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Why Old Presidents Should Fade Away...

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgment Day.

(From the Hamas charter.)

Jimmy Carter recently made an ass of himself. Actually, he made a bigger ass of himself, because he is, by nature, an ass.

You might gather that I don't care much for Mister Carter. You would be correct.

Last week he opted to meet with a collection of brutal, sadistic, homicidal bastards who wrap themselves in a pretense of faith and call themselves "Hamas". One tiny branch of Hamas gives kids some candy. The majority of Hamas gives those same kids explosive vests and teaches them how wonderful it is to blow yourself to smithereens; wonderful, that is, as long as you take a bunch of Jews with you. Otherwise you're just an idiot.

Carter has already patted himself on the back, thinking he's achieved something by getting Hamas to say that under the right conditions they would accept Israel as a neighbor. There are a few problems with this, the biggest being:

Hamas accepts the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and with full and real sovereignty and full application of the right of Palestinian refugees to return but Hamas will not recognize the state of Israel.

So sayeth Khaled Meshal (I've seen alternate spellings; this is the one used in the article), one of the Hamas thugs Carter met with and, presumably, got the advertised agreement with, as quoted by the New York Times. As they say in the biz: Oops. And if that isn't enough, from Mahmoud al-Zahar, a founder of Hamas, writing in a Washington Post Op-Ed:

Our movement fights on because we cannot allow the foundational crime at the core of the Jewish state -- the violent expulsion from our lands and villages that made us refugees....

[...]

A "peace process" with Palestinians cannot take even its first tiny step until Israel first withdraws to the borders of 1967; dismantles all settlements; removes all soldiers from Gaza and the West Bank; repudiates its illegal annexation of Jerusalem; releases all prisoners; and ends its blockade of our international borders, our coastline and our airspace permanently. ...

[...]

Our fight to redress the material crimes of 1948 is scarcely begun....

Meshal and al-Zahar state, both implicitly and explicitly, that Hamas will never recognize Israel. They reiterate the same demands Hamas has made since its inception. None of this is new or even newsworthy.

Hello, Mr. Carter, you ninny. You successfully "negotiated" with a group that disagrees with itself from one day to the next. You trumpet success, that Hamas agreed to an admittedly conditional peace, and within hours they say, "No, we didn't!" Catch a clue, sir. Of all the organizations on the face of the planet, Hamas is probably the one you may trust the least. When they lie they are speaking their native tongue. Lying is their language of choice. Whenever words come from their mouths your BS detector should overload. They are the epitome of that old joke: Q. How can you tell Hamas is lying? A. Their lips are moving.

But eventually even liars tell the truth. They will never settle for the 1967 borders. Their complaint is founded in the 1947 UN resolutions that set the stage for the creation of the State of Israel. They rail against the "material crime" of Israel's birth. They fight to eradicate Israel from the map, period. It's in their charter. It's what they live, breath, and kill for. They do not cry for peace, they cry for Jewish blood. They do not seek justice, they seek revenge.

In other words, Carter achieved less than nothing. His visit allowed Hamas to assume some air of legitimacy. Carter insists the problem isn't Hamas, the problem is that the US and Israel won't talk with Hamas. Thus, Carter polished Hamas' bloodstained hands to a high sheen and granted them a veneer of respectability, sort of like Al Capone donning a fancy suit just before he bashes some poor bastard's head in.

Consider their definition of a "cease-fire". They agree to a cease fire, which rational, warm, and conscious people will agree means that you stop shooting, that everyone stops shooting. And everyone does...for ten, maybe twenty seconds. And then a Hamas group launches a volley of rockets at an Israel village. This, most rational, warm, and conscious people would agree represents a breaking of the cease-fire, but in the language of Hamas a cease-fire means Israel stops shooting; Hamas is free to fire at will. And so the cease-fire is broken when Israel shoots back.

This is so obvious, their lies so transparent, that otherwise rational folk have to do amazing feats of mental gymnastics. They will have to agree that a cease-fire means that Israel stops defending itself, that Hamas can do whatever it wants, like some spoiled, petulant, wrathful child. Indeed, only by treating Hamas as a child can these people let such homicidal thugs get away with what they do.

And since Carter treats everyone like a child, as though he is the only adult in the room, he gets along with Hamas just swimmingly. Unfortunately, Carter is also like a spoiled, petulant, wrathful child. Which explains a lot. Maybe some day he'll grow up and recognize who the liars in the room are. Until then, we can only watch in wonder...

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