And Peace to You, Jimmy Baby

Michael L.
Former American President, Jimmy Carter, has an op-ed in the Washington Post today entitled, United Palestinian government may provide new opportunities for peace.
He writes:

The Palestinians’ plans for the coming months are relatively clear: to form a new unity government and expand involvement in the United Nations. Although condemned by some, the decision by the leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas to reconcile their differences and move toward elections can be a positive development. In the past, similar efforts have been abandoned because of strong opposition from Israel and the United States, but the resolve to succeed is now much stronger among leaders in the West Bank and Gaza. This reconciliation of Palestinian factions and formation of a national unity government is necessary because it would be impossible to implement any peace agreement between Israel and just one portion of the Palestinians.

It is hard to fathom how anyone could think that folding a genocidally anti-Semitic organization into the PLO is a good thing.  It is obvious, of course, that Israel can reach no meaningful peace agreement with only a portion of the Palestinian-Arab people, but it is equally obvious that an organization that calls not only for the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel, but for the genocide of the Jews, represents a sworn enemy, not a partner for peace.
Hamas has made no gestures that would suggest that they are interested in two states for two peoples.  Quite the contrary, Hamas opposes a negotiated conclusion of hostilities, yet a former President of the United States, a nuclear engineer, no less, thinks that it is in the best interest of the Jews of the Middle East to recognize and uplift an organization that screams to the hillsides for Jewish blood.
The wrong-headedness of such a notion goes well beyond casual naivety.
As anyone who knows anything about this tumor that emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza knows that they encorporate a particular part of one of the hadiths into their charter.

The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.

That is what Jimmy Carter believes that the Jews of the Middle East have a moral obligation to negotiate with?
And considering the damage that Carter has done to Israel and to the Jewish people via the Apartheid Smear, would not a wise individual choose to remain quiet?  Surely Carter knows that his reputation among very many Jewish people is rather shaky.  The reason for this, of course, is that of all the countries in the world, and all the atrocities that they collectively commit, he declares the one, lone, sole Jewish country to be immoral.
What, after all, is apartheid if not a form of state sanctioned immorality?  And if Israel commits apartheid on the allegedly indigenous Palestinian-Arab population, what does that say about those of us who support Israel?  It says that we, too, are immoral and in support of an immoral country and an immoral people, the Jewish people.
Of course, as a huge fan of the Hamas charter this is my favorite part:

With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.

The Freemasons?  Really?  Rotary Clubs?  And, I have to say, I had no idea that the Detroit Lions football team was in anyway involved in the Vast Zionist Conspiracy to Rule the Universe.
Here is a question to ask:
How is it that an organization could write such wild and genocidal nonsense directly into their charter and a seemingly rational former President of the United States reaches out his hand to such people?
Can anyone imagine Carter reaching out to any European organization that claimed that the Jews seek world domination and thereby need to be eliminated?
Some say that Jimmy Carter is an anti-Semite, although I have never drawn that conclusion.  What  I think is that Carter remains entrenched within the kind of left-leaning, soft-hearted, soft-minded, Vietnam War era sensibility that vilified western imperialism and romanticized anti-imperialist forces of any sort - however violent, however vile - so long as they represented "people of color."
How else to explain Carter's equanimity with Hamas's articulated genocidal intentions?  How else to explain that he honestly believes that murderous lunatics make for good negotiating partners?
I tell you what.  I have a better idea.  Instead of folding Hamas into the PLO - which, itself, is a terrorist organization, of course - why do we not defeat Hamas and thereby make them go away?
I know that wishing to actually defeat one's mortal enemies is today considered dangerously hard-right radical, but I feel reasonably certain that Franklin Roosevelt approved of the notion.