Code Pink gives Jimmy Carter 'Badge of Courage' for meeting with Hamas.

Raw Story:

Anti-war activist group Code Pink is celebrating former President Jimmy Carter's recent trip to the Middle East where he visited with leaders of Hamas to discuss an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

"While George Bush's war mongering has made the U.S. hated all over the world, this week former president Jimmy Carter's courageous efforts in the Middle East could be crucial steps toward restoring peace to the region," Code Pink members said in an e-mail to supporters.

"After all, Carter negotiated the only lasting peace in the Middle East -- the Egypt-Israel peace accord that has prevented an Arab-Israeli war ever since."

Code Pink says Carter's meeting with Hamas, which the US government considers a terrorist group although it won elections in Palestine in 2006, struck a blow for peaceful negotiations instead of saber-rattling. It called on members to send Carter a Pink Badge of Courage.

After a meeting in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Hamas leaders, Carter said he had obtained concessions from them that could speed up the Middle East peace process, according to the New York Times.

Mr. Carter said he extracted a promise from Hamas to respect the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip negotiated by Hamas’s rivals in the Palestinian Authority if it were ratified by a referendum of the Palestinian people.Furthermore, Syrian leaders told him, he said, that “about 85 percent” of the issues between Syria’s government and Israel had been resolved in prior negotiations and that it wanted a peace deal “as soon as possible.” ... On Monday, Mr. Carter called the agreement on a Palestinian state, obtained from Hamas in writing, important because it appeared to mean that Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip last June, would not disrupt negotiations or implementation of any accord if the Palestinian people supported it in a free vote.“If the agreement calls for a two-state solution and the recognition of Israel and Palestine, Hamas will, in effect, recognize Israel, if the people agree on the plan,” Mr. Carter told the Israel Council on Foreign Relations in a speech here.

Carter was widely criticized for meeting with Hamas. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama panned the meeting as he reached out to Jewish voters in the US.

Code Pink, however, said the meeting was a reinforcement of America's ideals.

"Carter is staying true to America's democratic principles of recognizing the legitimacy of a representative government," the group said, "while underscoring the hypocrisy of the US mainstream media and the White House."