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Former president of the United States. Nobel Peace Price laureate. Human rights campaigner. These are the titles that Jimmy Carter can lay claim to. As of yesterday Pres. Carter can add another title to his list:
Terrorist sympathizer.
Yep, I went there. Why? At an Irish human rights conference on Tuesday Carter let loose on the United States, Israel, and the European Union for not supporting Hamas as equally as they do Fatah:
During his speech to Ireland’s eighth annual Forum on Human Rights, the 83-year-old former president said monitors from his Carter Center observed the 2006 election in which Hamas won 42 percent of the popular vote and a majority of parliamentary seats.
Carter said that election was “orderly and fair” and Hamas triumphed, in part, because it was “shrewd in selecting candidates,” whereas a divided, corrupt Fatah ran multiple candidates for single seats.
Far from encouraging Hamas’s move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the US and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, has sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.
“That action was criminal,” he said in a news conference after his speech.
Criminal. This is the label he gives to those who refuse to negotiate with or recognize a ‘democratically elected’ terrorist government. I’m sorry Mr. President, but the Palestinian people made their choice. They chose to put into power an organization known to use civilians as meat-shields and their inevitable casualties as propaganda weapons. They chose to legitimize an organization who’s stated goal is to destroy a nation that could flatten every square inch of the Palestinian Territories if it’s pushed past it’s breaking point.
Bringing Hamas into power may have been a terrible choice brought about by utter frustration, but make it the Palestinians did.
You know what’s ‘criminal’? Massacring your political rivals to gain complete control of your nation and disguising yourselves as innocent refugees so you can grenade attack an Israeli checkpoint packed with fleeing Palestinian civilians. Captain Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters puts it well:
So let’s get this straight. Bush’s refusal to engage with a terrorist group — one that has long been on the State Department list of outlawed terrorist organizations — is “criminal”. Wouldn’t it literally have been a criminal act to engage with Hamas? Federal law prohibits such direct contacts and the transmission of aid to terrorist groups such as Hamas.
Even more ridiculous, Carter feels that we should applaud the organizational skills of a terrorist group that just murdered its way to the top of the Gaza power structure. He applauds their “superior skills and discipline,” while turning a blind eye to the ways in which they apply them. Rather than scold them for using violence to achieve their political goals, Carter wants the global community to welcome and reward them for it.
Let’s make something perfectly clear: democracy is the process, not the goal.
It was perfectly plausible that the Palestinian people could have elected a government that was interested in peace and prosperity. They could have used their democratic freedom to reconcile with their larger neighbor. Instead they elected a theocratic terrorist organization. Some might say that they didn’t have a choice because the other party, Fatah, was also a terrorist group. That doesn’t matter because, quite frankly, they are both products of the Palestinian people. As Thomas Jefferson once said, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine”. Nowhere else is this more true than in a nation controlled by religious fanatics.
The Palestinian people made their choice, and Carter is a fool to think we should support Hamas simply because they won an election. They made their choice and now, grim as it may be, they are paying the price such ‘freedom’ brings.
Robert Stein of Connecting.the.Dots puts it best:
Our choices in Palestine are terrible, but Carter’s self-righteous, simple-minded bumbling can only complicate them further. Former Presidents, particularly failed ones, are better seen and not heard.
Do I have a solution for the Israel/Palestinian situation? Of course not, and at this point finding a solution is probably beyond any one person. I can however recognize that the world isn’t black and white and that a democracy that leads to tyranny isn’t worthy of support.
Update: It seems I’m not the only one who finds it interesting nobody else is holding the Palestinians responsible for even some of their troubles. Michael van der Galiën‘s chimed in as well:
Carter, as usual, believes that the Palestinians should be treated as children; they do not have to take responsibility for anything. They are victims. They do not have a say in what is happening to them – it is all Israel’s and America’s fault, according to Carter and his ilk.
I wish newspapers would stop quoting Carter. He has become completely irrelevant.
Update #2: The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Israel must provide aid to those at the Erez Crossing, site of the before mentioned grenade battle:
The High Court of Justice instructed the State Attorney’s Office on Tuesday night that “everything Israel can do to save human life must be done today,” following a petition submitted by “Doctors for Human Rights” and “Gisha” that Erez Crossing be opened immediately to allow sick and wounded Gazans into Israel.
The High Court decided that a panel of three judges would rule on the matter Wednesday in an emergency hearing and demanded that until then, the State Attorney’s Office respond to Tuesday’s ruling in place of the IDF.
Some 190 Palestinians holed up in a stench-filled concrete tunnel at the border crossing with northern Gaza , desperately trying to flee the Hamas-controlled Strip.
So remind me again… which side is it criminal to support?
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Thank you to our friends at RealClearPolitics for including this post in their REAL CLEAR BLOGS – Wednesday Morning Edition blogger roundup -
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