Carter: Recognize Palestine before Obama leaves office

Former President Jimmy Carter says the time to recognize Palestine is now.

Time is running out before the Oval Office changes hands, and in Jimmy Carter’s mind, that leaves a limited window for one major thing on America’s to-do list: helping Palestine receive UN membership by granting diplomatic recognition before President Obama leaves the White House. In his opinion piece for the New York Times, the 39th president lays out his argument, starting with the Camp David Accords signed during his own administration in the late ’70s, meant to jump-start a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt and, therefore, the entire Middle East. Carter notes how Obama has tried to keep to that code, as well as to the UN Security Council resolution it was based on after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, by standing firm on 1967-dictated borders and against illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory.

Now, however, “the commitment to peace is in danger of abrogation,” Carter laments, pointing out even more settlements are being built and that Israeli settlers are able to enjoy citizenship and legal benefits their Palestinian counterparts don’t—”hastening a one-state reality that could destroy Israeli democracy and will result in intensifying international condemnation of Israel.”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.