LONDON/CAIRO, 26 May 2008 — Former US President Jimmy Carter yesterday described Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip as “one of the greatest human rights crimes now existing on Earth.”
In a speech at a literary festival in Hay-on-Wye, in Wales, the 83-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner said: “There is no reason to treat these people this way,” referring to the blockade, in place since the Hamas took over Gaza in June 2007.
While president from 1977 to 1981, Carter was the architect of the landmark 1979 peace deal between Israel and Egypt, the first such treaty between the Jewish state and an Arab country. According to Carter, the failure of the European Union to support the Palestinian cause was “embarrassing.” He said European countries should be “encouraging the formation of a unity government,” including Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement.
“They should be encouraging Hamas to have a cease-fire in Gaza alone, as a first step,” he told the invited guests.
“They should be encouraging Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement in prisoner exchange and, as a second step, Israel should agree to a cease-fire in the West Bank, which is Palestinian territory.”
Meanwhile, Egypt has urged both Hamas and Israel to show flexibility in efforts to reach a cease-fire. The official Middle East News Agency reports the message was relayed to an Israeli security official who met with Egypt’s intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, to discuss the truce.
Amos Gilad, who heads the Israeli Defense Ministry’s political-security branch, flew to Egypt yesterday for talks with Suleiman.
MENA says Suleiman is trying to bridge the gap in positions of both sides.
Hamas has demanded the lifting of the crippling blockade of Gaza. The violence in and around Gaza has cast a shadow over peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians which were revived in November but have made only faltering progress.
Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel’s internal security service Shin Beth, was quoted by a senior government official as casting doubt on the success of the Gaza truce efforts.
“Hamas is interested in a truce but is refusing to accept Israel’s conditions. It is putting an emphasis on the removal of the blockade and wants to buy time in order to continue its power building,” Diskin was quoted as saying in an Israeli Cabinet meeting. Another stumbling block was Hamas’ demand for Israel to agree on a timetable for applying a truce in the West Bank, which is ruled by President Abbas, Diskin said.
Gilad and Suleiman discussed “means of removing obstacles to realizing a truce between Palestinians and Israelis,” Egypt’s official MENA news agency reported.
Suleiman is pursuing “intensive contacts with all Palestinian and Israeli parties in order to bring the two sides’ points of view closer for an agreement on a truce as quickly as possible,” MENA quoted a senior Egyptian official as saying.
The unnamed official also urged Israelis and Palestinians to show “the flexibility necessary to reach a truce.” Suleiman “is doing everything possible to convince the Israelis and Palestinians to give their agreement to a truce,” he said.
