In the afternoon Bob, Hrair, and I met with Khaled Mashaal and his fellow Hamas politburo members, all of whom are scientists, medical doctors, or engineers – none trained in religion. It was the anniversary of Hamas' founding, and they were watching Prime Minister Haniya's speech in Gaza to an enormous crowd.They're professionals! They wear suits! They don't talk about religion all day! How can you not love these guys?
And, as Israel Matzav points out, Carter was not above giving his terrorist pals some friendly advice on how high a price to demand for the release of Gilad Shalit:
We discussed items on my agenda that included ... formulas for prisoner exchange to obtain the release of Corporal Shalit.Why would that great humanitarian Jimmy Carter demand an unconditional release of Gilad Shalit when he can agree with Hamas that kidnapping soldiers can help them gain more terrorists from Israeli prisons?
There's more in this "trip report" that shows exactly where Carter's even-handedness lies:
We spent one day visiting the UNIFIL area south of the Litani River. We flew by helicopter along the coast past Tyre and Sidon, then landed at Naqoura just north of the Israeli border. We then traveled along the "blue line" between Israel and Lebanon and viewed the distant Sea of Galilee from the helicopter while proceeding eastward toward Mount Hermon. ... Israelis are also occupying the northern (Lebanese) 2/3 of a small village named Garjaa. The general showed us a graph of the many flights of Israeli planes over all parts of Lebanon, averaging about a dozen each day. Neither Hezbollah nor the Lebanese Armed Forces have any anti-aircraft weapons for defense.Notice Jimmy the Dhimmi's thinking: IDF planes that are passively monitoring Hezbollah terror activity and weapons smuggling are terribly offensive, and he would advocate that Hezbollah or the Lebanese Army have anti-aircraft missiles to shoot them down - and that would be considered "defense."