Pat Dollard

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Agencie France Presse:

Democratic White House contender Barack Obama could not hide his irritation Monday when asked by a reporter what he thought about former president Jimmy Carter’s meeting with Hamas last week.

“Why can’t I just eat my waffle?” the Illinois senator said as he ate breakfast in Scranton, Pennsylvania, according to MSNBC television pictures.

Pressed again for an answer, he replied: “Just let me eat my waffle.”

Obama, who is battling Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, criticized Carter last week for seeking to meet with leaders of the Islamist movement, which he said was “a terrorist organization.”

He told a synagogue in Philadelphia that while it was legitimate to meet with the leaders of states such as Syria or Iran, even if they were hostile to Israel, “Hamas is not a state” and did not warrant such a move.

At a public meeting Sunday, Obama also noted the difficulty of negotiating a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians where one group representing Palestinians — Hamas, who run the Gaza Strip — refused to recognize Israel.

Carter said Monday that Hamas had told him it would recognize Israel’s right to live in peace if a deal is reached and approved by a Palestinian vote, after two meetings in Damascus with exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal.

But hours after he spoke, Meshaal told a press conference in Damascus that Hamas would not recognize the Jewish state and would insist on the right of some 4.5 million Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.