Beirut: Jimmy Carter Urges Obama To Push For Mideast Peace

President Jimmy Carter told a packed audience at the American University of Beirut that President-elect Barack Obama cannot wait until the end of his term, like his two predecessors, to push for peace in the Middle East. Despite Carter's famed nonexclusive and peacekeeping approach to solving political conflicts, as demonstrated by his readiness to meet with all Lebanese political parties, at the end of his five day trip Hezbollah still refused to meet him halfway.

After meeting with members of Lebanon's parliamentary blocs and civil society leaders, former President Jimmy Carter offered that the Carter Center, a non-profit organization devoted to a variety of human rights missions across the world, monitor the parliament elections here next spring, a contest many anticipate will be an impassioned face-off between Hezbollah and its rival pro-Western groups.

WATCH highlights from the event below:
President Carter calls Israel's wall "an international crime", urges Barack Obama to act quickly to push for a Middle Eastern plan and speaks about Lebanon's highly anticipated upcoming parliamentary elections at the The Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

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Though the offer must still be approved by the Cabinet, Carter revealed during a public lecture on peace in the Middle East at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs that he has been reassured that the monitoring mission will likely be accepted despite Hezbollah's refusal to meet with him, continuing their pledge not to meet with any American president. Still, Carter remained optimistic about the results.

"If the leaders of Hezbollah wanted to meet with me, I would have been delighted, " he said. "But since they chose not to I've understood from some of their supporters that they have no objection to the Carter Center participating in the election."

The vote could give the challenging Hezbollah-led coalition, which only holds 35 seats of a total 128, an opportunity to wrest power from the Western-backed anti-Syrian groups that currently hold the majority of seats, compromising Lebanon's future relations with America.

Despite their minority position, Hezbollah capitalized on an an 18-month political crisis that left the country without a President, but in the process, gained them veto power on key decisions in July.

Carter has been widely criticized in the U.S. for meeting with the exiled Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal. But, like President-elect Barack Obama, he believes in being open to including all parties at the table.

Referring to the divisions between Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah, Carter expressed regret at the deterioration of Palestinian Unity, but stressed that of the 73 elections the Carter Center has monitored, "the most perfect three were the ones conducted by the Palestinians", calling them "open, honest and fair contests."

After five days of touring the country, which included a helicopter ride above the disputed Shebaa Farms, Carter spoke directly and compassionately to the room filled with students, parents and guests.

He commended the recent developments of apparent diplomatic harmony between Syria and Lebanon. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Miqdad pledged earlier this week to look into the number of missing Lebanese in Syrian jails. "Syria will not leave one stone unturned in order to clarify everything related to the so-called missing Lebanese," he said. Carter referred to the moves as extremely significant in taking a major step forward in bring piece to what he referred to as the Holy Land.

Carter spoke at length about what he called "an aberration or distortion of a decision that Yitzhak Rabin made," referring to the walls that he suggested be built along the so-called green line that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War. At the end of his point, he was interrupted with a thunderous round of applause from the audience. He said when Rabin was assassinated Ariel Sharon came to power and moved the wall eastward into the West Bank, at times 40 kilometers deep.

"This wall goes into the West Bank to encompass strategic points of the occupied territories and to surround illegal Israeli settlers that are already there," he said. "This will be roughly 700 kilometers long winding around like a snake. So that in the future when this wall is completed all of the Palestinians remaining in the portion of the West Bank they still control will be in prison, just like the Palestinians in Gaza. To me this entire process is an international crime that should be condemned and corrected by the international community."

Carter also announced that his second book, which will be called, "We Can Bring Peace to the Holy Land," will be released in the weeks following President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration. He stressed the importance for Obama to act quickly, unlike President Bush and President Clinton, and commit to solving the conflict, emphasizing the importance of political courage and attitude in approaching the issue as President.

"I don't have any doubts about any of those things concerning Barack Obama," he said. "But I know tremendous political pressures exist in my nation among political office holders to comply almost without exception to the policies of the Israeli government."

But when asked by the editor of AUB's student newspaper about Barack Obama's speech to AIPAC this summer when he said that Jerusalem is "to remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided," Carter confessed that he was "perhaps the most disturbed American, out of 350 million, when he made his speech to AIPAC." Carter was so distressed that he called Senator Obama immediately after it and was pleased when a few hours later, Obama appeared to soften his rhetoric in a CNN interview.

Carter also fielded a question about Rahm Emanuel's appointment as President-elect Obama's Chief of Staff. He confirmed that Emanuel (as well as Hillary Clinton) maintains close relations with Israel, but alluded to a more hopeful sign that General Jim Jones, whose approach as a special envoy on Middle East security allowed him to build a relationship of trust by training Palestinian paramilitary forced and deploy them in West Bank cities to keep order. Even Israeli Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad told The Jerusalem Post, "There's certainly an improvement."

Karim Sleiman, a student at the American University of Beirut, said that he learned a lot from attending the forum but still does not expect much from America.

"It would be good if they would think about peace, but it is not our dream," he said. "Our dream would be more like peace combined to justice, why do we always think about peace, we forgot justice."

Like Carter he expressed optimism about Lebanon's political future, claiming that the Lebanese president is more independent than previous ones, even in AUB's Student Representative Committee, a group called "No Frontiers", a leftist independent group that has no political affiliations with parties outside of AUB, receives no funding and makes student-body decisions, won the election.

"We can see an improvement in politics in Lebanon," he said. "But most of the parties are still based on religion and sects."

The former president's trip coincided with an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Wednesday commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In it, he emphasized his hopes that President-elect Barack Obama's administration could usher in a new era of effective American diplomacy.

"The moral footprint of the United States has always been vast," he wrote. "Our next president has an unprecedented opportunity to lead through example by inspiring and supporting those who would reach for freedom and by being tough and effective with those who would impede freedom's march."

Carter is headed to Syria to meet with Hamas' exiled leadership on Sunday to promote a possible truce between Hamas and Israel and a solution to the captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, captured by militants near Gaza in 2006. He plans to return to Lebanon in May for the parliamentary elections and urged the audience to help foster a peaceful environment till then.

Comments

[bioluminescence]

When a problem like the Middle East conflict cannot be solved, maybe it's not a problem at all, but a permanently destabilized situation.

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict may not be a Rubik's cube, a puzzle that can be solved by any U. S. President however gifted he might be. It may be more a Pandora's box that was opened when the U. S., by most reports, bestowed nuclear weapons capability upon Israel and unconditionally supports their activities whether they are justified or not.

[nogimmicks]

Jimmy Carter belongs to a rare breed of honest and selfless politicians (estimated to constitute around 3% of all politicians). My prediction, however, is that Obama will do nothing, just like generations of politicians and governments over the last 40 years. Israel, the stronger party, needs to decide what is the solution to the current unsustainable situation by themselves.

[messy]

Jimmy Carter has no credability on the Middle East. His furious racism has been evident for some time, and was the cause of most of the problems in the world today.

[lysistrata]

President Carter is standing for the better USA, he stands for the nations honor. Please give details and proof of President Carters racism andhow he caused most of the problems of the world today?

I for one am proud of Mr. Carters standing up for the morally right thing to do. It takes courage even for a president. Our present Israe/Palestine policies are morally bankrupt.

[Bariis]

I couldn't agree with you more.

[chaos4700]

Racist, huh. You know, rejection of Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people does not make one an anti-Semite. Do you even know who the Semitic people encompass? Because it isn't exclusively Jews.

[Elderlady]

When Germany was murdering 6 million Jews, there was but ONE country in the world who welcomed Jews as refugees.

That country was Palestine.

Similar to taking distant relatives in, and offering them sanctuary, during a crisis. You open your home. You offer your bedroom. Meanwhile you are sleeping on the sofabed. The relatives have made themselves at home in your bedroom, the kitchen, the bath, and guest room. More distant relatives have been invited. They move in. They take over the sofabed.
You find yourself pushed out of your bed, your kitchen, your house, and eventually even out of your yard. --- by people to whom you offered your hospitality. That they did it all at gunpoint -- is lost in the narrative.

That they are still doing it all at gunpoint --- is not lost in the narrative.

Jimmy Carter does the hard work that no other American is willing to do. He talks about the MidEast in a way that no other American will.

He speaks truth to power.

At the age of 80+ years, Jimmy Carter is a National Treasure.

[chaos4700]

Beautifully stated. Keep the story alive, and maybe one day everyone can enjoy a happily ever after. We can always hope. In the meantime, we need to speak out and act.

[ZenJu]

There was no country called "Palestine." There WAS a British Mandate for Palestine, which was simply a territorial designation from the League of Nations. The only people called "Palestinians" were the JEWS who lived there, the Yishuv. "Palestinian" as an adjective wasn't applied to the Arab inhabitants until 1964 with the establishment of the PLO. The Arabs of Mandatory Palestine, far from welcoming their returning Jewish cousins, fought furiously to stop Jewish immigration and even supported the Nazis--look up Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The Jews of "Palestine" were the only ones working to save their own people.
By the way, those Arabs who remained in Israel multiplied and enjoy rights unknown in most Arab countries. Your distortion of history is appalling.

[haval2]

Jimmy's a real Christian like Sarah.

[xxnounxx]

I love president carter,his good far weigh's his bad.
i hope people will listen to him more

[ZenJu]

Carter is no altruistic peacemaker; he is irrelevant and pitiful in his constant attacks upon Israel. May one remind him that the Israeli government did NOT start begin the so-called "wall" (it is overwhelmingly a FENCE...not unlike the one that has separated much of, say, the US and Mexico for decades) until the early 2000's, although Israel has controlled the "West Bank" since 1967? And may one also point out that the fence was not started until AFTER repeated infiltrations by murderous suicide bombers, whose targets were civilians? The fence has also, by the way, proved far more successful than diplomacy with duplicitious Palestinian Authority members, who say one thing in English for the West and another in Arabic for their constituents? Israel is a DEMOCRACY with over a million Israeli Arab citizens who have far greater rights and more security than most in the neighbouring Arab world. I have read Carter's screed and find him wanting...what's his real agenda, and who's footing the bill? Interesting.

[xxnounxx]

Your quite pathetic calling the wall that cuts through a family land and seperates relatives and destroys olive groves ( THE LIVELIHOOD OF PALESTINIANS) a fence,

FENCE MY FOOT

[43P04T34]

Your comments are hateful, misleading and devoid of compassion. President Carter is recognized worldwide for his lifelong contributions to helping the poor and disenfranchised people of the world. He has dedicated his life to building peace, especially there in the Middle East and it is, I venture, people like you who make the work that President Carter does so essential, so vital.

[SimonNZ]

Jimmy Carter - always respectful, considered and never afraid to tell how things really are. A true living legend and American hero.

[SuperSam]

If only the aparth-eid wall separated Izreeal from the Palestinians, instead its separates Palestinians from each other. The wall cuts through their land and confiscates more fertile area. The misconception that the wall should be credited for the security improvements is a lie, its the checkpoints that are choking the West Bank that should be credited.

God bless Jimmy Carter, i hope he keeps going.

[xxnounxx]

exactly so..but zenhu above thinks its a FENCE

[FearlessFreep]

Note that the Wall isn't protecting the Palestinians from Israeli attacks. It isn't a fence; it's a rampart for Fortress Israel.

[Danny]

Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah are POLITICAL parties -- what's wrong with talking with them? President Carter is to be lauded and encouraged to engage in diplomacy at the Carter Center. Long overdue.

[nukemind]

Jimmy Carter remains the bravest public figures on this sensitive yet pivotal topic that has fueled anti-Americanism and was arguably one of the reasons for the war in Iraq. While the establishment of media talking heads and politicians voice unconditional support for Israel (meaning they could commit genocide and the support would be there), Carter has taken a critical tone that is meant to wake us Americans up to the realization this country has been brainwashed. Propaganda about Israel remains prevalent and its supporters continue to use deplorable tactics including linking the current state of Israel to the Holocaust, doing everything in their power to denounce and discredit those who disagree with them (Rashid Khalidi being a prime example of a respected academic who became a target of Palin/McCain for being a critic of Israel), and shaping US policy that remains mired in interests that aren't ours. Israel's concerns remain paramount as with Iran's nuclear program (which when one thinks about it, bears little danger to the US) and border issues with Lebanon and Syria (and thus Syria's isolation). When the PM of Israel appears to sound leftist in comparison to American politicians we know that something is out of whack. Here's hoping that more people will listen to Jimmy Carter and fewer to McCain et. al.

[LeeCalif]

Good man, Jimmy Carter. And he's telling it like it is.

Israel is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
They are cutting their own thr oats.

[redneckliberalpostbush]

I will never forget the LAST mideast oil crisis during Carter's Presidency. The Gang Of Phascists really began to actively destroy America and undo all his work to get us off mideast oil and on our own renewable energy. Then Reagan came in and all the others who have led us on about how damn hard they were working to get the US energy independent. What liars they have all been! Every last one! Look where we are now.
I recall the GOP and Reagan also lied about how they would never ever cave in to terrorists and hostages, when that's exactly what they did- traded arms and WMDs to the Iranians holding Americans hostages- then tried to make Reagan out like a big time hero and great President. He even lied , well began the famous US politician lie - "I just can't recall" about trading those arms. He supported and funded and trained bin Laden. He fought wars under the table without our permission. He imported cocaine to fund his wars and then came on TV with nancy to "just say no to drugs" And the criminals he worked with are still in our govt

[nukemind]

All true. Plus, it is amazing how much Raygun was reinvented. He's now believed by many Americans to be one of the greatest Presidents ever. This leads me to believe that Bush may also get a similar revision by GOP talking heads who will reshape his image until he too appears as a visionary.

I might as well throw in his policy by astrology, massive debts and deficits, war on the poor, and some of the dumbest statements ever uttered by anyone, let alone a President, including this gem: "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." Frankly, if people like this can be elected and reinvented, I see plenty to fear on the horizon after Obama's likely 2 terms, Sarah Palin.

[redneckliberalpostbush]

Jimmy Carter is the last US President we have had that had real integrity and is a REAL Christian.

[piul05]

My feelings exactly. And I believe History will vindicate him.

[SpaghettyIrish]

100% true. The proof is all there.