Carter meets Hamas chief Mashaal in Syria

Former US president arrives for meeting with Hamas' chief under tight security (But not Israeli security, Israel denied security to the former President and diplomat.). Carter's aides plan to hold further talks with Hamas Friday to discuss proposal for ceasefire with Israel, Shalit's release. Senior Hamas leaders from Gaza to meet Carter Saturday

News agencies
Latest Update: 04.18.08, 23:17 / Israel News

Former President Carter met Friday with the exiled leader of Hamas and the group's deputy chief, men the US government has labeled as global terrorists and Israel accuses of masterminding suicide bombings and kidnappings.

Accusation
Carter: Gaza residents 'starving to death' / News agencies
Former US president defends meetings with Hamas terrorists, tells university students in Egypt sanctions imposed on Gaza Strip are 'criminal atrocity'
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Carter's meeting with Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal followed two other meetings between the former American president and the Palestinian militant (and political) group in the Middle East this week. Hamas officials say the meetings have lent their group legitimacy.

Earlier Friday, Carter met with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Mashaal's deputy Moussa Abu Marzouk attended the meeting with Carter at Mashaal's Damascus office.

Aides to Carter said they plan to hold a second round of talks with Hamas on Friday night to discuss proposals for a ceasefire with Israel and for the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, that Carter made when he met Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

Mohammad Nazzal, a member of the Hamas leadership, said the talks would study the details of proposals put forward by Carter in more than four hours of talks with Mashaal.

"Carter's aides and the members of Hamas' political bureau will meet to discuss the price for Shalit's release as well as halting the rocket fire on Israel," said Nazzal.

Nazzal also said that the talks with Carter proved that the political isolation imposed by the US on Hamas was beginning to crumble.

A group of senior Hamas officials from the Gaza Strip will travel to Damascus on Saturday to hold talks with carter, al-Jazeera TV network reported Friday.

The delegation will be led by Hamas' Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar.

Before Friday's meeting began, Abu Marzouk said that calming the situation between Hamas and Israel as well as the fate of Shalit would be on the agenda.

"Hamas will not be a hurdle in any future prisoner exchange," Abu Marzouk said.

Asked if Hamas is ready to sit and talk directly to the Israelis, Abu Marzouk said: "There are no (direct) meetings with the Israelis. Most of the meetings that took place between the two sides were not direct."

www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3533491,00.html

Carter, defying Israel, meets Hamas ex-minister
Tue Apr 15, 2008 5:33pm EDT

Israeli minister tells Carter he would meet Hamas
18 Apr 2008
Carter calls Gaza blockade a crime and atrocity
18 Apr 2008
Israel snubs Carter and declines security help
14 Apr 2008

By Mohammed Assadi

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter met an ex-minister in Hamas' government on Tuesday, defying Israeli leaders who shunned the Nobel Peace Prize laureate over his contacts with the group.

Naser al-Shaer, who served as deputy prime minister in the Hamas-led government that the United States and other Western powers boycotted, was greeted by Carter with a hug and kisses to both cheeks, a member of Carter's delegation said.

"Mr. Carter wanted to listen to the positions of different Palestinian figures. The meeting was very good and he promised to continue such meetings," said Shaer, who was among several Palestinian political figures to meet with the former president.

Carter has angered the Israeli government over plans to meet Hamas' top leader, Khaled Meshaal, in Syria, and for describing Israeli policy in the occupied Palestinian territories as "a system of apartheid" in a 2006 book.

Carter, who brokered Israel's first peace treaty with an Arab neighbor, Egypt, signed in 1979, met Israel's ceremonial president Shimon Peres on Sunday but was shunned by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other policymakers.

(These Extremists aren't interested in peace, and Carter's efforts work against the crisis they've created, and the achievements they'd planned to try and create through it.)

Shaer told Reuters he met one-on-one with Carter and they discussed efforts to broker an unofficial truce between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas seized the coastal territory by force in June after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' more secular Fatah faction.

(Actually, what happened is that the US and Israel, having failed to bring down the elected Hamas through their childish blockade, used corrupt elements of Fatah in a coup attempt, which also failed, but did manage to divide the Palestinians. With all its resources, you'd think a service like Reuters would be able to speak more truthfully about the situation. Due to the media's willingness to distort the situation, many in the world have failed to speak out against Israel/America's increased aggression and international crimes against the Palestinians.)

Abbas then sacked a Hamas-led unity government and appointed a Western(US/Israeli)-backed administration in the West Bank. Abbas's authority has been limited to the occupied West Bank.

Shaer said Carter told him he wanted to play a role in trying to end the enmity between Hamas and Fatah.

GAZA DENIED

Carter told reporters earlier he had wanted to visit Gaza, but his request was rejected. Carter did not say who turned down his request, but a member of his delegation said it was Israel.

(Indeed. You don't want witnesses to your crimes ...)

"I haven't been able to get permission to go into Gaza. I would like to. I asked for permission. But I was turned down. But maybe we can find a way to circumvent that," Carter said.

All of the border crossings between Israel and Gaza are controlled by the Jewish (Zionist, more Reuters bias on display) state. Egyptian forces are stationed at Gaza's southern border, which is largely closed.

Carter said he would use his meeting with Meshaal to "get him to agree to a peaceful resolution of differences, both with the Israelis ... and also with Fatah".

"Since Syria and Hamas will have to be involved in the final peace agreement, they ought to be involved in the discussions leading up to ... peace," Carter said.

Carter, who stressed he was not acting as a negotiator or a mediator, said he hoped "just as a communicator" to relay to "leaders of the United States" what Hamas and Syria have to say.

Israel and Washington have sought to isolate Hamas and bolster Abbas, who launched U.S.-backed peace talks with Olmert.

(Which are nothing more than a facade, to provide Israel with much-needed positive PR, while it continues to do as it pleases.)

Like Israel, the Bush administration opposes Carter's meeting with Meshaal, whose Islamist group won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 but was boycotted by the West (Israel, and countries currently led by right-wingers who've allied themselves with their respective Zionist Lobby)l) for refusing to renounce violence and recognize Israel.

During his visit to Ramallah, Carter placed a wreath at the mausoleum of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

U.S. President George W. Bush pointedly chose not to do so during his recent visit. The Bush administration shunned Arafat, who died in 2004, accusing him of fomenting violence.

(Writing by Adam Entous; Editing by Mary Gabriel)

www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSL1464259420080415?feedType=RSS&

GOP Rep.: Revoke Jimmy Carter's passport for Hamas visits
Nick Langewis and David Edwards

"He's just unilaterally going off on his own and undermining everything the international community and the United States is (sic) trying to do," protested Republican U.S. House Rep. SUE MYRICK (NC-09) today in the call to revoke the passport of former president Jimmy Carter.

rawstory.com/news/2008/GOP_Rep._calls_to_revoke_Carters_0417.html

Another name to add to the 'do not vote for this slave to AIPAC' list ...

Jewish Voice for Peace: Support Jimmy Carter; US Needs to Talk to Hamas
www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=4683&blz=1

No Peace Without Hamas
By Mahmoud al-Zahar

GAZA — President Jimmy Carter’s sensible plan to visit the Hamas leadership this week brings honesty and pragmatism to the Middle East while underscoring the fact that American policy has reached its dead end. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acts as if a few alterations here and there would make the hideous straitjacket of apartheid fit better. While Rice persuades Israeli occupation forces to cut a few dozen meaningless roadblocks from among the more than 500 West Bank control points, these forces simultaneously choke off fuel supplies to Gaza; blockade its 1.5 million people; approve illegal housing projects on West Bank land; and attack Gaza City with F-16s, killing men, women and children. Sadly, this is “business as usual” for the Palestinians.

Last week’s attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot should not surprise critics in the West. Palestinians are fighting a total war waged on us by a nation that mobilizes against our people with every means at its disposal — from its high-tech military to its economic stranglehold, from its falsified history to its judiciary that “legalizes” the infrastructure of apartheid. Resistance remains our only option. Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world’s largest open-air prison, can do no less.

The U.S.-Israeli alliance has sought to negate the results of the January 2006 elections, when the Palestinian people handed our party a mandate to rule. Hundreds of independent monitors, Carter among them, declared this the fairest election ever held in the Arab Middle East. Yet efforts to subvert our democratic experience include the American coup d’etat that created the new sectarian paradigm with Fatah and the continuing warfare against and enforced isolation of Gazans.

Now, finally, we have the welcome tonic of Carter saying what any independent, uncorrupted thinker should conclude: that no “peace plan,” “road map” or “legacy” can succeed unless we are sitting at the negotiating table and without any preconditions.

Israel’s escalation of violence since the staged Annapolis “peace conference” in November has been consistent with its policy of illegal, often deadly collective punishment — in violation of international conventions. Israeli military strikes on Gaza have killed hundreds of Palestinians since then with unwavering White House approval; in 2007 alone the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed was 40 to 1, up from 4 to 1 during the period from 2000 to 2005.

Only three months ago I buried my son Hussam, who studied finance at college and wanted to be an accountant; he was killed by an Israeli airstrike. In 2003, I buried Khaled — my first-born — after an Israeli F-16 targeting me wounded my daughter and my wife and flattened the apartment building where we lived, injuring and killing many of our neighbors. Last year, my son-in-law was killed.

Hussam was only 21, but like most young men in Gaza he had grown up fast out of necessity. When I was his age, I wanted to be a surgeon; in the 1960s, we were already refugees, but there was no humiliating blockade then. But now, after decades of imprisonment, killing, statelessness and impoverishment, we ask: What peace can there be if there is no dignity first? And where does dignity come from if not from justice?

Our movement fights on because we cannot allow the foundational crime at the core of the Jewish state — the violent expulsion from our lands and villages that made us refugees — to slip out of world consciousness, forgotten or negotiated away. Judaism — which gave so much to human culture in the contributions of its ancient lawgivers and modern proponents of tikkun olam — has corrupted itself in the detour into Zionism, nationalism and apartheid.

A “peace process” with Palestinians cannot take even its first tiny step until Israel first withdraws to the borders of 1967; dismantles all settlements; removes all soldiers from Gaza and the West Bank; repudiates its illegal annexation of Jerusalem; releases all prisoners; and ends its blockade of our international borders, our coastline and our airspace permanently. This would provide the starting point for just negotiations and would lay the groundwork for the return of millions of refugees. Given what we have lost, it is the only basis by which we can start to be whole again.

I am eternally proud of my sons and miss them every day. I think of them as fathers everywhere, even in Israel, think of their sons — as innocent boys, as curious students, as young men with limitless potential — not as “gunmen” or “militants.” But better that they were defenders of their people than parties to their ultimate dispossession; better that they were active in the Palestinian struggle for survival than passive witnesses to our subjugation.

History teaches us that everything is in flux. Our fight to redress the material crimes of 1948 is scarcely begun, and adversity has taught us patience. As for the Israeli state and its Spartan culture of permanent war, it is all too vulnerable to time, fatigue and demographics: In the end, it is always a question of our children and those who come after us.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, a surgeon, is a founder of Hamas. He is foreign minister in the government of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, which was elected in January 2006.

desertpeace.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/no-peace-without-hamas/

Israel displays its criminal side once again
 https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8867/index.php

Carter: Gaza Blockade an Atrocity

Israel's refusal of Carter's request to visit Gaza proves that they know full well that they are guilty of international crimes against the people of Gaza.

 https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8869/index.php