Why Is Jimmy Carter So Disastrously Wrong on the Middle East?

FP: Rep. Howard Berman, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Berman: Thank you.

FP: You have criticized fellow Democrat, and former president, Jimmy Carter for his recent meetings with Hamas. Update for us the form your criticism has taken.

Berman: President Carter has come under bipartisan criticism – from Republicans as well as Democrats -- for meeting with the leaders of Hamas, which is a terrorist group. Gary Ackerman, the chairman of our Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, and I urged President Carter in a letter to cancel his plans to meet with Khaled Mashaal and other members of Hamas during his visit to Syria . We wrote, “We believe this visit will undermine the Middle East peace process and damage the credibility of Palestinian moderates, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. We also believe it falls far short of the high moral standards you have set as a champion of human rights.” I stand by that view.

FP: Expand for us on the bipartisan criticism of Carter on his Hamas odyssey.

Berman: In the same week that Gary Ackerman and I sent our letter, more than four dozen Republicans and Democrats together signed a letter to President Carter asking him not to press forward with his plans to meet Khaled Mashaal, and they released it to the media. Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama also criticized President Carter’s plans to meet the Hamas leadership.

FP: Hamas is a terrorist organization that wants to wipe Israel off the map. What exactly is Carter thinking in this effort of his? Why is he extending an olive branch to Hamas and how and why does he believe in its potential goodness? He has, after all, engaged in a one-man lobbying campaign on behalf of Hamas – despite its terror on its own population and against Israel.

Berman: In recent days, President Carter made use of several opportunities to explain his thinking to the media, including just after his meeting in Syria. He also has an op-ed this week in the Washington Post. He was not persuasive.

FP: What are your thoughts in general on Carter’s view of the Middle East ? What do you think of him referring to Israel as an apartheid state? Why his malice toward Israel ?

Berman: Comparing Israel with Apartheid South Africa is deliberately provocative and demonstrates a very loose grasp on the details of both situations; it is a poor analogy. As to President Carter’s views of the Middle East in general, his concept of the forces at work in the region – who is to blame, who is to be held accountable – is way off the mark, and this undermines any initiative he may undertake there. Unfortunately, it also undermines the very people we want to help in the Middle East – President Abbas and his supporters, on the one hand, and the Israelis on the other.

FP: What policy should Israel and the U.S. pursue toward Hamas?

Berman: Israel can make its own policies, but in my opinion it has made the right choices given the circumstances. Hamas is a terrorist organization that denies Israel’s right to exist and shows no sign of changing. In fact, Israel is fully in synch with the United States and the broader international community in demanding that Hamas recognize Israel, renounce violence, and accept past Israeli-Palestinian agreements. I hope there will be no compromises on this approach; to do so would make a mockery of those Palestinians who reject violence and choose the path of negotiations. The last thing we would want is for terrorists to get the message that violence pays.

Of course, Iran is the number-one problem in the region, and we should keep in mind that Hamas is strongly backed by Iran, which provides training, funding, and probably arms to Hamas, as it does to Hezbollah. The United States needs to push for the strongest possible sanctions against Iran – and if the Security Council won’t go along, we should press our European and other allies at least to join with us in a tough sanctions regime. Our top priority should be to deprive Iran of the funds it uses for its nuclear weapons program, but a successful sanctions regime hopefully would have the additional benefit of reducing Iran’s material support for terrorists.