Israeli Ambassador Calls Carter ‘A Bigot’
Israel’s ambassador to UN says former US president ‘went to the region with soiled hands and came back with bloody hands after shaking the hand of Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas’
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations called former President Jimmy Carter “a bigot” for meeting with the leader of the militant Hamas movement in Syria.
Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, “went to the region with soiled hands and came back with bloody hands after shaking the hand of Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas,” Ambassador Dan Gillerman told reporters at a luncheon briefing Thursday.
The diplomat was questioned about problems facing his country during a wide- ranging discussion lasting more than an hour. The briefing was sponsored by The Israel Project, a Washington-based, media-oriented advocacy group.
The ambassador’s harsh words for Carter came days after the ex-president met with Mashaal for seven hours in Damascus to negotiate a cease-fire with Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Carter then called Mashaal on Monday to try to get him to agree to a one-month truce without conditions, but the Hamas leader rejected the idea.
The ambassador called last weekend’s encounter “a very sad episode in American history.”
He said it was “a shame” to see Carter, who had done “good things” as a former president, “turn into what I believe to be a bigot.”
Telephone calls by The Associated Press to two Atlanta numbers for Carter were not immediately returned Thursday.
During Carter’s visit, Gillerman said, Hamas “was shelling our cities and maiming and injuring and wounding Israeli babies and Israeli children.”
The ambassador noted that Hamas is armed and trained by Iran, whose president once called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”
“The real danger, the real problem is not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the real threat is Iran,” he said.
Gillerman spoke with reporters from around the world at the Times Square offices of a New York law firm on the same day Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in Washington meeting with President George W. Bush.
The ambassador said he was “quite optimistic” about the chances for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement because Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have met more times than any previous leaders of the two sides.
“I believe they’ve gone deeper and further than any other Israeli or Palestinian leader, and I believe that there is a very good chance (for a settlement),” he said.
Gillerman also was asked about the arrest last week in New Jersey of an 84- year-old man accused of passing U.S. weapons program secrets to an Israeli agent a quarter-century ago. Retired U.S. military engineer Ben-ami Kadish faces charges linking him to the same now-defunct Israeli intelligence agency that used Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for spying for Israel.
Gillerman called it “a very old matter.”
“It pertains to something that may or may not have happened 25 years ago” and would be decided when Kadish goes to trial, he said.
In the wake of the Pollard case, the ambassador said Israel had made a pledge not to spy on the U.S., “and that is something which I know that we have honored completely.”
The ambassador declined to comment on U.S. government reports that Syria was building a nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance before it was bombed by Israeli planes last year.
Gillerman called Syria a “destabilizing influence” in the Middle East.
“You see Syria’s hosting, very hospitably and warmly, over 10 terror organizations in Damascus,” the ambassador said, adding that the country also supports Hezbollah, an anti-Israeli Shiite group in Lebanon with close ties to Iran and Syria.
“Basically, Syria and Iran, together with Hamas and Hezbollah, are the main axes of terror and evil in the world,” the Israeli ambassador said.
(AP)
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Carter is forever cementing his place as the worst president in US history. I really can’t think of anyone worse. He is an absolute disaster and embarrassment. I dare say that many even in the ranks of the dems believe this guy to be a loon and a failure.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:46 pmdrillanwr
great post, it’s another article we’ll probably won’t see on the MSM, much less in my local rag, (Monterey County Herald), without being PC edited, if printed at all.
PS - Great Editorial Cartoon
April 24th, 2008 at 9:05 pmRe: cartoon
Cox and Forcum are usually always ’spot-on’ in their `toon commentary.
If you don’t see their stuff in local papers, try townhall.com and scroll to their political cartoon link listings
April 24th, 2008 at 9:16 pmThank you, I had a glitch in my browser last week and lost all of my bookmarks, which were many, kudos for reminding me of townhall.com
April 24th, 2008 at 9:29 pmTie Carter up in a sack with a full weight of stones and dump him, sack and all, into the Bosporus. It is a fate fitting for traitors. He can make friends with the fish and tell them all tales about how nice those Palestinians were.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:32 pmThe reason the PeaNUT Farmer Carter is doing this is that he wants to leave a legacy to the world before he pass away. Yep, he wants to be remember by the world that he brought peace to the Middle East for the world! The only legacy he is leaving is re-acting the ghost of British Prime Minister Chamberlain when that pathetic PM sold out the country Czechoslovakia. PM Chamberlain thought by selling out the Czechs he could appease Hitler and have “Peace in our Time”! Instead of Peace a year later Hitler went on a Blitzkrieg and nearly took over Europe!
April 25th, 2008 at 5:19 amHamas is no different! Like Nazi Germany they will make false promises of Peace! Then when the world does not stop EVIL Hamas and the Islamic Fascists will go on a rampage of GENOCIDE to destroy Israel and the Jewish population!
The pathetic corrupt anti-semite soul Carter will go down as one of the WORST EX-PRESIDENT IN HISTORY!
Dhimi Carter was an adject failure as President. He’s the Robert McNamera of the modern age. The “whizz kid” who fails at everything he tries and yet he goes on trying and failing…and people let him get away with it.
He’s a useless, feckless old man who’s 15 minutes of fame expired in 1980. Get off the stage Dhimmi Carter…You’re an embarrasment and a fool.
April 25th, 2008 at 9:43 amI just by chance found this blog on the topic of Pres. Carter been called a ‘bigot’ by a foreign official. Wow, that’s a pretty imflammatory remark in itself. Looking at the responses to this subject I can tell all are of the same school of thought, or maybe ignorance is the correct term. As an American I dislike foreigners speaking for me or other American citizens stating it was “…a very sad episode in American history.” This type of common intrusion from in particular Zionists, for many, many decades now, should be critized in public more often in America.
April 25th, 2008 at 8:32 pmThere is genocide occurring in Palestine everyday by the Jewish State, in all forms. Are you people that brain-washed and have you become complete sheep? I believe Carter was brave for what he did. History will eventually record this. The cowards will be recorded accordingly as well.
President Carter doesn’t have to run for office anymore, therefore, he CAN do and say what he wants. The rest of the American politicians are ALL in the pockets of AIPAC and Israel. It is a shame to be an American for me because a FOREIGNER calls a former American president a bigot and NO ONE is there to tell the moron to shut the hell up. I raised hell when low life Chavez disrespected Bush and I have zero liking towards Bush or his policies, but he is OUR President.
April 27th, 2008 at 4:37 pmWe ain’t the home of the brave, we are chumps and fighting a losing war based on BAD intel from our so-called ally. Wake up America.