Jimmy Carter: US Aims To Split Palestinians

Courtesy Of: Reuters AlertNet
By Jonathan Saul
AlertNet

DUBLIN, June 19 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Tuesday Washington's support for the Palestinian Fatah group and the blocking of aid to Gaza were part of a mistaken policy aimed at dividing Palestinians.

...Carter, on a visit to Dublin, said the United States and Israel had done "everything they could to prevent accommodation between Hamas and Fatah".

"Lately, the United States has been giving military aid to Fatah in order to conquer Hamas in Gaza," Carter told reporters after addressing a human rights forum in Dublin.

"Fatah could not prevail because of the fervent commitment of some of the Hamas fighters and because of their discipline," he added.

Carter, who brokered the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978, said moves to give Palestinians assistance in the West Bank was an attempt to "reward them", while continuing to "punish" the 1.5 million aid-dependent Palestinians in Gaza.

"This effort to divide Palestine into two peoples now, I think it is a step in the wrong direction," Carter said.

"There is no effort being made outside to bring the two together."

BUSH CRITICISED

Carter, who was president from 1977-1981 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his charitable work, has been highly critical of Bush's Middle East policies. In May he described Bush's presidency as "the worst in history".

Carter told reporters that U.S-run detention camps, such as Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and U.S. anti-terrorism laws, were unacceptable even in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"This departure on human rights is completely incompatible with all the predecessors in the White House," he said.

"It's excused inadequately by the aftermath of 9/11 that the terrorism threat is so great that we can abandon our basic American principles on human rights," he said.

"I strongly disagree with that."