Mr. Carter’s trip unwise
WHAT, if anything, did former American president Jimmy Carter achieve in his recent, controversial talks with leaders of Hamas and Syria?
Mr. Carter’s backers argue, as the former president does, that no peace deal in the Middle East can be achieved without talking to all parties, including Hamas, which has been frozen out by the other main players.
But those who opposed Mr. Carter’s meetings reply that by talking to the Hamas leadership, the former president has naively given stature to a terrorist organization which has no intention of allowing Israel to ever live in peace.
If one judges by results, Mr. Carter’s efforts didn’t seem to amount to much. The former president, after meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal about a week ago, declared Hamas was ready to recognize Israel’s right to live in peace if the Jewish state withdrew to its pre-1967 borders and a peace agreement was approved by the Palestinian people in a referendum. But Mr.
Mashaal was quick to correct Mr. Carter. The Hamas leader insisted his group will never formally recognize Israel but would accept a state based on pre-1967 borders, with complete sovereignty, its capital in East Jerusalem and a right of return for Palestinian refugees to their lands in Israel.
As observers pointed out, that has been Hamas’s position in the past. The insistence on the full right of return for Palestinian refugees to their lands within Israel is, as Hamas well knows, a deal breaker. Israel will never agree to the return of millions of so-called refugees, many second- and third-generation Palestinians, which would quickly make Jews a minority in their own nation.
Hamas’s other “offer,” a 10-year truce if Israel withdraws from all lands taken in the 1967 war, is similarly unappealing. In that scenario, Israel would give up all disputed land in return for a relatively brief respite in terrorist violence.
Hamas and Israel are moving towards a more pragmatic truce, one that will see rocket attacks from Gaza cease in return for an end to Israeli military attacks on militants and a loosening of the border. But that deal has been worked on through Egyptian back channels for some time and has nothing to do with Mr. Carter.
The former president, meanwhile, says Syria is ready to make peace with Israel and only minor disagreements stand in the way. With respect to Mr. Carter, he should know better than to take Syrian dictator Bashar Assad at his word.
Mr. Assad has a long history of making promises to Western visitors which he has no intention of keeping. In the past, Israel offered to give back the Golan Heights to Syria in return for a peace treaty, only to be rebuffed when it would not meet other Syrian demands.
Anyway, Mr. Carter is not seen by Israelis as a neutral party, after his recent book termed Israel’s security system apartheid against Palestinians. The former president would have done better to stay home.
Tags: bet, israel, middle east, peace agreement, stature, Trip
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Sunday, April 27th, 2008 at 12:24 am under