Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Well he went and met with them, and Hamas is going around claiming what everybody said they would be going around claiming once Jimmy Dhimmi Carter met with them.

Not only that, but check out the quote at the end of the post below. It’s from this guy…

CAIRO, Egypt - Hamas officials said Wednesday that Jimmy Carter’s meetings with leaders of the Palestinian militant group will boost its legitimacy despite criticism by Israel and the U.S. government of the former president’s personal peace mission.

Carter arrived in Egypt from Israel and the Palestinian territories, where he raised Israeli anger Tuesday by embracing a Hamas official in the West Bank.

A delegation of senior Hamas officials from the Gaza Strip also came to Cairo, escorted by heavy security, and said Carter planned to meet with them Thursday.

A Carter spokesman refused to comment on Hamas’ claim. After sitting down with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and speaking at the American University on Thursday, Carter is scheduled to meet in Damascus, Syria, on Friday with Hamas’ top leader, Khaled Mashaal.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who brokered Israel’s historic peace agreement with Egypt three decades ago, is on what he calls a private peace mission. He contends the U.S., Israel and other Western states should stop isolating Hamas if they want peace efforts to succeed.

Heading the Hamas delegation in Cairo were Gaza leaders Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siyam. “This meeting is a message to those who don’t recognize Hamas’ legitimacy as a movement,” Zahar said as he left for Egypt, according to Hamas’ Web site.

In Cairo, Hamas spokesman Taher Nuhu told The Associated Press that the purported Thursday meeting would be “a recognition of the legitimacy” of Hamas’ victory in the Palestinians’ parliamentary election in 2006.

“We do not claim we are the only legitimate group there, but we are an integral part whose legitimacy was manifested in the elections,” Nuhu said.

(AP)