UPDATE, April 12, 2008: Obama declines to criticize Carter on Hamas
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Friday it was not his place to criticize former President Jimmy Carter if he were to meet with Hamas, although Obama said he would not meet with the militant Palestinian group.
Hamas says the meeting will take place but Carter has not provided any details of whom he plans to meet during his nine-day trip to the Middle East, which begins on Sunday. The Bush administration and close U.S. ally Israel oppose the meeting.
"I'm not going to comment on former President Carter. He's a private citizen. It's not my place to discuss who he shouldn't meet with," Obama told reporters while campaigning in Indianapolis. "I know that I've said consistently that I would not meet with Hamas."
Carter has not publicly backed either candidate in the Democratic race but hinted recently that he supports Obama.
Carter's planned trip creates awkwardness for the Illinois senator, whose critics have sought to raise doubts about whether he might be inclined as president to put greater pressure on Israel to make concessions in peace talks with the Palestinians.
Such doubts could cost Obama support with some U.S. Jewish voters.
Obama doesn't have a spine when it comes to criticizing the disgraceful Jimmy Carter.
That's very weak on Obama's part. He should condemn Carter for meeting with Hamas.
What's Obama afraid of? Losing a super delegate?
Obama is doing what's politically expedient, what he thinks is in his own best interest.
Note to Obama: It's a mistake to look like such a suck-up.
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Jimmy Carter continues to add to his achievements as being one of the worst ex-presidents in U.S. history.
From FOX News:
The State Department confirmed Wednesday that former President Jimmy Carter is planning to visit Syria on an unsanctioned diplomatic trip in mid-April.
A State Department official in Israel told FOX News that Carter is scheduled to arrive in Israel on April 12, and is expected to visit Syria and Saudi Arabia while in the region.
Meanwhile, a State Department spokesman in Washington, D.C., told FOXNews.com that he is aware that Carter was planning a stay in the region, but would not disclose details of the trip.
That spokesman noted, however, that “the State Department has expressed our concerns and advised President Carter that past engagement with the Syrian regime has not produced positive results.”
FOXNews.com first reported Tuesday on an item in the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat that said Carter was preparing an unprecedented meeting on April 18 with with Khaled Meshal, the exiled head of the Palestinian terror group Hamas.
The State Department official in Israel did not confirm whether President Carter planned to meet Meshal during his time in Syria....
Ahmed Yousuf, Hamas’ top political adviser in Gaza, did not have any information on a meeting between Carter and Meshal, according to World Net Daily.
...The State Department has designated Hamas a “foreign terrorist organization.” Chief spokesman Sean McCormack once said of the prospect of meeting with Meshal, “That’s not something that we could possibly conceive of.”
Meshal, who lives in Syria to avoid being arrested by the Israeli government, leads Hamas from his seat in Damascus, where he is a guest of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Should Carter meet with the Hamas chief, he would be the first Western leader of his stature to do so. Though Meshal met with Clinton officials in the 1990s, the Bush administration has sought to isolate Hamas, enforcing rigid sanctions on its government in Gaza and refusing to meet with its leaders unless it recognizes Israel and abandons terror.
Once again, the disgraceful Jimmy Carter is seeking to undercut President Bush and his administration.
Although Carter wants us to believe that he's not anti-Israel, he is so pro-Palestinian that he most definitely comes off as an advocate for the Palestinians.
Carter's book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, clarified his stance on the conflict.
He has gone beyond being an apologist for Hamas and terrorists. He is firmly entrenched in their corner. In short, Carter is an enemy of Israel.
He should quit pretending to be the wise elder statesman, the peacemaker.
He was never wise and he was never a statesman. He wasn't much of a peacemaker either. (I'll give him the elderly though.)
QUESTIONS:
1. When Carter was president and he allowed Islamic extremism to take root and flourish in the Middle East, did former President Gerald Ford step in and take unsanctioned diplomatic trips to the region?
2. When Carter was president and Americans spent 444 days in captivity because he was utterly impotent when it came to handling the Iranian hostage crisis, did former President Richard Nixon negotiate with Iranian officials without the State Department's approval?
3. When Carter was president and the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan did any former U.S. presidents have unsanctioned meetings with Leonid Brezhnev?
ANSWERS:
1. NO
2. NO
3. NO
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