Jimmy Carter’s Lonely Stand
The former president holds Christianity in the U.S. mostly responsible for America's pro-Israeli policies and intolerance of Hamas
(June 27, 2007) – In a speech delivered at the University of Oxford last week former U.S. President Jimmy Carter claimed that, because of their refusal to recognize an avowed terrorist group as a legitimate governing body, the U.S., Israel and the European Union were responsible for further alienating the two prevailing Palestinian factions—Fatah and Hamas.
In a press conference following his speech, the former president went so far as calling the policies of Western powers “criminal,” the Associated Press reported.
In the speech, Carter offered no criticisms of Hamas’s quick and murderous takeover of Gaza, which forced the moderate Fatah into the West Bank and by default continued to choke off outside aid to Gaza’s suffering Palestinian communities.
| “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it. Preamble to the Hamas Charter” |
Instead, Carter blamed America’s strong Judeo-Christian values for being large impediments to “any debate or balanced discussion about the Middle East.”
“[America’s] strong support for Israel comes mostly from among Christians like me,” he lamented.
Hamas, whose own charter states, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it,” believes jihad against Israel is its only road to peace. And by how they voted in last year’s elections more than 40 percent of the entire Palestinian population feel the same way. That’s how much of the popular vote went to Hamas—elections that Carter’s own monitors called “honest and peaceful.”
If true, then Israel’s only potential peace partner for more than a year has been a Hamas-backing Palestinian people, all of whom are presumably committed to Israel's annihilation.
After the election, Carter, unlike a majority of Western leaders, believed the international community would do well in recognizing Hamas. In his speech at Oxford, he called America’s decision last year to cut off revenue to the new terrorist government a “persecution and abuse.”
The former president exhibited an almost sweeping support for the Hamas terrorist organization, even claiming Hamas leaders have “endorsed” peace talks all along but that it has been Israel, the U.S. and the UN who have hindered peace by not lending Hamas legitimacy. He also hailed Hamas’s community involvement, noting the well-organized terror group’s amazing ability to enforce among Palestinian neighborhoods a “remarkable reduction of violence and corruption.”
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