Jimmy Carter: Will you please get a clue and remove yourself from the world stage?

Is there simply no way of preventing a hopelessly misguided ex-president from traveling the world and thwarting current American policy whenever he pleases? Apparently not. That would be Jimmy Carter, by the way, whose current Middle East tour is slated to include a “very important” meeting with Hamas, an organization which is universally considered a terrorist group and with whom, therefore, American policy says no negotiations should be conducted.

No worries, says Carter, it’s not a negotiation, it’s just a friendly little meet-and-greet for the purpose of information sharing and he feels “quite at ease in doing this.” The problem with having such a meeting between a bloodthirsty band of terrorists and an American ex-president is that it lends a certain degree of legitimacy to Hamas and says that, hey, they’re just like any other elected government and we ought to deal with them even though we don’t think they’re particularly swell.

In Carter’s own words: “I think that it’s very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians in Israel . . . and things of this kind.”

It all sounds so beguilingly commonsensical–unless you know anything at all about Hamas. Carter certainly does, but in his ego-stoking quest for peace he apparently has an amazing ability in his brain to compartmentalize away any information — such as reality, for instance — that would deter his mission. Someone ought to stick a copy of the Hamas Charter in his face anyway and beg him to avoid a humiliating and possibly damaging trip to Hamasastan. Speaking of the Hamas Charter, here’s a couple of choice highlights which all by themselves would settle the matter if reason were to prevail:

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

These and other nuggets of Hamas ideology make it pretty clear where they’re coming from. They’re not about “flexibility,” but unfortunately, Carter is all about “vain endeavors.” Often cited as the country’s worst president, at least in the modern era, he never ceases to try and build on his one widely perceived success, which was to jockey a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.

But reasoning with Egypt is not remotely comparable to reasoning with Hamas. That’s because Hamas exists for one reason and one reason only: to destroy Israel.

But wait just a minute, some astute readers may say. Hasn’t Hamas in recent times modified its views such that coexistence with Israel would be possible if Israel would withdraw from all Palestinian occupied territories back to the borders as they were before the ‘67 war and if Israel would grant all Palestinians the “right of return?” Well, okay, yes it has, but the one nattering and insurmountable problem of such a scenario is that it would be national suicide for Israel, which kind of makes it not particularly worthwhile as a point from which to start negotiations.

We know what happened when Israel pulled out of tiny Gaza. The formerly occupied territory became a base for terror operations practically overnight and rockets have rained down on Israel on a daily basis ever since. So much for trading land for peace. As for the “right of return,” Palestinians — most of whom would never have lived there to begin with — would simply overrun the country and the next thing you know, no more Israel, which, of course, is Hamas’ ultimate goal.

As of this writing, Carter has so far had a meeting in the West Bank with an ex-minister in Hamas’ government and still has plans to meet with top terror Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, in Syria. In Carter’s desperation to build a respectable legacy in what remaining time he has left on earth, he instead continues to further mire himself on the wrong side of history.

Greg Strange provides conservative commentary with plenty of acerbic wit on the people, politics, events and absurdities of our time. See more at his website: http://www.greg-strange.com/.