[WCUSP] Carter 's speech in Wales, Europe should break from the US over embargo of Gaza

[yvonne simmons]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/27/9216/ 
Published on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 by The Guardian/UK 
Carter Urges ‘Supine’ Europe to Break With US Over
Gaza Blockade
by Jonathan Steele and Jonathan Freedland
Britain and other European governments should break
from the US over the international embargo on Gaza,
former US president Jimmy Carter told the Guardian
yesterday. Carter, visiting the Welsh border town of
Hay for the Guardian literary festival, described the
EU’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as
“supine” and its failure to criticise the Israeli
blockade of Gaza as “embarrassing”.

Referring to the possibility of Europe breaking with
the US in an interview with the Guardian, he said:
“Why not? They’re not our vassals. They occupy an
equal position with the US.”

The blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza, imposed by the US,
EU, UN and Russia - the so-called Quartet - after the
organisation’s election victory in 2006, was “one
of the greatest human rights crimes on Earth,” since
it meant the “imprisonment of 1.6 million people, 1
million of whom are refugees”. “Most families in
Gaza are eating only one meal per day. To see
Europeans going along with this is embarrassing,”
Carter said.

He called on the EU to reassess its stance if Hamas
agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza. “Let the Europeans
lift the embargo and say we will protect the rights of
Palestinians in Gaza, and even send observers to Rafah
gate [Gaza’s crossing into Egypt] to ensure the
Palestinians don’t violate it.”

Although it is 27 years since he left the White House,
Carter recently met Hamas leaders in Damascus. He
declared a breakthrough in persuading the organisation
to offer a Gaza ceasefire and a halt to Palestinian
rocket attacks on Israel if Israel stopped its air and
ground strikes on the territory.

Carter described western governments’ self-imposed
ban on talking to Hamas as unrealistic and said
everyone knew Israel was negotiating with the
organisation through an Egyptian mediator, Omar
Suleiman. Suleiman took the Hamas ceasefire offer to
Jerusalem last week.

Israel was still hesitating over the ceasefire, Carter
confirmed yesterday. “I talked to Mr Suleiman the
day before yesterday. I hope the Israelis will
accept,” he said.

While being scrupulously polite to the Palestinian
Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and prime
minister, Salam Fayyad, who represent the Fatah
movement, he was scathing about their exclusion of
Hamas. He described the Fatah-only government as a
“subterfuge” aimed at getting round Hamas’s
election victory two years ago. “The top opinion
pollster in Ramallah told me the other day that
opinion on the West Bank is shifting to Hamas, because
people believe Fatah has sold out to Israel and the
US,” he said.

Carter said the Quartet’s policy of not talking to
Hamas unless it recognised Israel and fulfilled two
other conditions had been drafted by Elliot Abrams, an
official in the national security council at the White
House. He called Abrams “a very militant supporter
of Israel”. The ex-president, whose
election-monitoring Carter Centre had just certified
Hamas’s election victory as free and fair, addressed
the Quartet for 12 minutes at its session in London in
2006. He urged it to talk to Hamas, which had offered
to form a unity government with Fatah, the losers.

“The Quartet’s final document had been drafted in
Washington in advance, and not a line was changed,”
he said.

Earlier, Carter, told Sky News that Hillary Clinton
should abandon her battle to become Democratic
presidential candidate after the last round of
primaries in early June. Like many superdelegates, he
has yet to declare his support for either Clinton or
Barack Obama, but he suggested the outcome of the race
was a foregone conclusion. “I think that a lot of us
superdelegates will make a decision … quite rapidly,
after the final primary on June 3,” he said. “I
think at that point it will be time for her to give it
up.”

Last night, before a packed crowd at Hay, Carter spoke
of his “horror” at America’s involvement in
torturing prisoners, saying he wanted the next US
president to promise never to do so again.

He left an intriguing hint that George Bush might even
face prosecution on war crimes charges once he left
office.

When pressed by Philippe Sands QC on Bush’s recent
admission that he had authorised interrogation
procedures widely seen as amounting to torture, Carter
replied that he was sure Bush would be able to live a
peaceful, “productive life - in our country”.

Sands, an international legal expert, said afterwards
that he understood that to be “clear confirmation”
that while Bush would face no challenge in his own
country, “what happened outside the country was
another matter entirely”.

© 2008 The Guardian