The former US President is intending to meet up with Hamas leaders as well as leaders from Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. He will also be meeting up with representatives of Fatah which is Hamas' main rival in the Palestinian territory.
Hamas is listed on a US list of terrorist organizations. So, in some ways it is an interesting turn of events that a former President of the US is going to pay a courtesy call to a group that the country he formerly led characterizes as a bunch of terrorists. Nevertheless, perhaps his point is valid; that if there is to be true peace with justice in the region then the views of Hamas need to be known and worked into the equation with all the other divergent views raging within the Palestinian debate, including those of Israel.
Despite Ahmadinejad's warnings of wiping Israel of the face of the map the likelihood of that happening is about as likely as Israel wiping Iran of the face of the map! They might go to war and kill most of each others citizens but the land will not disappear and neither will the idea that Israel exists. The arguments about nation building, success or failure, as it relates to Israel is not this argument and not for this blog entry.
However, the current US position is that Hamas is an impediment to peace and that nothing constructive can come from any meeting between Carter and Khalid Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas.
We need a world at peace to focus on those matters that we must address in order to sustain us!
On a side note the presumptive nominee from the Democratic Party in the US, Barack Obama, has come out and said that he would not meet with Hamas which is kind of strange considering he has previously said that his foreign policy would be based on active engagement of rogue leaders and States (at least as the US sees them) such as Raul Castro (Fidel before him) in Cuba and Ahmadinejad in Iran. So, why not Hamas? A different blog entry I suppose!
3 comments:
A comment on my own post...as a supplement :)
If Obama did follow through with his pledge to meet Ahmadinejad there is likely to be some interesting questions raised both at home and abroad.
In terms of the media not jumping all over this and saying just how stupid this plan really is, this plan is cased in one of change and hope for new politics and a new approach.
I am not Jewish but if I was then just the idea of the US seeking to actively engage a denier of the holocaust, a person who describes me as filth, bacteria, and a people that inhabit a country that must be wiped off the face of the earth, then I guess I should have some concerns...
The meeting with all these despots, tyrants, and genocidal maniacs wherever they reside in the world will not get to meet President Obama because this would be one of his first election promises to be broken!
The US will engage the people in these countries in much more covert ways such as funding NGOs and other organizations.
Hey Rob, can you explain why in Indonesia people love Dinejad very much?
From time to time i have people (Indonesian) forwarding me email about how lovely Dinejad is and how cool Iran is to have such leader.
ha???!!!(serious question)
The dude is completely just, and there is no suspicion.
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