Jimmy Carter: Talking Can Lead to Peace

A week ago, I wrote about Jimmy Carter's meeting with representatives of Hamas. Carter had a simple idea: you only make peace with your enemies and you can only make peace when you talk to your enemies. Today, Carter explains his position more fully in public.

He does so in an op-ed in the New York Times:

A counterproductive (emphasis added) Washington policy in recent years has been to boycott and punish political factions or governments that refuse to accept United States mandates. This policy makes difficult the possibility that such leaders might moderate their policies.

While Carter is not explicit about this, I will be: this is a position that has been bi-partisan. Republican and Democratic policymakers set down mandates and believe that, unless an adversary meets those conditions, the U.S. will not engage in discussions with certain factions, movements or governments.

This is not meant to be a campaign diary but here is the truth: all of the remaining candidates in the race--both Democrats and the Republican--support that kind of foreign policy, particularly as it relates to Hamas and the Middle East.

Carter points out that in Nepal, the Carter Center agreed to mediate between warring factions, including a Maoist insurgency that the U.S. had branded as terrorists. The result was a cease-fire and an agreement by all to take part in elections.

After a surprising victory in the April 10 election, Maoists will play a major role in writing a constitution and governing for about two years. To the United States, they are still terrorists.

Carter, then, agreed to meet with Hamas and Syria, understanding that there can be no peace in the Middle East unless those powers are a part of the solution. Here's what he says happened:

We met with Hamas leaders from Gaza, the West Bank and Syria, and after two days of intense discussions with one another they gave these official responses to our suggestions, intended to enhance prospects for peace:

• Hamas will accept any agreement negotiated by Mr. Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel provided it is approved either in a Palestinian referendum or by an elected government. Hamas's leader, Khaled Meshal, has reconfirmed this, although some subordinates have denied it to the press.

• When the time comes, Hamas will accept the possibility of forming a nonpartisan professional government of technocrats to govern until the next elections can be held.

• Hamas will also disband its militia in Gaza if a nonpartisan professional security force can be formed.

• Hamas will permit an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants in 2006, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, to send a letter to his parents. If Israel agrees to a list of prisoners to be exchanged, and the first group is released, Corporal Shalit will be sent to Egypt, pending the final releases.

• Hamas will accept a mutual cease-fire in Gaza, with the expectation (not requirement) that this would later include the West Bank.

• Hamas will accept international control of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, provided the Egyptians and not the Israelis control closing the gates.

Because I understand that people don't have time to go back and read previous diaries, I want to reiterate what I wrote in my initial diary:

My father was born in then-Palestine. He fought in the Hagannah (the Israeli underground) in the war of independence; my father's cousin, whose name I carry as a middle name, was killed in that war. I lived in Israel for seven years, during which I went through the 1973 war: a cousin of mine was killed in that war, leaving a young widow and two children, and his brother was wounded. My step-grandfather, an old man who was no threat to anyone, was killed by a Palestinian who took an axe to his head while he was sitting quietly on a park bench; it was a retaliation killing for the massacre of 30 Muslims who were murdered by an ultra-nationalist Jewish settler while they were kneeling in prayer. Half my family still lives in Israel. I have seen enough bloodshed, tears, and parents burying their children to last many lifetimes.

Today, Carter appears on Larry King Live. We should do everything possible to support Carter's attempt to create an open dialogue. That does not mean accepting that everything is good about either Hamas, Syria or Israel--or that they are all bad. It means talking and negotiating.

Comments

[LCRover001]

Jimmy Carter the only true Christian President this country has had in the last 40 years.

[batguano]

The Saudi Initiative for full recognition and trade agreements by all Arab governments for a return to the pre-67 borders, has been on the table since 2002 and Hamas has offered numerous cease-fires and offers for dialogue since their election, to reach at least a state of non-hostility at least, but any and all statements for any action by the Palestinians or Saudis have been met with Israeli "rejection" and only more talk of "terrorists"........if I had a nickel for every time I have heard "Israel rejects" this or that, I would be rich. There has been an Israeli expansionist agenda at the expense of the Palestinians since 1948 and before.

Without dialogue there can be no move toward peace or understanding, as Prez Carter fully understands, and the intentional elimination of dialogue is official Israeli/Bush/Neocon policy for a reason....that being to NOT have peace or understanding, but to further other goals and ambitions.
Thanks to Prez Jimmy Carter for his integrity and commitment to the truth and real American interests, as well as those of Palestinians and Israelis of good conscience and not to the status quo of more intentional war, destruction and death.

A different historical perspective is here... http://www.cactus48.com/truth.html

[batguano]

THANK YOU Jonathan for your integrity and truth telling.

As betz55 points out the main impediment to reaching a comprehensive settlement has been the actions of both Israel and their puppets in Washington. I believe that this policy has been one of intentional pre-meditated provocations and killings by Israel to make any real peace initiative impossible and to radicalize the Palestinians to justify any Israeli action. The extremists in control in Israel have an agenda and plan (Eretz Israel) to fully colonize the West Bank and will do or say anything to accomplish this goal and placate their "settler" extremists. They do NOT want "peace" until any viable Palestinian state is impossible. The facts and record bear this out . We must remember who is under a brutal military occupation, and who is not. Who has the right of "self-defense" and who uses this as an excuse to use targeted assassinations and home demolitions as policy instruments. The unbridled use the full power of the Israeli state military against Palestinian "gunmen" is a sick joke. The American press has been a defacto mouthpiece and agent for Israeli propaganda and point of view, while not reporting or distorting the Palestinian plight or viewpoint. That has NOT been in America's best interest.

[betz55]

Thank God for Jimmy Carter. Israels rejectionist policies ,in collusion with the US, have been the biggest deterent to peace for decades.Case in point? The pretext that is repeated every day by Israel which is absolute crap and hyprocrisy: The Palestinians must agree to first recognize Israel, second to end all violence, third to accept past agreements. Try to find a mention , ANYWHERE, of the fact that the United States and Israel reject all three of those. They obviously don't recognize Palestine, they certainly don't withdraw the use of violence or the threat of it,in fact they insist on it,and they don't accept past agreements, including the road map.Israel has using these tactics, terms, and excuses for decade to block and stall the international consensus on the two-state solution for decades. But the Palestinians/Hamas are consistently pressured and portrayed as "not wanting peace" unless they accept these "terms"? Who in their right mind would? Would you want to live - unarmed - next to a belligerent, aggressive, nuclear neighbor like israel. Ridiculous! These 'preconditions' are out of date and no longer relevant. Hamas, which was created with the support of Israel and the U.S. government years ago to counter the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), has repeatedly offered cease-fire proposals. The Israeli prime ministers have repeatedly rejected them.