US: Jimmy Carter: deadly Gaza assault an 'unnecessary war'
09 Jan 2009 5:06 AM
WASHINGTON, Jan 8 AFP - Israel's assault on Gaza is an "unnecessary war" that could have been easily avoided if the Jewish state and Hamas had settled differences over extending last year's truce, former US president Jimmy Carter said Thursday.
In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, the longtime peace envoy described how he had visited the Middle East on multiple occasions in 2008 including Israel and the Palestinian territories.
"I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided," wrote Carter, a Nobel peace prize laureate who founded the non-governmental Carter Centre.
Describing intransigence on both sides, notably Israel's refusal to fully increase the flow of humanitarian supplies to impoverished Gaza, Carter said that as late as mid-December he had sought in vain during a trip to Syria to win an extension of the ceasefire.
"It was clear the pre-eminent issue was opening the crossings into Gaza," wrote Carter about a bid to extend the truce which ended on December 19.
"The Israeli government informally proposed that 15 per cent of normal supplies might be possible if Hamas first stopped all rocket fire for 48 hours. This was unacceptable to Hamas and hostilities erupted."
During the 13-day Israeli onslaught, Carter said the Jewish state has had the "full support of Washington."
During the attacks a total of 17 mosques, the American International School "many private homes and much of the basic infrastructure of the small, but heavily-populated area have been destroyed," he said.
"The hope is that when further hostilities are no longer productive, Israel, Hamas and the United States will accept another ceasefire, at which time the rockets will again stop and an adequate level of humanitarian supplies will be permitted to surviving Palestinians."
Carter was sharply criticised for meeting with the leaders of the radical Islamic group Hamas in Damascus in April, but he argued the talks had yielded specific results including the initial moves towards the ceasefire.
