Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Hurricane Carter

He's certain to pay for it, but I suppose at this point Jimmy Carter is used to getting slammed every time he opens his mouth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This time he's come out diametrically opposed to the developing conventional wisdom that rewarding Fatah and isolating Hamas is the only way to respond to the Palestinian civil war:

"This effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples now is a step in the wrong direction," he said. "All efforts of the international community should be to reconcile the two, but there's no effort from the outside to bring the two together."

Carter also condemned the failure of the EU and US to recognize the Hamas government, which won elections in 2006 that were monitored by the Carter Center:

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.

Of course, this comes pretty close to Daniel Levy's analysis over at Prospects for Peace. Something tells me Carter's going to take a bit more heat for it than Levy, though.

Posted by Judah in:  The Middle East   

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