Jimmy Carter's Planned Hamas Meeting Criticized By Bush Administration

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Huffington Post   |   April 10, 2008 05:11 PM


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CNN reports that the Bush administration is urging former president Jimmy Carter not to meet with the leader of Hamas during Carter's trip to the Middle East:

The Bush administration has urged former President Jimmy Carter not to go forward with plans to meet with the leader of Hamas, the State Department said Thursday.


Carter may meet next week in Damascus, Syria, with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, as part of a trip to the Middle East.

Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo told CNN she could not confirm or deny whether any specific meeting might take place during Carter's trip.

However, a Hamas official told CNN that Carter plans to meet with Meshaal, who lives in exile in Damascus to avoid being arrested or killed by Israel.


Carter stirred up lots of controversy with the publication of his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

Alan Dershowitz blogged about the book for HuffPost.

Read the New York Times' review of the book.


 
 

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And why wouldn't the Bush 'administration' be critical?...They know no other recourse than war...Diplomacy?...What is that?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:42 PM on 04/17/2008

Jimmy Carter is the worst president in modern times. He has become so disgusting in his life after losing the presidency in an effort to create a positive legacy. He is an embarassment to the USA. I am not surprised that he courts terrorists since he helped create their movement. Just disgusting.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:09 PM on 04/14/2008

What if Carter anyway decides to meet with the Hamas leader? Does it lead to impounding his visa? What wll be the future relations between expresidents? Is it wise to have noninterventionary politics where expresidents remain to be silent observers even when the country takes a wrong track? Are we to think that whatever course the president sets is the right course specially where the international affairs are concerned? Congress is of course there to impose checks and balances if their authority is not superseded. The question is what if not?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:42 PM on 04/11/2008

Carter is the only US president to have brought peace between arabs and jews, Jordan/Egypt/Israel, while Bush has done nothing but shed blood in the Middle East who does he think he is to advice Jimmy Carter? Frankly Carter was/is a far better president than George W. Bush ever was/is

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:32 AM on 04/11/2008

Actually the peace treaty bewteen Egypt and Israel was signed during the Clinton administration (give credit where credit is due). By the way Jordan actually has banned Hamas...maybe they know something you don't.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:50 PM on 04/11/2008

Hillary '08

So Peanut Head is headed over to the great sand pit to talk with the leader of a terrorist group. Big deal. It's no surprise and it's his style. It does not mean anything except that he is willing to sit down with thugs and killers and then flash that stupid smile that we all became so sick of in the late '70s.

Hillary '08

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:02 AM on 04/11/2008

Well said, except that your spewing hateful gibberish.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:29 PM on 04/11/2008

"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" - Abraham Lincoln

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:20 AM on 04/11/2008

Especially if your Cheney and you take them hunting.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:40 PM on 04/11/2008

imbabwe recently where his appointed protege is staling an election. Here I am thinking that Jimy's biggest concern is honest elections.

A defining characteristic of libs; creat a pile of s--t, leave it; create another one, leave it, etc.

Jimmy Carter has never left anything better, foreign or domestic, than when found it.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:52 AM on 04/11/2008

Yeah things are sure much better now.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:30 PM on 04/11/2008

Excuse me....it was your fuhrer Der Bush who created a pile of s--t (as you put it) in Iraq...He may attempt to push out another pile on Iran before retreating to exile in Crawford, Texas. It seems to me it is therefore, a defining characteristic of conservtards to play in fecal matter

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:36 AM on 04/11/2008

Jimmy Carter has restored some of my dying faith in Christianity! Most Christian's could care less about anyone else. The only reason they bother with the poor they are trying to convert them. So they can rake more money into their coffers. Carter is an admirable man. He feels genuine empathy for the Palestinians plight. Something that has gone out of the Republican party years ago. If the bunch ever had any to begin with?????

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:44 AM on 04/11/2008

Yeah we've all seen how "Compassionate Conservatism" works. Thanks Peggy Noonan.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:31 PM on 04/11/2008

Go Jimmy, you need to show the world that in a war the only way to obtain peace is if you are willing to talk with both sides, instead of giving nonsensical ultimatums to one side only.

In my opinion Bush caused 911 by refusing to ever meet with the Palestinians, which led them to believe that they would be prisoners in their own country indefinitely and they now had nothing to lose and suicide missions became their only weapon against mighty military superiority, it is exactly what Japan did with their Kamikaze planes when the USA was getting close to their mainland.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:37 AM on 04/11/2008

Maybe you didn't get the memo....9/11 was planned during the Clinton administration by Saudis and Egyptians. Are you comparing the poor Palestinians with the Japanes fascists of the Pacific War (that's original)? By the way you do know that the US pays most of the budget of UNRWA which provides the bulk of aid to the Palestinians.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:54 AM on 04/11/2008

I also realize that the USA pays for Israels powerful Military Arsenal, which gives Israel the advantage of having complete control over the fate of the Palestinian people.

And from what I have observed over the years, Israel and her recent citizens coming from all over the world have been very unreasonable contentious neighbors.

Jews from Brooklyn and Queens move to Israel with the mindset that this is their biblical land and thus they are entitled to evict the current residents since this promised land was given to them by god.

Therefore instead of being neighborly to the people they are evicting they become arrogant and angry that the Palestinians are not giving up their land more willingly.

Perhaps if they were to try being charitable and helpful to their new neighbors instead of ignoring their existence we could have peace in the region.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:09 AM on 04/11/2008

Yeah but with all due respect that Japanese Kamakazi comparison was just not a good comparison.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:33 PM on 04/11/2008

Carter was probably the best America had since JFK after he stopped being corrupt. I see the Zionists in this forum disagree but that doesn't surprise me, everything that is counter to Israels foreign policy and conquest is Anti-Semitic.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:46 AM on 04/11/2008

Carter was simply incompetent when it came to foreign policy. The Iran hostage crisis, the Monty Python inspired Desert One fiasco, the Mariel boat lift...the list goes on. Mind you JFK wasn't to adept with Cuba either, Bay of Pigs and all that.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:36 AM on 04/11/2008

If you judge him by the yardstick of what he didn't do he looks pretty good after bush "The pedestrian of the apocolypse."

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:35 PM on 04/11/2008

I don't remember Carter commandeering the chopper that went down in the desert trying to rescue the hostages. It"s like blaming Bill Clinton for the Black Hawk going down in Somalia¦ or the botched invasion of Iraq on George W. Bush, well I guess we could blame Bush on the botched invasion of Iraq since we had zero reasons for invading Iraq.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:39 AM on 04/11/2008

All Presidents, have been incompetent when it came to foreign policy. They all learned on the job. The one exception is the idiot thats in office now, who is such a disgrace and embarrassment to this Country.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:58 AM on 04/11/2008

There are republican warmongers, and democrat statesmen.

remember that.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:01 AM on 04/11/2008

Ever hear of Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War? How about Eisenhower and the rebuilding of Japan and Europe.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:38 AM on 04/11/2008

Carter had to fight Bush1 and we did not know that at the time. Carter does the right thing!
What will this administration do to him if he does not listen. I don't think they can do anything
at all without embarrassing themselves. Money is keeping the mess going in the Middle East.
Ask yourselves why Arafat had millions stashed away. There is no money in the PEACE process.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:53 AM on 04/11/2008

Carter is a very decent man. He certainly didn't cash in like Bill Clinton. That said his naive foreign policy instincts paved the way for Khomeini and the full onslaught of Islamic fundamentalism. The fact is that Hamas has targeted children, teenagers and civilians even those evil Americans) for destruction. No matter what the political merits of their movement this fact should preclude their being accepted by civiled people.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 05:52 AM on 04/11/2008

Horst, Maybe it was US foreign policy way before the Carter era. Remember US History is no better than any other country, America was just better at covering up their "Flith.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:03 AM on 04/11/2008

The fact is that Hamas has targeted children, teenagers and civilians, so has isreal!!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:24 AM on 04/11/2008

Hamas is a disaster for the Palestinian people. You probably think that the European Union and United States have designated Hamas a terrorist organization not because of its long history of suicide bombing and assassination but because they are controlled by the international Zionist conspiracy.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:34 AM on 04/11/2008

The disaster for the Palestinian people is Israel. Stop the oppression, stop the building of the fence, stop the land grab, allow the people to live, breathe, work, try to be a neighbor rather than the oppressor and things will get better. Criminals all.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:56 AM on 04/11/2008

Naive? How is he naive? Carter did more to pursue peace in the ME more than his predecessors or thoe who followed him. I guess most people's contemporary view of history doesn't go back to the Camp David Accords. Those paved the way for Jordan to make peace with Israel, as well as, the eventual transformation of the PLO into a more viable political arm for the Palestinians. This was done under Carter's outreach to Israel and Egypt. Of course none of this would have happened without three brave leaders thinking out of the box and doing something extraordinary. We don't have leaders like that in the ME now or here at home.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:32 AM on 04/11/2008

I've change my mind. This may give Israel an opportunity ti locate the Hamas leader and introduce him to some virgins.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 03:09 AM on 04/11/2008

You have no idea what you are talking about.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:24 AM on 04/11/2008

Thank God the surrender monkey in chief doesn't have any official capacity in our Country. Hamas will parade Carter around while he kisses their back sides and says what ever they want.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:27 AM on 04/11/2008

Yeah not like our fearless leader who ducked out of combat in Vietnam

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:41 PM on 04/11/2008

People like you, who are armchair soldiers, egg others on but stay cowardly behind the scenes.
I trust Carter before I trust Bush. Bush's problem solving is creating more wars and more money
for his croonies.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:55 AM on 04/11/2008

they are afraid of people that try reason to solve problems, so what is new?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:43 AM on 04/11/2008

Jimmy carter have done more to bring peace to this nation than any other president in my lifetime. And I am counting the days until this administration is GONE. Yes Jimmy Carter, do your thing, God is with you. Never mind the idiots urging you not to go. You talk to your enemies and know where they are coming from. Don't people realize why America is so hated now? Yes, you guest it, GW Bush, Dick Cheney and anyone else that's afraid to go against them. God, please keep us safe, as you've been doing and put someone with intergrity, wisdom, intelligence and transparency in the white house. Thank You God.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:50 AM on 04/11/2008

Watch "The Man from Plains" on DVD.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:25 AM on 04/11/2008

Carter and Meshall should have alot to talk about. Like most leftists, Carter hates this country, so they both have common ground.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:39 AM on 04/11/2008

Like all 'right wing lunatics' I see you have had a hefty dose of right wing propaganda. You need to quit listening to that slop and get the real story. People like me don't hate this country. We simply hate the ones who are currently running it and bent on destroying democracy in it. We love it and hate to see what freaks like you are doing to