Israel News
April 19, 2008
Carter Meets With Hamas Pair In Cairo
Cairo
JTA Wire Service
Jimmy Carter is expected to hold more talks with senior Hamas officials ahead of a meeting with the group’s exiled leader. Mahmoud Zahar and Saeed Seyam, top Hamas politicians in the Gaza Strip, traveled to Egypt for what they said would be a meeting with the former U.S. president and Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Carter, who left Israel for a two-day visit to Cairo, neither denied nor confirmed planning to see Zahar and Seyam. He was scheduled to continue from Egypt to Syria for controversial talks with Hamas’ supreme leader-in-exile, Khaled Meshaal. A Hamas official in Gaza said Zahar and Seyam would “clarify” their position regarding the Jewish state and its peace talks with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
More than 50 members of Congress called on Carter not to meet with Hamas’ exiled leader. The letter, signed by Democrats and Republicans, listed the names of 26 Americans killed by Hamas and urged the former U.S. president not to proceed with a planned meeting with Khaled Mashaal in Damascus.
“President Carter,” the letter said, “do not meet with the man who ordered their deaths.” Among the signatories were 10 Jewish representatives, including Democrats Eliot Engel, Jerrold Nadler and Anthony Weiner of New York; Robert Wexler and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida; Shelley Berkley of Nevada; Brad Sherman of California; and Barney Frank of Massachusetts. Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, also signed.
A separate letter to Carter urging him to cancel the meeting was sent Wednesday by Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), chairman of the subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.