By ALBERT AJI – June 12, 2009
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Former President Jimmy Carter Thursday reiterated that there can be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians without involving the militant group Hamas.
His comments came shortly before he met with the militant group’s Syrian-based leader, Khaled Mashaal. Carter met with Mashaal twice under the Bush administration, angering some in the U.S. government who said he was legitimizing a group the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.
But this was his first meeting under the Obama administration, which has launched a fresh quest for peace in the Middle East, and came as Obama’s Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, was less than 400 miles (645 kilometers) away in Cairo preparing to visit Syria Friday.
Carter, who went to Syria after observing elections in neighboring Lebanon, stressed that he was in Damascus as a private citizen and not representing the Obama administration.
Obama, also a Democrat, seems to be going in the direction that Carter has long advocated — engagement with longtime foes Iran and Syria. So far Obama, like the Bush administration, has drawn the line at meeting with Hamas. But in a speech in Cairo last week, Obama seemed to suggest some basis for believing that Palestinian militants who rule Gaza might be drawn into the peace process.
As president, Carter helped broker an Israeli-Egyptian peace deal in the late 1970s and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote peace around the world. He has continued to pursue Mideast peace through his Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center foundation, and angered many Israelis for his 2006 book that compared Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians in the West Bank to apartheid.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Carter said Hamas and its more moderate Fatah rivals must reconcile so they can negotiate effectively with Israel.
“I don’t believe there is a possibility to have any peace between the Palestinians and Israel unless Hamas is involved directly in harmony with Fatah,” he said.
Carter said Obama’s pressure on Israel to freeze construction in West Bank settlements is an essential step toward restarting peace efforts.
He said Israel is “very eager to avoid any serious disagreement or confrontation” with the U.S. and that Obama’s push for a two-state solution would be seriously considered by Israel.
Carter also plans meetings in Israel and the West Bank over the weekend.
Syria’s official news agency reported that Assad discussed with Carter ways to reactivate the peace process and stressed that Damascus is committed to peace that guarantees the return of Arab rights.
Syria wants Israel to relinquish the Golan Heights it captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Syrian-Israeli indirect talks through Turkey have been on hold since Israel launched an offensive on Gaza in December.
Turkey said Thursday it is prepared to restart mediation efforts but is waiting for both countries to signal their readiness to resume talks.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Israel has accused both nations of pursuing covert nuclear weapons programs that the IAEA has not uncovered. The incredible thing is that Israel is not itself a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has developed its own massive nuclear weapons program, which it has refused to subject to international scrutiny.
Peace and Justice Post 
Neocons Using Iran Election To Push For War
June 14, 2009It helps that the neocons in both the United States and Israel made emphatically clear how much they wanted Ahmedinejad re-elected. If they had kept their mouths shut — and pretended that they preferred the moderate Moussavi — they would have a bit more credibility now as they shout that Ahmadinejad’s election justifies an end to diplomacy.
But they didn’t prefer Moussavi; they preferred the thug and said so. The internal contradiction in their argument can be seen in these words from Israel’s very neocon deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon today.
“We had no illusions about these elections in Israel,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, “because on the nuclear issue there was no fundamental difference between the candidates.” Nevertheless, he added, Ahmadinejad’s election removes “any glimmer of hope for change in Iran.”
Got that? Even though there was no difference between the candidates, Ahmadinejad’s “victory” removes “any glimmer of hope….”
Here is Elliot Abrams: “Both the apparent victory and the apparent fraud greatly complicate the Obama strategy. My advice is that they had better be thinking about more sanctions….Sanctions that bite might be a powerful tool and might push the regime into a serious negotiation. But it is more likely that the engagement strategy has been dealt a very heavy blow.
So what do these guys want?
They want confrontation with Iran, no matter who runs the government. Above all, they want President Obama to stop thinking about diplomacy and give Israel the green light to attack Iran that George W. Bush refused to give.
It’s not going to happen that way because the argument for diplomacy, and against war, is as strong after the stolen election as it was before.
America’s interests are the same regardless of the state of democracy in Iran. And those interests (the safety of American troops in Iraq, the survival of Israel and our other allies in the region, the supply of oil, eradicating Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and preventing Pakistan’s collapse, etc) all require us to prevent the neocons from leading us into another debacle — a twin pillar of failure to erect next to the Iraq war.
I’ll leave it to the experts to explain exactly why and how to pursue diplomacy. But for now, here’s my rule of thumb. The neocons are always wrong. They were wrong when they led the American cheering for Ahmadinejad and they are wrong when they lead the moaning over his “victory.” In fact, they have not been right any issue in the 30 years or so since Norman Podhoretz invented neoconservativism.
Neocons are a great and true weathervane. They always point in the wrong direction, the very opposite of a moral compass.
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