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World Jewish News
Carter: No Mideast peace without Hamas
11.06.2009
There can't be peace between Israel and the Palestinians unless Hamas is directly involved, former US president Jimmy Carter said Thursday.
Carter also said Hamas and Fatah must reconcile so they can negotiate effectively with Israel.
He spoke to reporters after meeting Syrian President Bashar Assad and ahead of talks with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus. It will to be Carter's third meeting with Mashaal in the past year.
After his presidency, Carter continued to pursue Mideast peace through his Carter Center foundation. He drew criticism from the Bush administration for talking to Hamas.
Carter's trip to Syria comes just days before US President Barack Obama's special Mideast envoy George Mitchell is to visit Damascus.
Meanwhile, Mashaal complained that Obama was presenting Hamas with preconditions ahead of entering into dialogue while he was not insisting on these preconditions regarding both Syria and Iran.
"Obama adopted a new language for speaking with Hamas," Mashaal told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, adding, "We hope this will translate into actions on the ground, and that he will cancel the preconditions for talking to Hamas."
However, he said, Obama "is turning over a new leaf with the region and is beginning dialogue with the Iranians and the Syrians without preconditions, so why is he setting preconditions for Hamas?"
On Tuesday night, Mashaal had said, "Hamas will be a positive force in helping to find a fair solution for the Palestinian people and enabling them to fulfill their rights.
"Hamas will not be an obstacle. Everyone knows that Israel is the obstacle," he had said.
In his Cairo address, Obama called on Hamas to end violence, abide by previous agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians and recognize Israel's legitimacy.
While commending Obama's call to establish a Palestinian state, Mashaal criticized the president for the fact that his "perception of the Palestinian state is still vague, because he did not address the issue of territory, capital, right of return and a timetable for all of the above. These are critical points."
The Damascus-based Hamas leader admitted that his organization was going through difficult times.
"We have reached hard times… our rights were violated, we will present our vision," he said.
On Tuesday, Mashaal had told Al Quds al Arabi, another London-based paper, that he would answer Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's upcoming policy speech with his own vision for the future of the region.
In Thursday's interview to Asharq, Mashaal noted that Obama did not use the word "terror" when mentioning the Palestinian "resistance."
But he expressed displeasure at Obama's comparison of the condition of the Palestinians to the history of blacks in the United States and South Africa. "We in Palestine face an occupation. An occupation is to be fought with arms according to all criteria of international law."
Источник: JPost.com
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