Good for them! Let the Palestinians protect him.I think that our Secret Service should refuse to go, it puts them at risk:
Israel’s secret service has declined to assist U.S. agents guarding former U.S. President Jimmy Carter during a visit in which Israeli leaders have shunned him, U.S. sources close to the matter said on Monday.
[…]
Israel has also rejected Carter’s request to meet jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi, who is seen as a possible successor to President Mahmoud Abbas, a spokesman for Carter said.
Barghouthi was convicted in 2004 of murder by an Israeli court over the killing of four Israelis and a Greek Orthodox monk in attacks by Palestinian militants. He is serving five life sentences.
[…]
American sources close to the matter said the Shin Bet security service, which helps protect visiting dignitaries and is overseen by Olmert’s office, declined to meet the head of Carter’s Secret Service security detail or provide his team with assistance as is customary during such visits.
[…]
Carter included the southern Israeli town of Sderot on his itinerary. The area is often hit by rockets from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and one of the sources described the lack of Shin Bet assistance there as particularly “problematic.”
[…]
Hamas leaders have offered a long-term truce with Israel in return for a viable Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but the group’s 1988 founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Ahead of his visit, Carter defended talks with Hamas.
“I think there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process”
No one, not even the lefty commenters who supporter his trip, can explain to me how you can have peace with a nation that’s bent on your destruction.
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