Carter: peace not possible without Hamas involvement

yea, it seems like ANYONE wanting to push for peace in Israel and Palestine is met with loony toons iq's from the Israeli side. I mean, donchawantpeace? so wtf? if someone is at bat for both sides like Carter, there will be progress in peace, but it seems Israel is bent on faking everyone out

Gotta love the paid shills chiming in...

The former president labels a Hamas tunnel dug as part of a scheme to kidnap Israelis as "defensive." As if such a tunnel wasn't used to facilitate the killing of two soldiers in Israel and capture of a third, Cpt. Gilad Shalit, in 2006. Carter decries Israel's November 4 tunnel destruction as a "partial" breaking of the truce, though Hamas and its allies had resumed rocket and mortar fire at Israel.
He describes the fence helping to control terrorist infiltration as "the wall that encloses Gaza." What "enclosed" Gaza - there are a half-dozen crossing points between Israel and the Strip and one major one between it and Egypt - was the Palestinians' 2006 election of a terrorist organization, Hamas, to lead them and Hamas' bloody ouster of its former Fatah partners in the PA the following year.
He portrays positively Hamas' leaders consideration of a Gaza-only cease-fire, "provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered ...." This imputes good-faith to Hamas and implies Israel was attacking Gaza, not conducting limited counter-terrorism operations, and that it was not permitting humanitarian deliveries when it was.
Carter claims Hamas agreed to accept any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority under President Mahmoud Abbas "approved by a majority vote of Palestinians in a referendum or by an elected unity government." Coming from Hamas, these are vitiating conditions: it could undermine or invalidate a referendum outcome it opposed, and do the same in a unity government.
The ex-president writes of "military activity by both sides ...." Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, European Union, Canada and other countries in large part because its "military activity" consists primarily of attacking non-combatants, a basic violation of military law.
Carter faults Israel for allegedly not restoring delivery of humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip to the level before Israeli withdrawal in 2005. He doesn't mention that Israel withdrew in the expectation of peace, not the firing of thousands of rockets and mortars by Hamas and its terrorist allies. Carter also ignores that even though Israel continued to supply the Strip with much of its electricity and other basic goods and services, plus significant amounts of water, it was under no obligation to do so for a "hostile entity."
The ex-president puts the word in quotation marks when writing of Israeli "combat" in Gaza and implies targeting certain mosques, a school, some private homes is not legitimate. Nothing from Carter on Hamas' use of such places as firing positions, weapons storage, terrorist shelters, and so on.
He implies Israel intentionally destroys water, sanitation and other infrastructure and refers to "heavy civilian casualties." Infrastructure damage as has occurred is inevitable, given the Hamas strategy of hiding behind Palestinian civilians. Though tragic, civilian fatality rates of 25 - 30 percent - as reported by U.N. and Palestinian medical sources, which may not be reliable - only underscore Israeli attempts to limit such casualties.
Joshua Muravchik's February, 2007 Commentary essay about Jimmy Carter was headlined, "Our Worst Ex-President." Unfortunately, when it comes to Arab-Israeli pontificating, Mr. Carter is also The Washington Post's worst – and most frequent – revisionist.

Peace has been forged between many rival countries and religions in the past, it can be done again.

Peace will never be achieved in Middle east, either the Jews or Muslims will need to get out. As non is getting out, they will blow up each other until the end of times. This is also written in the Quran.

Peace is not possible without Hamas. The parties must find a way to make Hamas trustworthy. It is a daunting task.

Idiotic statement.

Hamas has said that it will respect the right for Israel to exist once Israel does the same and respects the right for a Palestinian to exist.

Sounds fair to me.

I am puzzled by former Pres. Carters remarks in that Hamas has not backed off it's position that the state of isreal should be destroyed. In spite of their assurances to Cater theey contined firing rockets at civilian targets.

I think Jimmy is ready to be checked into a Nursing Home. He's totally not aware of the facts, many People have stated that He actually screwed up in the Middle East.

This was the first U.S. president to get a peace process started in the middle east. President Obama could not get better advice on this topic from any other source.

I applaud President Carter and his selfless and unwavering work to bring peace to the Middle East.