Jimmy Carter: Terrorist Supporter

The Toledo Blade is reporting that former President Jimmy Carter will be giving the keynote speech at the 51st annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) held in Detroit starting today and continuing through the weekend.  On Saturday evening at a session called “Generations Rise: Elevating Muslim-American Culture” the outgoing president of ISHA, Imam Mohamed Magid, and four other Muslim speakers will offer ideas for Muslim-American advancement over the next few years.  A “secret special guest” is also on the bill but no word yet if it will be Carter.

For a man who claims to be a devout Southern Baptist one would have to wonder why he would be invited and why he would accept the invitation.  Perhaps his sympathy for terrorists and terrorist organizations has earned him an invite to speak to the Islamists.  I haven’t seen the list of break-out sessions but Carter might want to skip any that are billed as Perfecting Your Beheading Technique.

Secretary of State John Kerry recently referred to Israel as an “apartheid nation” but he didn’t coin the phrase.  It comes from Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which was published in 2006.  The book generated a furious response from Jewish organizations and some critics for Carter’s use of the word “apartheid.”  He tried to explain it away but his explanation seems unbelievable.

“It’s not Israel. The book has nothing to do with what’s going on inside Israel which is a wonderful democracy, you know, where everyone has guaranteed equal rights and where, under the law, Arabs and Jews who are Israelis have the same privileges about Israel.  That’s been most of the controversy because people assume it’s about Israel.  It’s not.”

“I’ve never alleged that the framework of apartheid existed within Israel at all, and that what does exist in the West Bank is based on trying to take Palestinian land and not on racism. So it was a very clear distinction.”

Earlier this month Carter wrote a column for Foreign Policy Magazine in which he demanded that Hamas be recognized as a “legitimate political actor.”  Hamas, which has been listed with the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization since 1995.  Hamas, which uses women and children as human shields when launching rockets on Israel.  Hamas, which spent millions of dollars building tunnels from Gaza into Israel so they could launch sneak attacks on Israeli citizens with the intent to murder and kidnap.  Hamas, which earlier this week publicly executed eighteen people who were merely suspected of supplying information to Israel.  Hamas, which announces in its charter the goal of destroying Israel and killing all Jews.  Hamas, which has launched thousands of rockets at Israel in the past few years with the clear intent of murdering Israeli citizens.  And Carter wants this group recognized as “legitimate?”

In his column Carter accuses Israel of committing war crimes.

There is never an excuse for deliberate attacks on civilians in conflict. These are war crimes. This is true for both sides. Hamas’s indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians is equally unacceptable. However, three Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinian rockets, while an overwhelming majority of the 1,600 Palestinians killed have been civilians, including more than 330 children. The need for international judicial proceedings to investigate and end these violations of international law should be taken very seriously.

I’m sure he did not intend it but Carter seems to be taking umbrage with the disparity between the number killed on both sides.  Perhaps if Hamas had been more successful at killing Israelis Carter would be satisfied with the number of deaths.

He also called on the United Nations to take action and put in place “strict measures” to prevent weapons being smuggled into Gaza.

The U.N. Security Council should focus on what can be done to limit the potential use of force by both sides. It should vote for a resolution recognizing the inhumane conditions in Gaza and mandate an end to the siege. That resolution could also acknowledge the need for international monitors who can report on movements into and out of Gaza as well as cease-fire violations. It should then enshrine strict measures to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.

With that paragraph, Carter is either an ignorant fool or a blatant supporter of terrorism.  During the recent fighting in Gaza the United Nations Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA) announced it had found a stockpile of rockets at one of its schools in Gaza.  Since Israel began Operation Protective Edge in June this was the third time that rockets were found to have been stockpiled in a U.N. school.  And what did the U.N. do with these rockets?  They handed the rockets they found over to the “local police,” otherwise known as…..HAMAS!

Additionally, in the dozens of terror tunnels that Israeli forces located and destroyed, UNRWA building supplies and building materials were found.  Clearly, the United Nations is not even able to maintain control over its own structures and supplies.  Allowing its supplies to be used in the construction of tunnels with which to launch murderous attacks on Israel and its schools to be used to hide Hamas rockets, the United Nations has proven that it has no intentions or desire to prevent Hamas from doing anything but continuing to conduct terrorist activities against Israel.  And yet Carter wants to put this worthless organization in charge of guaranteeing that Hamas doesn’t smuggle weapons.  Clearly, Carter is either senile or off his meds.

But Carter saved his biggest stupidity for the end of his column.

Hamas cannot be wished away, nor will it cooperate in its own demise. Only by recognizing its legitimacy as a political actor — one that represents a substantial portion of the Palestinian people — can the West begin to provide the right incentives for Hamas to lay down its weapons.

Ultimately, however, lasting peace depends on the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel.

How is it possible that a man could be president of the United States but not recognize the fact that terrorist organizations such as Hamas will never lay down their weapons?  Even if they achieved their stated goal of destroying Israel and killing every Jew they would not disarm.

A Palestinian state?  Again, Carter shows his ignorance.  A Palestinian state will do nothing but give a form of legitimacy to terrorists who will use the state to continue to attack Israel with its destruction as their goal.  Carter and others like him are obviously not listening to these terrorists when they state, over and over and over, what their goals are.

Perhaps Carter’s reasons for shilling for terrorists is that Arabs have contributed tens of millions of dollars to the Carter Center in recent years.  The New York Daily News did a story a few years ago on the funding for the Carter Center and outlined the contributions that he receives from Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, as well as prize money.

NY Daily News – There’s more. In 2001, Carter received the $500,000 Zayed International Prize for the Environment and, the following year, praised the efforts of the Abu Dhabi-based Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow Up.

The Zayed Center has repeatedly hosted anti-Semitic Holocaust deniers, supported terrorism and asserted that there is an international conspiracy of Jews and Zionists for world domination, and that a Jewish-American conspiracy perpetrated the atrocities of 9/11.

Clearly, Jimmy Carter is in bed with terrorists, be it out of sheer stupidity and ignorance or just being bought off by Arab money.  Whatever the reason, he is nothing more than a propaganda tool for the terrorists and his support for them only emboldens groups such as Hamas.  Aligning himself with terrorist groups, to my mind, makes him an enemy to Israel and also to United States interests.  He should be glad that neither Israel nor the United States does to traitors what Carter’s friends in Hamas do.