Jimmy Carter, The Pariah

On April 28th, Former President Jimmy Carter wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times. I found a few items within the article quite interesting and I would like to point them out to you.

Mr. Carter says,

Although I knew that official United States policy was to boycott the government of Syria and leaders of Hamas, I did not receive any negative or cautionary messages about the trip, except that it might be dangerous to visit Gaza.

Not only does he admit that he knew the current U.S. policy and knowingly defied it for all the world to see, but he lies about the fact that he was not contacted by the State Department. On April 22nd, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said,

"I just don't want there to be any confusion, the United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help"

Mr. Carter does not stop there. He flat out lies again just a few paragraphs down.

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.

Remember, this op-ed was published on April 28th. Now, let's look back to April 21st, when Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said, and I quote,

We accept a Palestinian state within the June 4 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital — a sovereign state without settlements — as well as the right of Palestinian refugees to return, but without recognition of Israel

Meshaal said that himself. There was no subordinate, there was no mistake in the message he was delivering. Yet, Mr. Carter is yet again trying to re-write history and whitewash another failed attempt at diplomacy.

At the end of his op-ed he has the audacity to say that more meetings are needed with the "outlawed" leaders in order to expedite the stalemated peace talks. That's a load of crap and he knows it.

Everyone knows he accomplished nothing in his talks with Hamas, well, other than posing as a propaganda tool for a group of terrorists, that is.

I'm not the only one who thinks he accomplished nothing. If you don't believe me, just listen to the Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, who said,

President Carter came to the region thinking he could achieve something. Unfortunately president Carter left without anything concrete. The only thing he achieved was permission on the part of Khaled Meshaal of Hamas to deliver a letter from a detained Israeli soldier to his family. Nothing else. Hamas offered nothing to president Carter. They reiterated the same positions. There was no change on the part of Hamas.

I find it quite ironic that Mr. Carter titled his op-ed, "Pariah Diplomacy". Mr. Carter knowingly met with terrorists, against current U.S. policy, then he went on in this op-ed to try and mislead the American people about the results of those meetings. In fact, it appears the only person involved in the meetings who felt the need to lie about their results, was Mr. Carter. How sad is it when you can believe the words coming out the of the mouths of terrorists before you can believe the words coming from a former U.S. President? When it comes to diplomacy and being labeled a pariah, Mr. Carter seems to be in good company.

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