Jimmy Carter visits to Gaza - "If you are not with us, than you are evil"

Poor Jimmy Carter. All he wanted to do was talk peace. But all he got was the shaft, from the Bush administration, the secretary of state, the Israeli government, the mainstream media, and the presidential candidates. White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe denounced his meeting with Hamas representatives from Gaza as not "useful." Condi Rice intoned that "Hamas is a terrorist organization," which she then described as an "impediment to peace" and the Israeli government did her one better by refusing to speak to Carter at all, though he was permitted five minutes with President Shimon Peres as a courtesy.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the Bush administration explicitly warned former President Carter against meeting with members of Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip and which is regarded by the U.S. as a terror group.

Carter, who met Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria over the weekend, is trying to draw the Islamist group into peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

But Rice and other senior U.S. officials have voiced strong concern that Carter's meeting could merely confuse U.S.-brokered peace talks already moving at a slow pace between Abbas and Olmert.

Carter was also lacerated by the U.S. media, which did not report the visit in detail except to criticize it. According to the Washington Post, Hamas engages in "deliberate targeting of civilians," such as the Israeli town of Sderot, which "suffers daily rocket attacks."

What the Washington Post seems unaware of Israeli targeting of civilians when it can't find an actual "militant" to kill. The relentless barrage on Sderot using crude, homemade rockets reportedly killed only one resident in the past year, a worker from Ecuador. Hundreds of Palestinians, mostly civilians and including many children, have been killed in Israeli reprisals during that same time period. It is particularly ironic that the Israelis killed 20 Palestinians on April 16, all civilians and including five children, the day on which Obama made his speech and the White House was criticizing Carter's efforts. Israeli sources, which understate Palestinian deaths, report that 4,604 Palestinians have been killed since 2000 versus 1,033 Israelis. Nearly one thousand of the dead Palestinians were children.

Investor's Business Daily, opining that "Our worst ex-president honors the memory of Yasser Arafat while hugging Hamas-cidal terrorists. Instead of embracing terrorists, Jimmy Carter should be laying wreaths at the tombs of their victims." 

Benjamin Shapiro, writing for Townhall.com, put it slightly differently: "Jimmy Carter is an evil man. It is painful to label a past president of the United States as a force for darkness. But it is dangerous to let a man like Jimmy Carter stalk around the globe cloaked in the garb of American royalty, planting the seeds of Western Civilization's destruction." 

Rep. Joe Knollenberg of Michigan is so angry about Carter that he is proposing legislation blocking any federal funding for the Carter Center, saying that "America must speak with one voice against our terrorist enemies," while Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina has called on Condi Rice to revoke Carter's passport. The new head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman, complains that Carter holds "warped" views on the Middle East. Berman, who is a strong and vocal supporter of Israel at all times and under all circumstances, apparently believes that his own views are just fine.

It is difficult to detect much that is extreme in the Carter mission. If one accepts that Hamas is a reality in the Middle East, having been chosen by a large majority of the residents of Gaza and the West Bank, its legitimacy should not be questioned, even if its tactics and some of its political positions should be challenged. It is clear that no settlement for the Israel-Palestine problem can be envisioned without Hamas' participation, which leads one to assume that Israel, which continues to stonewall while it expands its settlements, has no interest in any solution until it has sealed off all of Jerusalem and taken everything else it wants on the West Bank. This position is being supported de facto by the United States, which has done absolutely nothing to stop the Israelis in spite of the assurances dutifully delivered in Annapolis (pdf file) only four months ago. 

Israel says efforts by former President Jimmy Carter to work out a cease-fire with Gaza's Hamas rulers failed. Israel Senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad says that Hamas presented nothing new in its demands for a truce during Carter's recent meetings with officials of the militant group.

Jimmy Carter would like to reverse a failed process that he knows is not good for the United States, Israel, or the Palestinians. He surely expected that he would receive no credit for his efforts and would instead be on the receiving end of considerable criticism, frequently bordering on the scurrilous. It is a tribute to his integrity and dedication to what is right that he has persevered in spite of everything that Israel's numerous friends have thrown at him.

What Chance Annapolis has? See the video.