Carter To Work For Anti-Israel Sanctions
Former president Jimmy Carter told the Palestinian government he would work privately to push for U.S. and international sanctions against Israel, according to officials in the Palestinian Authority.
Separately, Carter told Hamas leaders that he would lobby the Obama administration to open dialogue with the terrorist organization, Hamas officials in Gaza told this column.
According to the PA officials, Carter, in the Middle East to visit Syria, Israel and the Palestinian territories, said he would lobby for sanctions against the Jewish state due to Israel’s continued blockade against the Gaza Strip as well as its settlement activity – Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.
The PA officials said Carter expressed in meetings held with them in eastern Jerusalem that he sees settlements as the main obstacle to an Israeli-Palestinian deal.
Carter last week visited Syria, where he met with Hamas chief Khaled Meshal as part of an international delegation that seeks to end the isolation of Hamas.
In 2009, Carter made a solidarity trip to the Gaza Strip, embracing Hamas leaders and calling for the international community to open dialogue with Hamas. At the time, Mushir al-Masri, a member of Hamas’s parliament and a spokesman for the Islamist group, told this column that Carter presented them with a written initiative intended to open talks between the Hamas and the U.S.
Hamas’s chief political adviser in Gaza, Ahmed Yousef, refused to confirm or deny that any message was passed to his group from the White House. Yousef did tell this column, however, that Carter is the “right person” to serve as a middle man between Hamas and the Obama administration.
Iran-Hamas Bond Grows Tighter
Iranian Revolutionary Guard units have stepped up their training of Hamas commanders inside the Gaza Strip, according to a senior Egyptian security official.
The official acknowledged a growing level of cooperation with the Guard in efforts to smuggle weapons into Gaza, while Egypt has reported an increase in Guard training of Hamas division commanders inside the Gaza Strip.
The information comes as Iran publicly solidifies its hold over its other allies along the Israeli border, most notably Syria and the Iranian-backed Hizbullah militia in Lebanon.
This column reported last week that it was Lebanese-based Iranian Revolutionary Guard units and the Hizbullah militia that assumed security control for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Lebanon.
“The Lebanese Army was just the cover for Iranian Guards based in Lebanon and for Hizbullah, which both assumed full security control for Ahmadinejad,” said a top Lebanese politician, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“This shows how Iran can take over Lebanon’s security when needed,” he said.
More Evidence On Obama’s
New Party Associations
Yet more evidence has emerged tying President Obama to the New Party, a Marxist-led socialist party that sought to infiltrate the Democratic Party and push it so far leftward that it ultimately would become a socialist organization.
John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine, recalled speaking with Obama at New Party events in the 1990s.
“When we spoke together at New Party events in those days, he was blunt about his desire to move the Democratic Party off the cautious center where Bill Clinton had wedged it,” wrote Nichols in a January 2009 piece published at Progressive.org.
Nichols’s recollection of Obama’s “desire” to move the Democratic Party leftward matches the goal of the New Party.
While running for the Illinois state Senate in 1996 as a Democrat, Obama actively sought and received the endorsement of the New Party, according to confirmed reports during the 2008 presidential campaign.
This reporter’s latest book, The Manchurian Candidate, cites evidence showing Obama was a member of the New Party, including interviews with New Party founders and copies of New Party newsletters listing Obama as a member of the socialist party in the 1990’s.
Huckabee Slams Republican Elitism
Former Governor Mike Huckabee blasted what he described as “elitism” within the Republican establishment, decrying figureheads like Karl Rove for his criticism of Delaware senatorial candidate and tea-party favorite Christine O’Donnell.
“I was very disappointed in some, particularly Karl and others who were so dismissive of Christine O’Donnell,” said Huckabee. “I think it’s not the kind of thing that helps us.”
He continued, “I’ve been on the receiving end of some of that when I ran for president. A lot of the establishment types were very contemptuous toward me and treated me like some backwater. And that’s one of the things that happens when you didn’t go to the right school and you’re not a regular [attendee] at the proper cocktail parties on the D.C. social circuit.”
Huckabee was speaking in a radio interview on this reporter’s show on New York’s WABC Radio.
The Fox News host and former Republican presidential candidate blasted what he said was the “country-club attitude” of some in the Republican party.
“It’s about, again, to be blunt, the kind of country-club attitude that we’re not sure there are certain people we really want as members of the club and we’re not going to vote them in,” Huckabee said. “And we don’t mind showing up to events to put up signs and making phone calls and going door to door making those pesky little trips that we don’t like to do, but we really don’t want them dining with us in the main dining room,” he said.
“Unfortunately, there is an elitism within the Republican establishment,” Huckabee told this reporter. “And it’s one of the reasons the Republicans have not been able to solidify not only the tea-party movement but solidify conservatives across America.”
Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for Internet giant WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York’s 770-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 2-4 p.m.
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