Hamas open to peace deal with Palestinian backing: Carter

by Joseph Krauss Mon Apr 21, 2008

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Former US president Jimmy Carter said on Monday the Islamist Hamas movement told him it would recognise Israel’s right to live in peace if a deal is reached and approved by a Palestinian vote.

Carter made the comments following two meetings in Damascus with exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal that angered Israel and the United States, which consider the movement a terror group despite its victory in 2006 elections.

“They said that they would accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders if approved by Palestinians and that they would accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbour, next door, in peace,” Carter told the Israeli Council on Foreign Relations think-tank.

While in the Middle East Carter met with senior Hamas leaders from the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Syria, but was unable to secure a ceasefire or a prisoner exchange for an Israeli soldier seized by Gaza militants in 2006.

Hours after Carter spoke Meshaal told a press conference in Damascus that Hamas would not recognise the Jewish state and would insist on the right of some 4.5 million Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.

Lee ADDS: The words Jimmy Carter spoke to the writer of this article were all lies! HAMAS has said so! According to HAMAS, “We will NEVER accept Israel as having the rights to reconition as a country!”

Jimmy Carter is so very hungry for attention that he will say anything in his attempts to be taken seriously.