What Is This World Coming To?

It would be nice to simply speak something into the air and, by virtue of your ‘positive confession’ for that ’something’ to become the truth.

Former president Jimmy Carter spoke into the air that he could accomplish what no sitting president could, and bring peace between Israel and her enemies.

Carter was SO certain that only he could bring this off that he traveled to Damascus, in defiance of both the State Department and Israeli Foreign Ministry.

He met with the leader of Hamas, in violation of US laws that prohibit giving “aid and comfort” (in this case, a propaganda victory) to a declared enemy of the United States.

Now, having gone over to the other side in defiance of his own government, Carter is now acting as a spokesman for Hamas.

The former US president emerged from the meeting and declared that, “Hamas is prepared to accept Israel’s right to exist and to live as a next-door neighbor in peace.”

Of course, Hamas isn’t prepared to do that without expecting certain concessions, Carter cautions.

Hamas is sad. It seems that neither Israel nor the United States will meet with them just because they won’t stop attacking Israeli civilians. But, as Carter patiently explains, Hamas can’t stop attacking — it is a ‘cycle of violence’.

What is a cycle of violence? Let’s break it down to its component elements.

I walk up and punch you in the nose. You punch me back, knock me down, and walk away. So I hunt down one of your kids and punch him in the nose.

Then I punch your kid in the nose every time I see him, until finally, after a half dozen more attacks on your kid, you come and knock me down again. So I set fire to your house.

A ‘cycle’ of violence!

THIS is how Jimmy Carter sees the conflict. If I attack you and you retaliate in self-defense, then my retaliation justifies your escalating the conflict. It is a ‘cycle’ of violence that can only stop when I stop attacking.

Here’s is Jimmy Carter’s solution. Give me your house and I won’t set fire to it.

That’s fair, isn’t it?

According to Jimmy Carter, “The problem is not that I met with Hamas in Syria. The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved.”

You see? The ‘problem’ is that the United States and Israel are wrong, Hamas is justified in its attacks, because Israel and the US won’t meet with Hamas BECAUSE they won’t stop attacking. And only Jimmy Carter can solve the problem.

All America and Israel have to do is surrender to the demands of Hamas in exchange for a cessation of terror and everything will be just fine.

“Hamas indicated to us at least - I’m not guaranteeing their commitment - that if Israel is willing to have a mutual ceasefire and a renunciation of violence in Gaza and in the West Bank, they will accept it, and as a first step they would even accept just limiting that to Gaza. . . . so I think that what they have said, if they were honest and we wrote it out so there wouldn’t be a mistake, it’s a very significant development.”

Aye, there’s the rub! “IF they were honest AND we wrote it out.”

Exactly. Except that if they were ‘honest’ then there’d be no war. And WE can write out anything we want — Hamas already wrote its charter.

In its charter, Hamas lays out the only reason for its existence: the destruction of Israel. So Carter’s position is that Hamas is prepared to abandon its reason for existing, but not prepared to disband. Or something.

And, according to Carter, Israel is at fault because Cpl. Gilad Shalit has been held by Hamas for two years. If Israel had met with Hamas, then Hamas would have released him.

One wonders if Carter knows how Cpl Gilad Shalit came to be a Hamas prisoner in the first place? Answer? He was kidnapped from inside Israel, by armed terrorist thugs, and spirited away into Gaza.

Carter says the major difficulty was in agreeing to the identity of the Palestinian prisoners Hamas is demanding in return for his release. Carter says that Hamas is demanding one thousand Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Cpl. Shalit.

Shalit remains in captivity, says Carter, because Israel has only accepted seventy-one names of the thousand Hamas is demanding.

Is it just me? Or does this sound just a bit odd? A thousand prisoners who are in prison for terrorism against Israel, in exchange for a 20-year old kidnapped Israeli soldier guilty of serving his country?

I have to tell you, even as I explain this, it sounds like some kind of bad joke. A former US president defending the application of terror as ‘justified’ is stunning enough. A former US president defending holding a kidnap victim because the ransom wasn’t sufficiently high is beyond belief, even if this IS Jimmy Carter.

Carter offered as evidence of Hamas’ sincerity, the promise that Cpl Shalit will be “allowed to send a letter, soon,” as a ‘humanitarian gesture.’

As former president Jimmy Carter was lecturing the United States and Israel for isolating Hamas, Hamas decided it would send Israel a message of good faith to back up Carter’s message.

In celebration of Passover, it loaded to US-made vehicles donated to the Palestinians by the US with explosives, disguised them as Israeli military vehicles, and blew them up at at the Kerem Shalom crossing, the main Israeli transport area for goods and humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Muhammad Abdel-Al, the spokesperson and a leader of the Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committees terrorist organization, explained:

“We warned you we would obtain all the weapons the Zionists and Americans gave to your puppets in Fatah. It is only a matter of time before we take over the West Bank and obtain the American weapons you are giving Fatah now.”

Thirteen Israeli soldiers were wounded in that attack. Three other Israeli soldiers were killed when they were ambushed the same day along an Israeli border fence with Gaza.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said of that attack: “These operations are the beginning of the explosions that Hamas has warned of. . . if the parties don’t intervene quickly to save Gaza and break the siege, what is coming will be greater.”

Last month, Carter met in Egypt with senior Hamas leaders Mahmoud al-Zahar and Saeed Seyam. Israeli security officials stated it was “almost a one hundred percent certainty” both al-Zahar and Seyam were involved in planning a series of recent border attacks.

Al-Zahar and Seyam are identified by both Israeli and Palestinian security officials as the two most senior leaders of Hamas’ so-called military wing, which carries out terrorist activities from the Gaza Strip, including rocket strikes, suicide bombings, border raids, kidnappings and shooting attacks.

These are Jimmy Carter’s interlocutors for peace.

“Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.” (Zechariah 12:2-4)

“Astonishment, blindness and madness” — that just about sums it up perfectly.