Jimmy Carter and the Chamber of Hamas

[Deckard]

Anyone here have any opinions about what Carter has been embarking on?

(Carter: Hamas will accept Israel)

How is the media in the US treating him? I imagine him to be coming in for a great deal of criticism there.

[Strangelet]

I think he's a goddam hero for this. And yes, most american media is going for the jugular. I think the israeli interest in this political campaign has been very interesting to watch. both clinton and the neo-con media making no bones about pointing to the "endorsement" of farakhan and hamas towards obama as a criticism of not only Obama's disadvantage, but actually calling his patriotism (towards america!!) into question.

While I don't think that Carter's going to single handedly bring a ticker tape parade of peace across the middle east, his mind is in the right place.

[cacophony]

everyone (including the democratic candidates) is abandoning him in droves. i think he's doing the right thing and i would have hoped his reputation as a peace seeker would have protected him from this kind of persecution. but i guess my mistake was hoping anything.

[BeautifulBurnout]

All this reminds me of the situation between the UK and the IRA in the early 90s. The remotest suggestion that we should actually be talking to them would be met by accusations of nigh-treason and "pandering to terrorists".

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, all kinds of secret negotiations were going on and here we are 15 years later with a lasting peace.

All this BS about not talking to the "enemy" just leads to deeper and deeper entrenched positions. Someone sticking their nose out of the top of their trench and saying hi should be lauded, not villified. Idiots.

[mmm skyscraper]

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal stressed that Hamas would not formally recognise Israel.

that headline isn't exactly right

[Deckard]

To my thinking, it's not so much that this dialogue represents an alternative route to peace; I honestly believe it is the only route. That political leaders in the US and Israel are unaware of this I find very hard to swallow - to the extent that, on occasion, I even find myself wondering if there's some kind of vested interest in maintaining conflict in the region.

And as you say BB, NI is an obvious analogy here. The fact that former IRA leader Martin McGuiness is now Deputy First Minister of NI, presiding over a remarkable peace, proves what can be achieved. But there has to be a starting point.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Deckard

to the extent that, on occasion, I even find myself wondering if there's some kind of vested interest in maintaining conflict in the region.

here's a documentary on the israeli lobby in the u.s. government

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2894821400057137878&q=israeli+lobb y&ei=7iQNSMHfMIiE4gKd8-2wBA&hl=en

[Strangelet]

I think the unquestioning strong arming power of AIPAC and its neo con / christian apocolyptic intellectual base is going to unravel.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...d=sec-politics

Some of the country's most prominent Jewish liberals are forming a political action committee and lobbying group aimed at dislodging what they consider the excessive hold of neoconservatives and evangelical Christians on U.S. policy toward Israel.

Organizers said they hope those efforts, coupled with a separate lobbying group that will focus on promoting an Arab-Israeli peace settlement, will fill a void left by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and other Jewish groups that they contend have tilted to the right in recent years.



The lobbying group will be known as J Street and the political action group as JStreetPAC. The executive director for both will be Jeremy Ben-Ami, a former domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House.



"The definition of what it means to be pro-Israel has come to diverge from pursuing a peace settlement," said Alan Solomont, a prominent Democratic Party fundraiser involved in the initiative. In recent years, he said, "We have heard the voices of neocons, and right-of-center Jewish leaders and Christian evangelicals, and the mainstream views of the American Jewish community have not been heard."

[Deckard]

I was reading about J Street on the BBC last week.

Financially, J Street is certainly unlikely to pose a threat to Aipac.

Its first-year budget of $1.5m (£750,000) will be no match for Aipac, which has an endowment of more than $100m (£50m), over 100,000 members and 18 offices around the US.

But it's a start, eh?

[Sean]

I may differ with some folks here on the idea of dialogue being the "only route to peace", but I would certainly agree that it's the first route we should be trying. I'm sure many will argue that Carter wasted his time since apparently nothing was achieved through this meeting ( http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1 ), but I'm of the mindset that although nothing immediate may have been achieved, at least we tried dialogue before doing anything more destructive.

We control the evolutionary path of our species in ways that no other animal can, and I think working towards more non-violent methods of resolving disputes is important for us to do.....as long as we're realistic about the fact that at times, our primitive, instinctive tendency to resort to violence will inevitably rear it's head, and we'll likely need to engage in it in some cases to achieve a greater good, as in WWII.

But personally, I applaud Carter's efforts whether successful or not, simply for the fact that it's a route we need to continue exploring and improving at. That's one of the reasons I support Obama in the Presidential race, too.