Posted on 06/19/2007 8:17:51 AM PDT by SJackson
Carter: Stop favoring Fatah over Hamas By ASSOCIATED PRESS DUBLIN, Ireland
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181813074587&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements, former US President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday.
Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was addressing a conference of Irish human rights officials, said the Bush administration's refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was "criminal."
Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Hamas fighters routed Fatah in their violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week. The split prompted Abbas to dissolve the power-sharing government with his rivals in Hamas and set up a Fatah-led administration to govern the West Bank.
Carter said the American-Israeli-European consensus to reopen direct aid to the new government in the West Bank, but to deny the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, represented an "effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples."
While seeking to boycott the Hamas leadership because of its refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel, Europe and the US have continued to send humanitarian aid to Gaza through the United Nations and other organizations.
During his speech to Ireland's eighth annual Forum on Human Rights, the 83-year-old former president said monitors from his Carter Center observed the 2006 election in which Hamas won 42 percent of the popular vote and a majority of parliamentary seats.
Carter said that election was "orderly and fair" and Hamas triumphed, in part, because it was "shrewd in selecting candidates," whereas a divided, corrupt Fatah ran multiple candidates for single seats.
Far from encouraging Hamas's move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the US and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, has sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.
"That action was criminal," he said in a news conference after his speech.
"The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah," he said.
Carter said the United States and others supplied the Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza with vastly superior weaponry in hopes they would "conquer Hamas in Gaza" - but Hamas this month routed Fatah because of its "superior skills and discipline."
He said plans to reopen international aid to the West Bank, but clamp down on aid to Gaza, would imprison 1.4 million Gazans. He called for both territories to be treated equally.
"This effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples now is a step in the wrong direction," he said. "All efforts of the international community should be to reconcile the two, but there's no effort from the outside to bring the two together."
Carter was pessimistic this would happen soon. "I don't see at this point any possibility that public officials in the United States, or in Israel, or the European Union are going to take action to bring about reconciliation," he said.
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Hamas official wants dialogue with Fatah By AP AND JPOST STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181813070301&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Facing growing international isolation, the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday called for a "national dialogue" with their vanquished Fatah foes.
"We are shocked and surprised by the voices forbidding discussions with us, while they enter discussions with Israel," Khalil al-Haya, a prominent Hamas lawmaker, said at a news conference. "We are still prepared for a brotherly serious and responsible national dialogue."
The statement followed a decision made by Fatah's top leadership body to cut off all contacts with Hamas, a participant said. The decision was made in a meeting of the Fatah Central Committee, said Azzam al-Ahmed.
"The Fatah Central Committee decided today not to conduct any kind of contact, dialogue or meetings with Hamas unless it ends its military coup in Gaza and restores the situation to normal," al-Ahmed said. "Fatah will have no relationship with Hamas on any level."
Yeah....Jimmy Carter....a legend in his own mind....
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Nice to to see Jimmy back from pandering to the Maoists in Nepal. Bet he's glad to be back to his day job, supporting Hamas.
Jimmy is such a know-it-all; if only Reagan hadn’t beaten him, this all would have been solved in Carter’s second term.
Carter should just shut the hell up and stay out in his pasture.
Imagine those unreasonable Israelis, slighting Hamas simply because its charter calls for the destruction of Israel. I mean, how petty can you be! /sarcasm off
Shut up Jimmy, your hug a dictator theories are so 1970’s.
Just started reading RR's Diary; he takes some good shots at JC.
Jimmy Carter is an old man who is unafraid of committing us all to his reasonable suicide pact of appeasement.
Nobel Prize Laureate? Same people will probably give one to Al Gore also. Hell they gave one to Yasser Arifat. Tells you something about the Nobel Prize.
Tells me that it is the next set of coordinates that I would like to dial into my GPS...
And when do the Palestinian people - and I find that term highly suspect - take responsibility for themselves?
Carter is as deserving of the peace prize as much as the current holder of Arafat's Nobel (who just acquired it during the Hamas takeover).
Right. It's awarded for the 'Pet Project at the Moment'.
Ronald Reagan brought more peace to this world than Jimmah, yet this fool of fools gets a peace prize. What a joke.
Carter meanwhile allowed a radical Islamic state to rise in Iran, gave control of the Panama canal to a dope dealing sleaze bag, allowed Nicaragua to fall to the communist backed leftist, allowed Castro to unload his prison and mental hospital populations on south Florida and certified the election of lunatic in Venezuela. His actions have caused more death, destruction and unrest than any other person to hold such a high office as the Presidency of the United States, and they gave this fool a peace prize.
Alfred Nobel must have been rolling over in his grave when that occurred.
What Jimmy Cater doesn’t know could fill oceans.
What he has accomplished that helped his nation couldn’t fill a thimble.
The poor schnook has positively no idea of what’s going on - anywhere.
He should’ve stuck to peanuts.
This moron get all the MSM ink he wants....George Bush freed 50 million people and the press wants to piss on him...
I’m convinced this country is so clueless we have no hope against the jihad.
Folks like Carter- never seem to grasp the reality of their insanity, treachery, obsolescence or danger to society..
They also explain the act of assassination....
Well dog-breath Jimmuh, the elections in Venezuela were “legitimate” as well, weren’t they? But they won’t be in the future. Thugs are thugs wherever they are - Gaza or Caracas. It is becoming time to start eliminating thugs as best we can.
Sorry Jimmah, going to have to disagree with you. Hamas may have been “elected”, but Hamas or Fatah, it makes no difference. Neither wants peace with Israel. Tactics should be changed. Europe and the United States should withdraw all funds and aid immediately. If the Palestinians want Hamas leading them, let them have their way. Once Hamas decides to attack Israel for the upteenth time, Israel should attack Hamas into an unconditional surrender, with NO outside interference. And if one is not reached, Israel should wipe them out. This whole charade has been played out.
Mr. Carter, is “the enemy within” incarnate.
He resents America for no taking the due punishment (malaise) he inflicted in the 70’s. The way he sees it, America cheated, got of scot free, and still needs to learn how to suffer.
There are people I don’t like, for example Pat Buchanan. He suffers from a joo-derangement syndrome. But I found myself in agreement with him on a good number of points otherwise. I can’t come up with anything I can agree with Carter. I’d immediately doubt myself if he said that its a daytime at 1:30 pm
this guy is utterly hopeless.Stupid it the better word.
I believe the US did recognize the legitimacy of the Hamas elections, andtherefore in recogniton said that we will NOT send any more aid to a govt run by known terrorists.
nick
I’d like to, but can you give us some examples now?
I think Billy was the smart one in the family.
You just mentioned some of his foreign policy fiascos. Look at his domestic record when he left office. Double digit interest rates. Double digit unemployment. Double digit inflation. He also gutted the military.
And this would be bad?
Jimmy Carter is living proof that liberalism is a mental disorder
Jimmuh got dropped on his head when he was a baby.
I knew this Nazi man would say so supporting Hamas. Carter is on my list as the second worst president after Clinton. I wish those two were not president.
Oh Lord please smite the amalekite from Georgia!
Disgusting. Carter has gotten more bitter the older he gets. Sometimes that happens to the elderly. They either get more wise or more bitter, caustic, and set in their ways.
Jimmy Carter has a lot of troubl;e telling the truth. Here is a link:
http://blogcentral.jpost.com/index.php?cat_id=7&blog_id=59&blog_post_id=935
Since he is a very old man I am willing to allow that he may have difficulty remembering what he says. But Dershowitz’s article is very interesting.
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