Atlanta – Former US president Jimmy Carter has called on the outgoing Obama administration to take steps toward recognizing a Palestinian state before leaving office in January.
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The 39th US president made the call in an op-ed published Monday in the New York Times under the title “America Must Recognize Palestine.”
“We do not yet know the policy of the next administration toward Israel and Palestine, but we do know that the current administration is keen on achieving a two state solution,” Carter wrote.
“That prospect is now in grave doubt,” Carter said, pointing toward the uncertainty surrounding incoming US President-elect Donald Trump’s exact policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Carter urged the US to push for a UN Security Council resolution “laying out the parameters for resolving the conflict.” The resolution, he added, should “reaffirm the illegality of all Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 borders, while leaving open the possibility that the parties could negotiate modifications.”
Carter, who in recent year has been viewed as harboring an anti-Israel stance, asserted that his “primary foreign policy goal of my life has been to help bring peace to Israel and its neighbors.”
In his op-ed, Carter praised the Obama administration as well as other previous administrations for their role in trying to reach a peace deal, but said that the prospects of such a agreement are now growing slim.
He made the charge placing the onus on Israel, and criticizing Jerusalem’s policies without mention of Palestinian terrorism or Palestinian rejections of past offers.
“Israel is building more and more settlements, displacing Palestinians and entrenching its occupation of Palestinian lands,” he charged.
This process, Carter claimed, will bring about “a one-state reality that could destroy Israeli democracy and will result in intensifying international condemnation of Israel.”
American recognition of an independent Palestinian state will make it easier for other countries to follow suit, Carter argued.
“I fear for the spirit of Camp David. We must not squander this chance,” he said in reference to the 1978 peace accord between Israel and Egypt that was signed during his presidency.
Israel has urged outgoing US President Barack Obama against backing any such attempt to place outside influence on the conflict in the final weeks of his term.
Carter has been one of Israel’s most ardent critics in recent years and last year President Reuven Rivlin refused to meet him when he visited the region.
An Israeli diplomatic official told The Jerusalem Post’s Hebrew sister publication Ma’ariv at the time, that the Foreign Ministry recommended Rivlin not meet with Carter, in order to transmit the message that those who harm Israel will not meet with the president.
yimach shimoh vzichro
The man is standing next to the wrong flag.!!
Why is this menuvel still alive?
peanut farmer’s opinion
Mr Carter will the Palestinians recognize Israel as a state – NOT s
Timing was never Carter’s strong point, and taking this anti-Israel 11th hour position would destroy any possible U.S. leverage with EY for decades with respect towards a possible two-state solution. He is fortunate that hashem gave him another chance at life after his recent illness; he should enjoy his remaining years in peace with his family and stay out of politics where sadly, his name evokes strong passions.
He has proven to be useless, other than for entertainment value (also to be questioned). He has not uttered anything bright for many years. I am not an editor, but I would reject his writing attempts as written rhetoric that has no intellectual value to it.
Why didnt he join the Netura Karta this week ? they have the same opinion
If the current administration is so “keen on achieving a two state solution,” why haven’t they been successful already?
It’s a rhetorical question.
Jimmy why don’t you move there?
How sad it must be for this pathetic one term president who accomplished nothing in his presidency and nothing in his many years thereafter and with his last breaths he’s spewing out his hate and his screwed up facts on all of us as if anyone cares what he has to say. Good riddance Mr. President!
There was never a palestinian state in history so why now do these arabs desire a state of their own .All the time that Arabs and Turks had control of that area there was never a wish for that population to have self control. It would become another place for the various tribes and clans to war with each other and israel.
B’chol Dor V’dor Amad……
I ENJOYED ALL THE THE COMMENTS HERE!!
More importantly, Israel must recognize and work with Palestine.
While the peace accords he helped broker secured Israel’s southwestern border, it is H-shem who secures its future. President Carter was placed in office to be the tool of Israel’s security then.His voice now is merely one filled with venom at having become an afterthought – an anachronistic symbol of failure and poor judgment.
And Carter will do the right thing and give back all of the USA to the Indians. Carter can keep the beads.
Just chuckling recalling President Carter exiting his plane/helicopter carrying his own suitcase – a demonstration that he was a common man of the people. Later on we learned the suitcase was empty. So is his kop!
A Carter and Obama, the two worst presidents in US history. What a pair of anti semitic low lives y’sv.
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The cherubic appearance of this kindly, soft-spoken gentlemen, belies his currently expressed, anti-Semitism, in TV and print interviews in the media and in his book.
Some people have read and actually believe “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” the anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, screed that compares the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories to the former government-mandated racial separation in South Africa.
His fairness in condemning Israel is suspect because ex-president Jimmy’s Carter Center has accepted multi-millions in Arab funding.
Kenneth W. Stein, the founder of the Carter Center’s Middle East program, resigned to protest the book, describing it in a letter to Fox News as “replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments.”
Backers include the government of Saudi Arabia, Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. Other big donors include the Sultanate of Oman; the government of the United Arab Emirates; brother of Osama bin Laden, Bakr BinLadin, “for the Saudi BinLadin Group.”
Watch “Ari Lesser Apartheid” on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsOH2Y_CZE0
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“W” as President promoted the two-state solution.
Do you critics of Carter because of his stance of a Pali state, also critical of Mr. Bush?
If so, Kudos to you!
if not
you are hypocritical.