Carter’s meeting with Hamas leader was an ugly mistake

Carter’s meeting with Hamas leader was an ugly mistake

Jimmy Carter’s public career has been a series of ups and downs.

He was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, did graduate work in nuclear energy physics at Union College and worked under Admiral Hyman Rickover in the development of the nuclear submarine program.

As governor of Georgia, he mounted a campaign for president that defied political pundits and the odds.

But that presidency, from 1977 to 1981, was marked by an energy crisis, a crippling economic combination of stagnation and inflation and the Iran hostage crisis. The brightest spot was his brokering of a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.

And yet, in the 30 years since he left the White House, Carter has achieved remarkable success as an advocate for global health, democracy and human rights. He built the Carter Center, which pursues progress worldwide in those areas, and he has built Habitat for Humanity houses with his own hands.

All of which makes the former president’s recent trip to the Middle East more painful.

Acting against the specific request of the Bush administration, Carter met with members of Hamas, a terrorist group that has actively sought to derail any peace initiatives between Israel and the Palestinian people.

More hindrance than help

We’re not saying that present administrations have control over past presidents. But Carter should have recognized that his meeting in Syria with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal undercuts the administration in its attempts to support attempts to reach an agreement between the West Bank government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel.

Granted, the possibility for success by the Bush administration in reaching any kind of peace agreement in the Middle East is slim, but that’s all the more reason for Carter not to meddle.

Israel pulled out of Gaza voluntarily. It forcibly removed Israeli settlers form the territory. The response by Hamas was to declare its own victory over Zionism and to repudiate the efforts of Palestinians such as Abbas who were negotiating with Israel. Hamas used the territory as a launch zone for rockets smuggled in from Syria and fired into Israeli territory. Carter couldn’t even win a commitment for a one-month cessation of rocket fire from Gaza.

“I did the best I could,” Carter said. “They turned me down, and I think they’re wrong.”

They aren’t the only ones who were wrong.

Over the years, Jimmy Carter has received more awards than can be counted. In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize of 2002, he has won national and international awards named for Harry Truman, Albert Schweitzer, William Fulbright, Martin Luther King Jr., Indira Gandhi, Herbert Hoover and Thomas Jefferson. That’s pretty heady company. Which makes Carter’s latest excursion all the more disappointing. None of those names should be connected even tangentially with the likes of Khaled Mashaal.

In a life that has been more ups than downs, Carter’s latest trip to the Middle East is a monumental downer.