Off The Reservation
By Matthew RJ BrodskyDecember 9th, 2008For nearly two years, the U.S. and Europe have stuck together in their efforts to isolate the Hamas terrorist group, with at least some measure of success. All of that, however, may soon change. The reason is that our most (privately) interventionist president, Jimmy Carter, is once again set to cross the Atlantic to spread his own brand of personal diplomacy. Carter plans to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Asad and other “officials” this week to discuss the prospects for peace in the Middle East during a scheduled visit to Lebanon and Syria.
This is hardly Carter’s first foray into post-presidential peacemaking. Just several months ago, he visited Syria and met with Hamas’ terror prince, Khalid Mashal, in what amounted to a direct contravention of current U.S. and European policy.
Carter’s efforts are notable for their departure from U.S. diplomatic practice. During the 1980s, after all, America’s approach to Hamas’ secular competitor, the PLO, was predicated upon three requirements: (1) recognition of Israel’s right to exist; (2) acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 242; and (3) renunciation of terrorism. In 1988, the PLO met these conditions verbally, thus paving the way for American involvement in the Oslo Process of the 1990s.
The outreach being attempted by Carter falls conspicuously short of even this minimalist goal, since Hamas not only fails to meet the standard applied to the PLO in the 1980s, but is committed to Israel’s destruction and responsible in part for torpedoing the peace efforts of the 1990s. In doing so, the former president is sending a clear signal to the region’s rogues: you do not need to change your behavior in order to have a seat at the diplomatic table with the United States. It’s a sad legacy for the man who made history by brokering peace between Israel and Egypt nearly thirty years ago.
