Yesterday, former President Carter emerged from his meetings with the terrorist leaders of Hamas claiming a breakthrough for peace:
JERUSALEM, April 21 — The armed Islamist movement Hamas is prepared to accept Israel as a neighbor if the Palestinian people approve the terms for peace, former president Jimmy Carter and the group’s exiled leadership said Monday following a visit to the region that included seven hours of negotiations.
Carter, the most prominent Westerner to formally talk with the organization, said he secured that agreement even as Hamas rejected his proposal for a unilateral, month-long cease-fire. Hamas, which has vowed to destroy Israel, also declined to meet with an Israeli deputy prime minister who has expressed interest in discussing the fate of a captured Israeli soldier.
But Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, said his trip had shown the value of negotiating with Hamas leaders, something Israel and the United States have refused to do.
Oh really Mr. Ex-President ?
Well, don’t be so fast in surrendering:
JERUSALEM — Just hours after former President Jimmy Carter trumpeted Hamas’ agreement to let Israel “live as a neighbor,” the same terrorist leader he met with face-to-face vowed not to recognize the Jewish state.
But Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal did offer Israel a 10-year truce if it withdraws from all lands it seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Carter met twice with Mashaal over the weekend.
So much for that, huh ?
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
[...] as the statement from Hamas’s leader after Cater left proves, Rice is absolutely [...]