Jimmy Carter's Terrorist Friends

Jimmy Carter was an embarrassment while president. Nothing he did worked. He faced significant problems coming into office—an aggressive Soviet Union, a sluggish economy, and a burgeoning energy crisis. But far from solving any of these crises’s, he simply made them worse.

He changed America’s foreign policy against the Soviet Union from one of containment to one focusing on human rights. While human rights are desirable, his laxity towards the Soviet Union gave it much needed breathing room in its attempt to achieve military parity.

This attitude also cost the U.S. allies around the world. The Shah of Iran was apparently not democratic enough for Carter. When radical, anti-American Islamic fundamentalists tried to depose him, the U.S. refused to intervene, ensuring that they succeeded.

Under his watch, radical Muslims achieved their first major victory against the United States. Iranian fundamentalists took 52 Americans hostage to protest America’s sympathetic treatment of the Shah. Carter spent months in humiliating negotiations with these terrorists, and only managed to reach an agreement in the days after Ronald Reagan was elected President. The Iranian hostage crisis was a major humiliation for the U.S.

Since it was Carter’s policies that helped lead to the present robust condition of Islamic fundamentalism, one would expect Carter to leave the whole issue well enough alone. But sadly, Carter thinks that his “experience” in this area makes his insights helpful. (Maybe as a list of things not to do). He insists on trying to be a part of the Middle East peace process, giving his opinions on the subject and traveling to the areas in question.

In 2006, Carter came out with a book called Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. Because apparently a nation’s efforts to protect its people from suicide bombers is perfectly equivalent to a nation’s regulated discrimination against a whole race. Anyway, Carter’s point was that suicide bombing may be bad, but so is Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, so both sides have legitimate grievances. This problem can be brought to an end by…things getting better. Carter doesn’t seem to have a realistic, or even an unrealistic, peace plan. Instead, he declares that peace will come when Israel’s security is guaranteed and all the Middle Eastern nations come to a diplomatic agreement, which is pretty obvious.

Carter responded to criticisms of his book by airily dismissing critics as Jews who hadn’t actually been to Israel. He claimed that Israeli apartheid was not based on racism but only on the desire of some greedy Jews for Palestinian land. (Is Palestine really all that desirable? If the Jews are so greedy, wouldn’t it make more sense for them to occupy somewhere with oil?)

Carter’s book and past comments have made in clear that he is no friend of Israel. His actions in recent days make it clear that he isn’t much of a friend of America, either.

Carter has proudly vowed to meet Khaled Mashaal, exiled leader of the terrorist group Hamas, pausing only to lay flowers on Yasser Arafat’s grave and to embrace a few senior Hamas directors. Hamas is responsible not only for the deaths of dozens of Israelis, but has also committed numerous acts of terrorist against the United States. Carter might not care that Hamas kills Israelis, since they are just reacting against greedy Jews stealing Palestinian land, but surely he should draw the line at meeting a man responsible for the deaths of residents of the United States.

Jimmy Carter is not only stupid, he is also morally blind. He sees no difference between the actions of a state protecting itself against foreign enemies and the actions of a terrorist group. Carter’s support of Hamas is inexcusable and wrong. It should not be forgotten.