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On Point: Carter tips his hand

Published December 21, 2006 at midnight

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When I deplored Jimmy Carter's one-sided critique of the Israeli-Palestinian impasse two weeks ago, a number of readers pounced. They referred me to seemingly even-handed quotations from the former president's new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, demanding to know if I had even read it.

No, I hadn't, but I never said I had. My critique mentioned only Carter's public statements, which reach far more people than his book ever will. And those statements almost uniformly shovel virtually all blame onto Israel.

As if to prove my point, Carter appeared a week later on Denver's KHOW radio, in an exchange as revealing as it is incredible. You can listen to the full interview on KHOW's Web site, but here are two segments in which Carter tips his hand.

KHOW's Craig Silverman: "Didn't the head of Hamas, the elected leader of the Palestinians, go to Tehran last week and say 'We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government?' "

Carter: "No, he didn't."

Silverman: " . . . 'and we will continue our jihadlike movement until the liberation of Jerusalem'?"

Carter: "No, he didn't do that. I saw no report about that."

Fact check: According to the Associated Press, earlier this month Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh regaled a crowd at an Iranian mosque with the following lovely remarks: "The world arrogance and Zionists . . . want us to recognize the usurpation of the Palestinian lands and stop jihad and resistance and accept the agreements reached with the Zionist enemies in the past. We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihadlike movement until the liberation of Jerusalem."

OK, Carter goofed. Everyone does on occasion. But why would he be so certain that a Hamas official would never say something that is totally consistent with what Hamas officials have been asserting for years? Perhaps because of his now ingrained habit of giving Hamas every benefit of the doubt. But let's continue with the interview.

Silverman: "But isn't that part of the Hamas constitution, that they will never accept Israel's existence? On Page 207 of your book, you say that the first thing that needs to happen is recognition of the state of Israel. If Hezbollah, or Hamas or the Arab world in general would accept Israel, wouldn't that be the necessary first step to get peace in the region?"

Carter: "If you will read the book you will see that the prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority, whose name is Haniyeh, has said repeatedly inside Palestine and in other countries, that he fully supports peace talks between Mahmoud Abbas - Abu Mazen - and the prime minister of Israel, and that if they work out a peace agreement that is acceptable to the Palestinian people that they will accept it."

Silverman: "Are you saying that Hamas recognizes Israel's right to exist?"

Carter: "I don't say that yet. But what they say is what I just . . . Do you want me to repeat it? . . . after the Hamas election this past January when Hamas got 42 percent of the votes, I met with one of the Hamas leaders. I urged them to recognize Israel and the Hamas leader said, 'Which Israel are you talking about? You want us to recognize the Israel that is occupying our land, the Israel that is persecuting our people?' "

Why would Carter approvingly repeat such a response? Is there any doubt regarding "which Israel" to recognize? How about the Israel that Carter himself recognizes?

How about the Israel recognized even by countries that agree with Carter that Israeli occupation of lands captured in 1967 is the major obstacle to peace?

Carter evidently believes that Hamas' calls for the destruction of Israel are purely tactical and would dissolve like snow in the warm glow of the right peace offer. But even in the unlikely event he is right, it shouldn't be so hard for him to denounce Hamas' position without rationalizing it, and to admit that it too is a major obstacle to peace.

Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes On Point several times a week. Reach him at .