Carter warns Palestinians are being treated "like animals", wants Hamas off US terror list
Source: AP, AFP & Daily Star, 17-6-2009
GAZA CITY: Former US president Jimmy Carter on Tuesday met Hamas leader Ismail Hanieh in the Gaza Strip, where he called for a lifting of "Israel's" blockade, saying Palestinians are being treated "like animals." Following the talks, Carter called for an end of "all violence" against both "Israelis" and Palestinians.
"This is holy land for us all and my hope is that we can have peace all of us are children of Abraham," Carter said at a joint news conference with Hanieh, prime minister of the Hamas government in the Palestinian enclave.
Hanieh in turn said Hamas supported the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories "Israel" has occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.
"If there is a real plan to resolve the Palestinian question on the basis of the creation of a Palestinian state within the borders of June 4, 1967 and with full sovereignty, we are in favor of it," Hanieh said.
He also praised US President Barack Obama's June 4 speech in Cairo to the Muslim world.
"We saw a new tone, a new language and a new spirit in the official US rhetoric," he said.
Such praise is rare from Palestine's Hamas.
Earlier Carter denounced the "Israeli" blockade and the destruction wrought by its 22-day military offensive against Gaza in December and January.
"My primary feeling today is one of grief and despair and an element of anger when I see the destruction perpetrated against innocent people," Carter said as he toured the territory.
"Tragically, the international community too often ignores the cries for help and the citizens of Palestine are treated more like animals than like human beings," he said.
"The starving of 1.5 million human beings of the necessities of life - never before in history has a large community like this been savaged by bombs and missiles and then denied the means to repair itself," Carter said at a UN school graduation ceremony in Gaza City.
The US and Europe "must try to do all that is necessary to convince "Israel" and Egypt to allow basic goods into Gaza," he said.
"At same time, there must be no more rockets" from Gaza into "Israel", said Carter, who brokered the historic 1979 peace treaty between "Israel" and Egypt.
"I have to hold back tears when I see the deliberate destruction that has been wracked against your people," he said at a destroyed American school, saying it was "deliberately destroyed by bombs from F16s made in my country."
"Israel's" offensive killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and left large swathes of Gaza in ruins. Thirteen "Israeli"s, 10 of them soldiers, also died in the conflict.
"I feel partially responsible for this as must all Americans and "Israelis"," Carter said.
"Israel" claims that the Gaza blockade, which bars all but essential humanitarian supplies from entering the enclave, is necessary to prevent Hamas from arming, but human rights groups have slammed it as collective punishment, which is illegal under international law.
"Israeli" security forces on Tuesday said they spotted Hamas forces dismantling explosives along the route traveled by Jimmy Carter into the Gaza Strip. But the former president has dismissed the claim.
After Carter entered Gaza, Hamas security men were seen removing three large black disks and some wire from a sand dune next to the road Carter had used. A uniformed officer at the scene said the items were explosives, but police spokesman Islam Shahwan said the officer was mistaken and nothing was found.
"Israeli" security officials say soldiers in a lookout post spotted Hamas forces dismantling explosives.
However, Presstv.ir reported on June Wednesday 17, 2009 that Carter has advised the Obama administration against keeping the Hamas resistance movement on its list of terror organizations.
Carter, who was in the Gaza Strip to meet rulers of the area, says he will meet with officials in the Obama administration in two days to discuss his latest trip to the Middle East.
Hamas, whose main objective is Palestinian statehood, has long been branded by the European Union and the United States as a terrorist group and is under boycott for its refusal to recognize "Israel".
During an interview with Fox News, Carter said "Israel" must stop treating Palestinians "like animals."
"Israeli" human rights activists, such as Uri Davis, in late 2001 called "Israel" the "last colonial power in the world" for openly practicing "torture, detention without trial, confiscation of land for security purposes and collective punishment."
A year later, when South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu visited the area, he drew disturbing analogies between "Israel's" treatment of Palestinians and how blacks were treated under South African apartheid.
"I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa," he said in a speech in Boston in 2002.
"I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about," Tutu added.
During his visit of the Gaza Strip, Carter expressed extreme dismay over the damage inflicted by "Israeli" forces using state-of-the-art US-produced weaponry on the tiny coastal sliver.
"I have to hold back tears when I see the deliberate destruction that has been wreaked against your people," Carter said while touring the war-ravaged strip on Tuesday.
Carter also surveyed a school destroyed during "Israel's" Christmas war, decrying the fact that it had been "deliberately destroyed by bombs from F16s made in my country."
Tel Aviv unleashed its military operation plan on Gaza on December 27. Three weeks of ensuing airstrikes and a ground incursion left nearly 1,350 Palestinians -- at least 1,100 of whom were civilians -- dead and nearly 5,450 others injured.
The onslaught cost the Palestinian economy at least $1.6 billion, destroying some 4,000 residential buildings and damaging 16,000 other homes.
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