The Ritual Flaying of Carter
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Joe Conason
Nobody with a functioning memory should be too quick to condemn Jimmy Carter for daring to speak with the leadership of Hamas, as nearly everyone along the American political spectrum suddenly has felt obliged to do. From Condoleezza Rice and John McCain to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, along with every Congressional backbencher in both parties, expressions of disapproval have rained down upon the former president, who is old enough and tough enough to pursue his own beliefs to their logical conclusion.
“The United States is not going to deal with Hamas,” said the secretary of state, “and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help.” The justification for that policy was explained helpfully by Senator Obama, whose willingness to meet with foreign adversaries does not extend to Hamas, at least not during the primary season. The Illinois senator “does not support negotiations with Hamas until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist and abide by past agreements,” according to a spokesman for his presidential campaign.
As for Senator McCain, he reacted reflexively and demagogically, which should come as no surprise. He denounced any engagement with Hamas as a “grave and dangerous mistake” and scorched Mr. Carter for meeting with “a terrorist group that has also killed innocent Americans.” A moronic congresswoman from North Carolina, who will have to live a very long time before she achieves a tiny fraction of what Mr. Carter has, proposed to revoke his passport.
Certainly, Mr. Carter understands the nature of Hamas, an Islamist group not so different in its orientation from the radical students whose takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran ultimately ended his presidency. What he also understands these many years later is that those once shunned as terrorists and criminals, forever beyond redemption, may eventually be recognized as the only possible partners in negotiation. For, of course, that is the very transformation he has observed in the Palestine Liberation Organization during the past three decades.
When Mr. Carter hosted the historic Camp David meetings that established peace between Israel and Egypt, the Jewish state’s prime minister was the late Menachem Begin, a former terrorist who firmly declared that he would never talk with Yasser Arafat and the P.L.O. Even as the Palestinians quietly began to discuss the notion of a two-state peace settlement, American and Israeli policymakers could hardly contemplate any engagement with Arafat, whose implication in atrocious attacks on civilians was as clear as his commitment to driving the Jews into the sea. Indeed, Israel’s leaders often proclaimed that they would never talk with Arafat under any circumstances because of the Jewish blood on his hands.
Then things changed, slowly but irrevocably. Today the P.L.O. leadership, legatee of the unmourned Arafat, is not only welcomed but financially supported by the United States, with its shaky authority on the West Bank bolstered by the Israel Defense Forces. The government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority remain far from the final agreement that would achieve a just peace, but each acknowledges the legitimacy of the other.
This history lesson is not meant to minimize the obstacles to a real peace. Most prominent among those obstacles is Hamas, which will continue to undermine and embarrass Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas so long as it is excluded from any and all diplomacy. Despite the repugnant ideology and brutality of the Hamas leaders, there is no doubt that the Islamist organization enjoys substantial popular support, even among Palestinians who do not share its religious worldview.
So there can be no sustainable deal between Israel and the Palestinians that is not accepted by Hamas.
Yet our policy not only rejects any direct discussion with the Islamist party, but condemns any effort to learn what might bring them into the diplomatic process—or induce them to accept a negotiated settlement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Instead, we would require them to effectively surrender every point before we will even talk to them. That is the same mindless policy once directed by the White House toward our adversaries in Iran and North Korea until its uselessness became too obvious to ignore.
With ongoing violence in Gaza, Mr. Carter’s critics have already pronounced his mission a failure. But he elicited an official pledge that Hamas would honor a semi-permanent truce under certain conditions, and accept a Palestinian referendum to ratify a peace settlement. That hint of moderation, halting and reversible, suggests that he may yet be vindicated.
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Critics have not pronounced his mission a failure but an exercise in dangerous stupidity. His detractors are not acting on some inner animus for peace, but on the long history of other misguided missiles, like former attorney general Ramsey Clarke. During the Iran during hostage crisis his idea of helping the situation was to go to Tehran and lobby against the United States. The result, of course, was a protraction of the crisis. Functioning memory, indeed.
The article lacks wisdom in the level of involvement that our former President has pursued in his acting as a "World Statesman" ever since he left office. He has become an embarrassment to this country for all his Un-American proclamations in articles, discussions and speeches overseas as well as his desire to continue to be an activist on the world stage even after his time has disappeared.
He hasn't been asked to assume the role of ad-hoc ambassador by anyone in Washington but he constantly wants to attempt to recreate his success at Camp David. People forget that a large number of Egyptians weren't too pleased with Sadat's position after the conference and eventually succeeded in sending him into permanent retirement.
Carter going to see Hamas and attempting to develop a dialogue to assist in the reconciliation of the Palestinians and Israel disputes was a ploy by him to elevate his own ego. There have been and are currently diplomatic efforts towards that end by the White House and State Department. Allowing himself to be used by Hamas for the purpose of advancing an agenda has definitely shown in the last days what a buffoon Carter is.
The current administration and all legitimate organizational efforts towards advancing the agenda of both groups within the Palestinian community are absurd at best. They are opposite poles of the equation with no effort being made to generate a consensus between them. To proceed with meaningful dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians will only come about when either Fattah is successful in elections in ousting Hamas, or when through military actions Hamas is defeated. Either remedy seems remote at best at this time. This reality is the same one Carter had to have been aware of when we decided to venture into this quagmire. He resolved nothing... So did Mr. Conason in writing this article.
Mr. Canason misses the point - big time. Of course, the U.S. and Israel are in some kind of back-channel discussion with Hamas; if not directly, then through Israel. The objection to Carter's visit is that it gave credibility to Hamas and they did not have to yield anything - not their commitment to violence, shellings, abductions and their stated ultimate goal of destroying Israel. And what did Mr. Canason mean when he wrote of "...the repugnant ideology and brutality of the Hamas leaders"? Is he exonerating the rank and file? What about all those dancing Palestinians when two students were killed in a library?
The constant equation of violence of the Palestinians with the defense of the Israelis is specious. If Mexico fired bombs across the border at Texas, no matter how inefficient or poorly aimed, would anyone say that U.S. military intervention was "disproportionate"?
Honestly! Our moron president (Bush) demands an election in Palestine which, with much evidence in front of him that Hamas will win. He screws this up, he screws up Lebanon, he's screwed up Iraq and Jimmy Carter is a buffoon? Look a little closer to your political home if you're looking for buffoons.
Maybe Mr. Levin is missing the point. You say we are in back channel discussions with Hamas in violation of our foolish right wing president's philosophy never to talk to terrorists. These terrorists have more credibility, not due to Jimmy Carter, but due to Bush's insistence on an election in Palestine. Bush seemed to need to buttress his rationale for the Iraq War as being a war fought for the establishment of democracy when in fact the whole Middle East has become even more a jumbled mess because of Bush's policies. Yet Carter is to blame. Yours is a moronic argument. Why don't you put the Middle East mess squarely on the person who has exacerbated it more than anyone - George W. Bush.
The biggest problem we have with solving the Palastinian crisis is our own bickering between our political parties.How can we solve this problem if we cannot agree on a strategy within our own government?We probably should butt out if we dont have any helpful suggestions or policies.I say let Israel solve this problem their way.
I have alway believed that Jimmy Carter is one of the most honest men to have occupied the Oval Office in recent history. Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and LBJ would occupy the other end of that spectrum. I admire Carter's unrelenting efforts at peace although I feel he sometimes overreaches in an attempt to compensate for his failed Presidency.
It is interesting to place the current crop of Presidential candidates next to Jimmy Carter. Obama says "I could no more disown Rev. Wright than I could disown the black community." Two weeks later, Obama disowns him for repeating the same things that caused the initial controversy. And of course, there's Hillary Clinton's "sniper fire" incident. Anyone longing for a candidate of integrity again?