WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration must push harder - and be
evenhanded - to revive sagging peace hopes in the Middle East, former President Carter said Monday.
In an Associated Press interview 25 years after the Camp David accords, Carter said Israel and the Palestinians had not only abandoned the U.S.-backed road map for peace but had violated it - Israel by threatening the "removal" of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. He suggested the Bush administration was tilted toward Israel.
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Twenty-five years ago, Carter negotiated between Israel and Egypt to help produce their breakthrough peace treaty. The occasion will be marked on Wednesday by a gathering in Washington of former American, Israeli and Egyptian delegates.
"As I know from bitter experience at Camp David, the likelihood the two sides are going to come together voluntarily and make very troubling concessions is nil," the former president said of Israel and the Palestinians today.
"The only way this can be done is by the extreme, concerted commitment of the president of the United States or his top representatives - preferably himself - and a balanced approach between the two adversarial groups," Carter said.
"You have to let the Palestinians know we are representing their key interests," and you have to let the Israelis know the same, Carter said.
"The United States is not being
evenhanded," Carter said by telephone from his home in Plains, Ga. "You have to have a mediator, willing to negotiate freely with both sides, and equally firmly with both sides."
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Carter negotiated over 13 days in 1978 at the presidential retreat with the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to come up with the Camp David accords. Sadat was assassinated by Muslim fundamentalists in 1981. Begin died in 1992.
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Arafat could be a stronger leader, and more forceful in his condemnation of the violent attacks on Israel by Hamas and other groups, Carter said.
"But I don't think he has ever had control over Hamas," the extremist Palestinian group that has struck Israel with terror attacks, Carter said of Arafat. "And I presume Hamas leaders will not accept his authority."
Arafat is sealed off by Israel in his battered West Bank headquarters, Carter noted. "I don't think he is in charge of everything among the Palestinians," he said.
http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-09/16/content_264528.htm