Carter 'naïve' in dealing with Hamas, says pro-Israel activist

Leading pro-Israel activist Jim Hutchens says former President Jimmy Carter is "alarmingly naïve" to claim the Palestinian terror group Hamas is willing to accept Israel as its neighbor.

Former President Carter said today Hamas is prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbor next door in peace." Carter's declaration comes after holding meetings with top Hamas officials in Syria last week. But Brig. Gen. Jim Hutchens (USA-Ret.), Washington-area director of Christians United for Israel and president of The Jerusalem Connection, International, says Carter's claim runs counter to everything the terror group has said publicly and states in its charter documents.
 
"[W]hich is the replacement, if you will, [or] the dissolution of the modern state of Israel," the retired Army chaplain explains. "I would look with great skepticism on this. I think that it's not something that we should attempt to make any kind of foreign policy changes on." And as well, it is something that that former president has done "in his own sense of good will," Hutchens adds. "But he is alarmingly naïve, it seems to me."
 
It is Hutchens' opinion that Hamas has not changed its stripes at all. "[T]he United States has designated Hamas as a terrorist entity, and they have done absolutely nothing to counteract that," he says. In fact, he adds, just last week leaders from both Israel and Hamas in Syria refused to meet together when there was some movement toward that end.
 
And of Hamas' sincerity in its claim seek peace with Israel? "I frankly think that Hamas would tell President Carter anything that he wants to hear," states the Christian Zionist.
 
Hutchens says Carter's Mid-East peace push is motivated by a "messiah complex" and the fact that he is "awash in Arab money." According to Hutchens, Carter's entire existence, his museum, and his papers are "supported enormously by Arab money."