The Cauldron

Former US President Jimmy Carter is no stranger to criticism. His controversial meeting with the militant Islamist group Hamas two weeks ago only helped fuel that fire.

Carter, the most prominent Westerner to formally speak with the organization, said he secured an agreement in which Hamas militants will cease firing rockets into Israeli cities and towns for 10 years if Israel withdraws from all of the land that has been under its administration since the 1967 Six-Day War, which saw Israel seize control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from Jordan and Egypt, respectfully, who had been controlling the territories since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

A Nobel Prize winner, Carter said that his trip intended to show the value of negotiating with Hamas, something that Israel and America have refused to do.

"We do not believe that peace is likely, and we are certain that peace is not sustainable, unless a way is found to bring Hamas into the discussions in some way," Carter said in an address to the Israeli Council on Foreign Relations before flying back to the United States. "The present strategy of excluding Hamas and excluding Syria is just not working."

On April 16th Hamas spokesman Ismail Radhwan said on the Qatar-based pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera that Carter's visit showed that Hamas could not be ignored.

"[President Carter's visit] reflects the recognition that the Hamas movement cannot be ignored," he said, "We will benefit from this meeting by explaining our cause, our positions, and our principles..."

Israeli officials reacted negatively to Carter's visit with the group, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state in the area that is now Israel, the West Bank, an the Gaza Strip and is viewed as anti-Semitic, for statements like those made in its 7th article:

The Prophet, Allah's prayer and peace be upon him, says: "The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,' except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews."

"It was sad to see how Hamas is using former president Carter to try to get legitimization it does not deserve," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel. But Carter said in an interview that Hamas referred to its charter as "an ancient document".

"It (destroying Israel) may be something they wish, but they know it's a fruitless concept," he said."

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, who met with Carter in Damascus, told reporters there Monday that the group would not formally recognize Israel even if it accepts a peace deal that implicitly acknowledges Israel's existence.

"We accept a state on the June 4 line with Jerusalem as capital, real sovereignty and full right of return for refugees but without recognizing Israel," Mashal told reporters.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that she had advised President Carter against the meeting with the group, which is in control of the Gaza Strip since it seized it last June.

"I just don't want there to be any confusion," Rice said at a regional meeting on Iraq's security and future. "The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help" further a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

A source close to Carter denies this that he was advised by anyone against the meeting, which was part of a larger trip to Nepal, Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, which took place over the 13th through the 22nd of April.

"President Carter has the greatest respect for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and believes her to be a truthful person," his spokeswoman, Deanna Congileo, said Wednesday in a statement.

"However, perhaps inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true. No one in the State Department or any other department of the U.S. government ever asked him to refrain from his recent visit to the Middle East or even suggested that he not meet with Syrian President Assad or leaders of Hamas."

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