnapping of Shalit near Gaza two years ago. Israel has also blamed Mashaal and the group's Damascus-based leadership of directing suicide bombings such as the September 2004 attacks that killed 16 Israelis in the southern city of Beersheba.

Israel tried to kill Mashaal in 1997, when agents sprayed him with poison on a street in Amman. Jordan's late King Hussein, who had signed peace with Israel in 1994, forced Israel to send the antidote that saved his life.

Afterward, Jordan expelled Mashaal to Qatar as the kingdom's ties with Hamas deteriorated, and he moved to Damascus in 1999.

[rhs648]

Carter''s holding discussions with Hamas reminds me of what others such as Jesse Jackson have done in the past. They have defied our govenment whether it be the president, congress, or the state department. To my knowledge, no action by our government was taken against these people. The problem with these meetings is that they can jeopardize our security and cause embarassment to our government. These people have no way of knowing what secret talks and actions may be taking place behind the scenes by our government.

Carter should be arrested and tried as a traitor.
He was warned by the current administration and several other high level officials not to hold meetings with Hamas. He ignored all of the warnings. I also believe that it is illegal to hold meetings with terrorist organizations, which if memory serves right Hamas is.

[libsrweak]

hamas will prove carter is a naive clueless bleeding heart liberal

[rhs648]

The meetings between Hamas and Carter were great Public Relations (PR) opportunities for Hamas. They could try to look good by offering a hollow solution. Give us back all of the land captured after the Arab world attacked you and we will have a ten year cease fire. What then? Hamas would have ten years to build an army, better arm itself, and attack again. In other words, we''ll have an official cease fire and unofficially attack you every chance we have. Don''t be a fool by buying into this hollow and meaningless public relations ploy. Hamas will be laughing at you.

[edward1975-2009]

Isreal should not broker nor accept any offer from these people, better yet, they should aggressively dispose of these muderous cowards and be rid of them forever. It has been these people who time and time again have attacked then complained when retailiated against. Time to rid the region of these fools.

[factsearcher]

Look who''s looking for peace..the author of 9/11

On July 3, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed a document that would, through the blowback it would cause, eventually seal the fate of nearly 3,000 innocent people in New York, Washington D.C. and the plains of central Pensylvania a quarter-century later. He signed the first directive to provide secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan. With the benefit of that aid, they would engage in ruthless acts of terror and sabotage, throughout the entire Afghan nation and lead to the destabilization its government. It was ultimately intended to induce a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, drawing them into what would be called Russia''s Vietnam, bringing untold misery and suffering to the people of Afghanistan. It would provide support to a new group of Islamic fundamentalists, known as the Taliban, and their allies, a secret, violent terrorist group known as Al Qaeda, run by the son of one of Saudi Arabia''s princes, whose connections could provide the covert economic support to get it going.


But the support for the Taliban and the fostering of Al Qaeda would have long term consequences that would eventually become huge indeed, leading to a horrible terrorist incident of unprecedented scale, causing an ugly scar on the American psyche. It would create a force for terrorism and instability that will take decades, if not centuries to repair

[colonieny]

Does Carter French Kiss these tyrants ? Seriously, does he get off thinking he is still President ? The man from Georgia has some kind of imperial complex - or is it the money he takes from Arabs via is Carter Center for Anti-semitism?
and , do you think he was our first Transvestite President. Something is very strange in the way he likes those men in robes .....hmm.

[obama8years]

Search YouTube.com "Obama to Shut Down America"



youtube.com/watch?v= waz57ce_hl0

Not only is Obama have Hamas ties but from his own words wants to destroy our military strength.

youtube.com/watch?v= waz57ce_hl0

VIDEO IS OF OBAMA SPEAKING....he is a nut job.

[libh8er]

''Carter: Hamas Ready To "Live" With Israel''

That''s funny....according to Hamas, Carter is a liar. They claim the said no such thing.

[closethippy1]

THE ORIGINAL SIN:

"Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us."
Albert Einstein

"...If we had invested in the Arab problem one tenth of the energy, the passion, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness
which we developed in order to gain the support of Britain, France, the US and Weimar Germany, our destiny in the development of Israel may have been quite different... We were not ready for compromises; we did not make sufficient efforts to get, if not the full agreement of the Arabs, at least their acquiescence to a Jewish state, which I think would have been possible. That was the original sin."
Dr. Nahum Goldmann
President of the World Jewish Congress
writing in the New Outlook,
November-December 1974

[lindaredtail]

I don''t know libagenda if you are still here. But I will repeat this when I find you. We went through this already. You are not being deleted any more than anyone else is. No one is being deleted. These postings only stay up for a while. Some of the threads have hundreds of comments. We don''t know how much space they are allowed on the ISP''s either. Do you? You just sounded like a paranoid schizophrenic. There are dozens and dozens of anti everything (just about) postings on here. Just chill. Engage in dialogue and enjoy yourself.

[ioweign]

Note to all Conservative Posters on this forum, it has come to my attention that my posts defending Israel and posts exposing the agenda of Hamas have been deleted from this forum. All pro-palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-Christian posts are vehemently allowed to stay on the forum however. PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THIS. CBS HAS A WICKED AGENDA. And it has become evident that past few weeks.

Posted by libagenda at 07:55 PM : Apr 21, 2008

Then why can I read your post.

Have you been making nasty statements...

[edward1975-2009]

Every time Isreal agrees to something, Hamas has broken their word. Isreal should sent them all back to Egypt from whence they came. Solve the problem.

[cfin5]

But he doesn''''t fool us all. Some of us have done an extensive amount of research on this wolf in sheep''''s clothing, Barrack Obama

Posted by libagenda at 02:31 PM : Apr 21, 2008------Yep. He has historical fangs protruding out from the mouth of his campaign costume. Never seen a sheep with those kind of choppers.

[cfin5]

libagenda,.....Wasn''t one of the things that God commanded the children of Israel NOT to do was make treaties with the heathen? I can''t remember that order being rescinded. But they''ll do it again won''t they?

[zeppfloyd]

THE CHRISTIAN THING TO DO IS PEACE!

Posted by beamish99 at 12:08 PM : Apr 21, 2008

Only after eliminating these Iranian backed Islamic fascists working to create an Iranian puppet government in Palestine.

Free Palestine from terrorist''s agendas

[cfin5]

beamish99,......Your back is out of line. Better go to the Chiropracticator soon.

[neoconrcrazy]

the israelis got their arses kicked in lebanon, they''re feeding the time-bomb in their own country. If the "terrorists" don''t do the job, demographics will. What utter stupidity to think they can resist the will of 15 million palestinians with a 10% birth rate, unlimited funds from oil-rich brothers.

And all they have to do is give the stolen land back and show a little respect for other human beings.

israel should listen to Carter, he''s saving them from self-annihilation.

[blondbeotch]

PinkLed----Man, you''re more annoying than usual today--you''re wound uppppppp!!!

[lorinkundert]

Jimmy "Osama" Carter

Meets with Terrorists, doesn''t that make him a traitor as we are at "War with Terror"?