Jimmy Carter wants aid restored to Palestinians

Jimmy Carter has a good heart, but as far as I can tell, not a very good head.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Friday that a foreign policy aimed at punishing the Hamas-led Palestinian government through a seven-month aid freeze has failed, and called on the international community to seek other ways to resolve the conflict.

"The attempt to coerce Hamas leaders by starving the Palestinian people has failed, and it is time for the international community to alleviate their suffering and resort to diplomacy," Carter said in a statement.

The former president added that he is doubtful that Palestinian leaders will make any progress toward reconciliation with Israel "as long as the Palestinians are subjected to this kind of debasement and personal suffering."

What Carter doesn't seem to understand is that sometimes tough love is required. The best way to love the Palestinians is to stop enabling their delusions and their hatred and make them face reality.

They have now been living with the existence of a Jewish state for almost six decades and still refuse to accept that it will not go away. They need to realize that they would be better off with leadership that can face that reality and find a diplomatic way to deal with it, rather than wallowing in unending psychotic hatred. And the only method that has even the foggiest hope of succeeding is to stop financing it, until the pain of the reality forces the Palestinian "street" to reject the leadership in place and start looking for an entirely different approach. There have been some isolated Palestinian voices of reason, but they've been relatively timid, given the very real possibility of getting their heads blown off for dissenting. We do tend to forget that Palestinians kill far more Palestinians than Israelis. (Yes, you can read that last sentence two ways. They are both true.)

Carter says the attempt has failed. I say that it is just now starting to reach the point where it has a hope of succeeding. The delusions of the Palestinian people are very powerful and can only be broken by rather extreme methods. Carter is far too much like the doting father who bails his children out of jail yet again and gently tries to reason with them, while establishing no limits and shielding them from the consequences of their actions.

It's time to stop shielding the Palestinians and let them realize that nasty actions have truly nasty consequences.

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