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NEW YORK CITY — Former President Jimmy Carter is reportedly preparing an unprecedented meeting with the leader of Hamas, an organization that the U.S. government considers one of the leading terrorist threats in the world. The Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Tuesday that Carter was planning a trip to Syria for mid-April, during which he would meet with Khaled Meshal, the exiled head of the Palestinian terror group Hamas, on April 18. Deanna Congileo, Carter’s press secretary, confirmed in an e-mail to FOXNews.com that Carter will be in the Mideast in April. Pressed for comment, Congileo did not deny that the...

Israel this week issued a formal rejection of a recent offer by former US President Jimmy Carter and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to mediate a ceasefire between the Jewish state and the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip. Carter and Annan sent their proposal to Israel several weeks ago, and noted that South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Irish President Mary Robinson would also be part of the mediation team. Carter, Annan, Tutu and Robinson have for decades been among the foremost international critics of Israel's right to defend itself against Arab Muslim terrorism and have regularly lent...

Many Americans listen to Barack Obama and hear a message of hope, but I look at Obama and think of Jimmy Carter. Lest you think this comparison is faulty, pause for a moment to consider the striking similarities between them. Like Carter, Obama is a good and upright politician who appeals to a nation desperate for change. In fact, just as Americans were attracted to Carter's honesty in the aftermath of Watergate, many are now drawn to Obama's earnestness following the debacle that has become the Bush presidency. And just as Carter was a decent man singularly unqualified to deal...

Former president Jimmy Carter convened a large assembly of moderate and liberal Baptists in Atlanta a few weeks ago, meeting under the banner of a "Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant," seeking unity for social action across racial and theological boundaries among 30 different Baptist denominations. Ironically, President Carter's appeal to the first century dispute between Paul and Peter as an example of why Christians today should seek unity in spite of theological differences is actually a vivid illustration of the theological danger ahead for this effort and why Southern Baptists cannot be involved. Conspicuously absent from the gathering was...

More than a quarter-century after completing his term of office, James Earl Carter is still to be found in the thick of debates about national policies on a range of issues: nuclear arms, Iraq, North Korea, and, especially, the conflict between Israel and the Arabs. A steady stream of books and articles continues to issue forth from his pen, and he travels the world on self-selected diplomatic missions. No other former President has chosen to play a similar role. But then, Carter’s whole political career has been out of the ordinary. In order to understand the man today, it is...

Professor Alan Dershowitz, of the Harvard Law School, spoke before friends of the Hudson Institute in New York [yesterday]. Hudson Institute is a major think tank that conducts research to advance global security, prosperity and freedom. Among other things, Professor Dershowitz revealed that Noam Chomsky, the radical leftist, had once been his camp counselor. Apparently, Counselor Chomsky did no lasting harm to Counselor Dershowitz. Another thing Professor Dershowitz revealed tells us much about former President Jimmy Carter. It seems that when Carter appeared at Brandeis to plug his book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, he pledged to answer any questions that...

One of the marks of traumatic stress is a constant feeling of guilt. Some of the rescue workers at Ground Zero on 9/11 still suffer from survivor guilt today. They constantly wonder, "Why did those people die? Why not me?" Yet guilt is what makes civilized society possible; it's what keeps us from unleashing our most selfish impulses on each other. Not everybody is capable of feeling guilt. Psychopaths do not experience it. That is a defining feature of the disorder. That is why psychopaths can do things that would haunt most of us forever. Think of O.J. Simpson, or...

Jimmy Carter, America’s most powerless, indecisive President, who allowed a mob of uneducated Iranian students to hold Americans hostage for more than a year, says he wouldn’t have done anything differently. Speaking with XM Radio’s Bob Edwards on Tuesday, former President Jimmy Carter (you know, the guy who gave the “malaise” speech) told the radio host that he “would not want to have changed anything” during his presidency. Well, okay, maybe one thing. Referring to the Iran hostage crisis, Carter said, “I have a specific regret in not having one more helicopter when I wanted to rescue our hostages. If...

The United States tortures prisoners, former President Carter charged on Wednesday. "I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview. "Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused." Carter also criticized President Bush's recent declaration: "This government does not torture people." "That's not...

Jimmy Carter says in an interview that he wouldn't have changed a thing about his presidency. He claims that if he had only had "one more helicopter," he could have freed those hostages and thus won re-election. But he adds, if he had won a second term, he probably would not have the Carter Center today. So he says, it's a good thing. I'd love for him to explain this logic to the people he ignored for 444 days.

Jimmy Carter has never met a genocidal murderous dictator he didn’t like: ’Elders’ criticize West’s response to situation in Darfur. As the Darfur peace mission of the retired statesmen known as the Elders came to an end, two of their number - former UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and former US President Jimmy Carter - chastened the West for its handling of the violent situation in Sudan. The BBC reports that Mr. Brahimi - a member of the group of Elders that includes Archbishop Desmond Tutu, rights advocate Graca Machel, and entrepreneur Richard Branson - chastised the West for pandering to...

Sometimes you really can tell a book by its cover. Former president Jimmy Carter’s decision to title his new anti-Israel screed Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid tells it all. His use of the loaded word “apartheid,” suggesting an analogy to the hated policies of South Africa, is especially outrageous, considering his acknowledgement buried near the end of his shallow and superficial book that what is going on in Israel today “is unlike that in South Africa—not racism, but the acquisition of land.” Nor does he explain that Israel’s motivation for holding on to land it captured in a defensive war is...

At the inaugural ceremony, Prime Minister Mugabe’s call for reconciliation between blacks and whites came as a welcome surprise to those who had for years dismissed him as “a Marxist-terrorist trying to gain power through the barrel of a gun.” … The unexpected size of his majority gave Mugabe an unequivocal mandate.... All in all, the election and handover represented a triumph of democracy in the face of considerable external pressure. — Andrew Young, President Carter’s Ambassador to the United Nations The excerpted statement above by Andrew Young provides a small sampling of the outrageous commentary on Robert Mugabe’s ascension...

In the mid twentieth century, US-Iran relations prospered. Many Americans celebrated Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a model king. President Lyndon B. Johnson pronounced in 1964: "What is going on in Iran is about the best thing going on anywhere in the world". During the 1970's Iran's Shah propelled Iran into becoming a dynamic middle-east regional power. The Shah implemented broad economic and social reforms, including enhanced rights for women, and religious and ethnic minorities. Economic and educational reforms were adopted, initiatives to cleanse politics of social upheaval were systematized, and the civil service system was reformed. When sectors of...

Food shortages have become common in Zimbabwe Zimbabwe is to start circulating a new 200,000 Zimbabwe dollar note, in a bid to tackle the country's inflation, the highest in the world. The new note, issued by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe from Wednesday, can buy 1kg (2.2lb) of sugar. Food and fuel shortages have become common as the government relies more heavily on imports, pushing prices to new heights. The official annual rate of inflation in Zimbabwe is nearing 5,000%. In practice, this means the price of a loaf of bread costs 50 times more in cash than it did...

We just don't get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called "dim-witted cowboy," has created the entire mess. The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini. Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a...

J.D. Pendry is a retired Army Command Sergeant Major who writes for Random House. He writes: Jimmy Carter, you're the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the runner-in-chief. Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia, and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses to the U.S.S. Cole and the first...

Two decades later – it’s still about Iran MILITARY ANALYSIS By Lt. Col. Rick Francona July 5, 2007 It comes as no surprise that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force, the elite special operations unit, was involved in the January attack in Karbala that killed five American soldiers. The newer and somewhat surprising detail in the recent revelation by the American command in Baghdad is the direct participation of Lebanese Hezbollah operatives in Iraq. One of these fighters, Ali Musa Daqduq, was captured by American forces in March near Basrah. According to Daqduq, he was sent to Iran in...

When former President Jimmy Carter spoke at Brandeis University in January, he complained that “this is the first time I’ve ever been called a liar…”. Well, he’d better get used to it, because I can now prove that he is a liar. Last week, in a speech at George Washington University, he categorically denied that he had received any invitation to debate me about his book. He said that he had—these are his quoted words—“never received any invitation to debate, contrary to what a Harvard professor has said.”[1] Well, one of us is lying, and it’s not me. My best...

The U.S. should talk with Nepal's former rebels who Washington still considers terrorists despite their joining mainstream politics, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said Saturday. Carter met Maoist leader Prachanda, who only goes by one name, and his deputy Baburam Bhattarai a day earlier when the former guerrillas urged him to help remove them from the U.S. government's terrorist list. "My opinion is the United States should establish some communication with the Maoists because it is obvious that the people of Nepal have accepted the Maoists as playing a role in the shaping of the future of this country," Carter...

In April 1979, 64 percent of the black citizens of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) lined up at the polls to vote in the first democratic election in the history of that southern African nation. Two-thirds of them supported Abel Muzorewa, a bishop in the United Methodist Church. He was the first black prime minister of a country only 4 percent white. Muzorewa's victory put an end to the 14-year political odyssey of outgoing prime minister Ian Smith, the stubborn World War II veteran who had infamously announced in 1976, "I do not believe in black majority rule--not in a thousand years."...

Leadership: After being told over and over by President Jimmy Carter that America's ability to influence world events was "very limited," the Soviet Union believed him and invaded Afghanistan. And al-Qaida was born. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Profile In Incompetence: Third In A Series More on this series-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carter had the perfect "anti-slogan" for a post-Watergate presidential campaign: "I will never lie to you." Unfortunately, Carter based America's relationship with the Soviet Union on the delusion that the Russians would never lie to him. He infamously expressed shock that Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev lied to him during a "hot line" phone call following...

AM WASHINGTON -- Former President Jimmy Carter is a clever rascal. The other day, when he esteemed the presidency of George W. Bush "the worst in history," he was naturally intent on bold-faced headlines. He is always covetous of attention. But there was more to it. Assigning the Bush presidency the "worst in history" is now a major theme among leading Democrats, and it cannot have been lost on Jimmy that if President Bush's presidency becomes known as the "worst," Jimmy's presidency will only be runner-up. So Jimmy rather brazenly joined his fellow Democrats and made yet another attempt to...

Last weekend, former President Jimmy Carter criticized George W. Bush’s presidency as “the worst in history” in international relations, and told a BBC radio audience that British Prime Minister’s loyalty to Bush was “abominable.” Blair, he said, had been “loyal, blind, apparently subservient.” It was the fourth time in the last six years that Carter has cast Bush as our “worst” president ever. He has inadvertently done us a favor by reminding us that there was a very ugly era when things were far worse than they are today -- the period of 1976 to 1980, known as “The Carter...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Former President Carter says President Bush's administration is "the worst in history" in international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy. The criticism from Carter, which a biographer says is unprecedented for the 39th president, also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative funding. "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Carter told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a story that appeared in the newspaper's Saturday...

Carter pipes up, calls Bush’s way ‘worst in history’ Foreign relations at ebb, he says Copyright 2007, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. BY FRANK LOCKWOOD ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE In a stinging rebuke to President Bush, former President Carter on Friday called the current administration “the worst in history” when it comes to international relations. During a telephone interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from the Carter Center in Atlanta, the ex-president also accused the current White House occupant of eliminating the line between church and state and of abandoning “America’s basic values.” “I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around...

Former President Jimmy Carter recently has stepped up his efforts to split the bonds between Evangelical voters and Israel. From The Jewish Week: Wading into the delicate fray over the alliance between Jews and pro-Israel Evangelicals, former President Jimmy Carter last week reportedly said it was a mistake for Jews to accept such ties, and that he was working to convince Southern Baptists to change the way they look at Judaism and the Middle East. Christian Zionists can be better friends of Israel by challenging its government's policies, while accepting Judaism as a legitimate path to God, Carter told a...

At UC Berkeley on Wednesday, May 2, 2007, Jimmy Carter spoke about Middle East “peace.” Chancellor Robert Birgeneau began Carter’s introduction by saying  “Although most of our undergraduate students were not even born when Jimmy Carter served as the 39th President of the US from 1977-1981, his impact on the world and long life of public service continues to draw students.”  That was indeed the problem.  Most of the 1,200 students -- who attended this event and nearly made a full house at Zellerbach Auditorium on the Cal campus -- were clearly too young to know Carter’s past history and, consequently, lacked a frame...

Royal Navy Arrests On TV Updated: 17:25, Thursday March 29, 2007 New footage of 15 British marines and sailors being seized by Tehran's armed forces has been aired on Iranian TV. More to follow...

Source: University of Georgia Date: March 20, 2007 Study Details Catastrophic Impact Of Nuclear Attack On US Cities Science Daily — A new study by researchers at the Center for Mass Destruction Defense (CMADD) at the University of Georgia details the catastrophic impact a nuclear attack would have on American cities. A dense column of smoke rises more than 60,000 feet into the air over the Japanese port of Nagasaki, the result of an atomic bomb, the second ever used in warfare, dropped on the industrial center August 8, 1945, from a U.S. B-29 Superfortress. (Credit: Image courtesy of U.S....

Despite the storm it ignited, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter held fast on Thursday to his accusation that Israel oppresses the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza and seeks to colonize their land. Speaking at The George Washington University to a polite but mostly critical student audience, Carter offered no second thoughts on his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid that prompted 14 members of the Carter Center's advisory board to resign and drew fire from Jewish groups and some fellow Democrats. He said he was not accusing Israel of racism nor referring to its treatment of Arabs within the...

The apartheid in Israel is not what you think. This week has been declared "Apartheid Week" on campuses throughout North America. Spurred on by Jimmy Carter's book, Arabs and liberal leftists throughout the world are celebrating international recognition of a South Africa in the Middle East. Many op-ed pieces and articles are attacking the "apartheid" label. But I think they're wrong. In this case, I'm in agreement with many who are 'on the other side.' Of course, though, we are viewing different realities and seeing an entirely dissimilar picture. But they are correct. Israel practices apartheid, and another of their favorite...

There are not many Cubans prepared to use the "D" word in reference to Fidel Castro, but Angela, a medic in her late twenties, has no fear. "He is practically a dictator, but Cuban people don't see that," she said. "The idea in this country is control - that is all that matters." Four years ago, Angela - who is understandably not fearless enough to give her real name - applied to leave and start a new life in America. Serious illness may have forced the Maximum Leader into the background, but she is not changing her plans. "I don't...

WASHINGTON - Republican Mitt Romney's choice of a museum honoring auto pioneer Henry Ford as the site of his presidential announcement was strongly criticized Monday by Jewish Democrats, who noted Ford's history of anti-Semitism. The former Massachusetts governor, who is scheduled to formally launch his presidential candidacy from the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit on Tuesday, was taken to task by The National Jewish Democratic Council.The council "is deeply troubled by Governor Romney's choice of locations to announce his Presidential campaign," executive director Ira Forman said in a statement."Romney has been traveling the country talking about inclusiveness and understanding of...

Iran: Giant achievements coming soon Ahmadinejad: On February 11, Islamic Republic's nuclear rights 'will be established' Yaakov Lappin Published: 02.04.07, 17:13 "Giant achievements" by Iran will be unveiled by its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the coming days, the Iranian Fars news agency reported on Saturday. The Iranian news agency said an upcoming dramatic announcement on Iran's nuclear "rights" would be made on February 11. The report was accompanied by a series of announcements heralding alleged Iranian technological and medical breakthroughs, including an "AIDS cure." Ahmadinejad's "administration is going to publicize the country's remarkable progresses and achievements within the coming days,"...

Washington - The United States (US) treasury department named two South African cousins as al-Qaeda financiers and facilitators, ordering a freeze on any US assets they may have and banning Americans from doing business with them. The treasury, invoking an executive order used to combat terrorist financing and money laundering activities, said Farhad Ahmed Dockrat provided funds to a trust used by al-Qaeda, and his cousin, Junaid Ismail Dockrat, helped facilitate travel of South Africans to Pakistan for al-Qaeda training. The action ends days of speculation about the two Muslim cousins after a South African foreign ministry spokesperson said Johannesburg...

WALTHAM, Mass. (Jan 24, 2007): Jimmy Carter defended his controversial book yesterday, telling a predominantly Jewish university that his goal was revive Middle East peace talks and that attacks on his character had hurt him and his family. Jewish groups have expressed outrage at "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," arguing that its comparison of Israel's treatment of Palestinians with South Africa's reviled apartheid system of racial segregation could undermine perceptions of Israel's legitimacy. The former U.S. president, in his first direct address to Jewish Americans on his book, said the title referred to human rights in the Palestinian territories, not in...

(03:02 PM) Enabling Law approved in first discussion Caracas. - The National Assembly this afternoon approved unanimously and in first discussion a law which enables President Hugo Chavez to legislate by decree during [a period of] 18 months. The second debate will be carried out next Thursday, a day in which its definitive passage is forecast. Chavez was authorized "to dictate by decree . . . with the force of law, with statutory urgency," the President of the National Assembly, Cilia Flores, said after deputies approved the petition of the Chief Executive by a show of hands, as reviewed by...

January 15, 2007 -- Has a former president of the United States - a Nobel Peace Prize winner, no less - given his blessing to wanton murder and terrorist assaults against Israel? Sure looks that way. How else to read that astonishing statement on page 213 of Jimmy Carter's new anti-Israel screed, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid"? To wit: "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - In 25 years of interviews with his hometown paper that could only be released upon his death, former President Ford once called Jimmy Carter a "disaster" who ranked alongside Warren Harding, and said Ronald Reagan received far too much credit for ending the Cold War. "It makes me very irritated when Reagan's people pound their chests and say that because we had this big military buildup, the Kremlin collapsed," Ford told The Grand Rapids Press. The best president of his lifetime, Ford said, was a more moderate Republican: Dwight D. Eisenhower. Harry Truman "would get very...

'Malicious Advocacy' The Carter Center councilors' letter of resignation. Thursday, January 11, 2007 12:00 p.m. EST Dear fellow member of the Carter Center Board of Councilors, This has been a difficult time for us. As members of the Board of Councilors of the Carter Center we have endeavored to promote the efforts of the Carter Center in our community. However, the recent book authored by President Carter "Palestine; Peace not Apartheid" and his comments in the press made while promoting the book have given us pause in our efforts. We are deeply troubled by the President's comments and writings and...

Why should Americans view Jimmy Carter with affection or respect? Why would anyone who remembers the devastating impact of his presidency give serious consideration to his opinions on any subject in foreign or domestic policy? An alarming survey suggests that a plurality of the public now considers Carter an “above average” President –in stark contrast to George W. Bush, considered “below average” by an overwhelming margin. Bush, however, won a decisive victory when he ran for re-election (the first candidate to win an outright majority in 16 years – since his father’s triumph in 1988), while Carter lost to Reagan...

I grew up in the US during the 1970s, the one decade universally acknowledged to have truly sucked. In 1970s America we danced to disco music, wore leisure suits and watched the Brady Bunch. But if that wasn't torture enough, we had Jimmy Carter as our president. I can still recall how depressing it was to watch his taciturn face on TV announcing one catastrophe after another, from the skyrocketing misery index, to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, to the capture of our hostages in Iran, to the tragically-botched rescue attempt to free them. Jimmy Carter was arguably the most...

To understand what feeds former president Jimmy Carter's anti-Israeli frenzy, look at his early links to Arab business. Between 1976-1977, the Carter family peanut business received a bailout in the form of a $4.6 million, "poorly managed" and highly irregular loan from the National Bank of Georgia (NBG). According to a July 29, 1980 Jack Anderson expose in The Washington Post, the bank's biggest borrower was Mr. Carter, and its chairman at that time was Mr. Carter's confidant, and later his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Bert Lance.

Americans who buy the smallest cars on the market are twice as likely to have fatal accidents as drivers of midsize and larger vehicles, according to a report being released today by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The data and increased sales of the fuel-efficient "minicars" prompted the institute to test, for the first time, eight models to determine which are safest. Minicars typically weigh about 2,500 pounds or less, half the weight of large pickup trucks or SUVs such as the 4,500-pound Ford Explorer... In the testing, only the Nissan Versa received "good" ratings in front, side, and...

I SIGNED A CONTRACT with Simon & Schuster two years ago to write a book about the Middle East, based on my personal observations as the Carter Center monitored three elections in Palestine and on my consultations with Israeli political leaders and peace activists... The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations — but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any...

A longtime aide to Jimmy Carter has resigned from the Carter Center think tank, calling the former president's new book on Israel and the Arabs one-sided and filled with errors. Kenneth Stein, the Carter Center's first executive director and founder of its Middle East program, sent a letter that bluntly criticized the book to Carter and others. Stein wrote that the book, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid," was replete with factual errors, material copied from other sources and "simply invented segments," according to an excerpt of the letter published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Deanna Congileo, Carter's spokeswoman, said the former president...

VIDEO: 'You're a racist and anti-Semite,' one caller shouted at Carter during C-SPAN2 broadcast... Developing...

UNITED NATIONS — As Palestinian Arab rockets struck two Israeli towns yesterday, U.N. bodies prepared to launch no fewer than two overlapping "fact-finding" missions to second-guess Israel's anti-terrorist tactics. President Carter could head one of those missions. The U.N. General Assembly is expected to convene a special emergency session tomorrow to deal with the November 8 Israel Defense Force artillery strike on the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, which killed 19 civilians. A draft resolution for the assembly session calls on the U.N. secretary-general to establish a fact-finding mission into the event and requests that he report back to...

Gov. Bill Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador who has parleyed with North Korea, is urging diplomacy in dealing with an announcement by North Korea that it had set off an underground nuclear test. Richardson, who said he considers the test a hostile act, urged the Bush administration to seek immediate support from the United Nations Security Council for U.S. efforts to stop North Korea's nuclear weapons development. The crisis needs face-to-face diplomacy, Richardson said in a statement released late Sunday. The Democratic governor, who was U.N. ambassador and U.S. energy secretary during the Clinton administration, visited North Korea in October...