JERUSALEM — Former President Carter angered Israel’s government Tuesday by embracing a Hamas politician during a visit to the West Bank, ignoring Israeli and U.S. designation of the Islamic militants as a terrorist group.
Israel accused Carter, the broker of the first Arab-Israeli peace accord, of “dignifying” extremists. But Carter vowed to meet Hamas’ supreme leader this week in Syria.
Carter, a Nobel Peace laureate, also laid a wreath at Yasser Arafat’s grave, another break with U.S. policy during a private peace mission to the Middle East that includes stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria — where the virulently anti-Israel Hamas movement has its headquarters. Carter returns to Israel on Monday.
Carter has been shunned by Israel this week, and the White House has criticized him for his willingness to meet with Hamas leaders.
Carter says the U.S. and Israel should stop isolating the group, whose control of the Gaza Strip threatens to undermine Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. “Since Syria and Hamas will have to be involved in a final peace agreement, they have to be involved in discussions that lead to final peace,” Carter said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Carter attended a reception organized by his office for Palestinian dignitaries in Ramallah. At the gathering, Carter embraced Nasser Shaer, a senior Hamas politician, participants in the meeting said. Embraces between men are a common custom in Arab culture.
Palestinians say Shaer, an academic, was not involved in Hamas attacks against Israel, and Israel has never charged him with violent activity.
Carter is scheduled to meet Khaled Mashaal, the group’s exiled leader, Friday in Damascus.
“The official Hamas position . . . is that it won’t negotiate with Israel or recognize it under any circumstance,” Israeli Foreign Ministry official Yigal Palmor said. “Jimmy Carter has dignified this position with his presence, and one cannot but wonder how this attitude is supposed to promote peace and understanding.”
