Carter's Call For Palestinian Elections Can Be Seen As Timely

...Keeping people in a perpetual state of silence by denying them any say in their future is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. When people vote – they bear the consequences of the Government they elect. Carter the Elder has spoken. What says Obama the Younger?

Daphne Anson..
08 May '15..

Here, entitled "Carter causes consternation with election call for Palestinian Arabs," is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international offairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Former US president Jimmy Carter has created a stir with his call for Palestinian Arabs to hold elections to end the internecine struggle between Hamas and the PLO in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza.

Speaking at a joint news conference with PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah – after cancelling his stop in Gaza where he was supposed to meet Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh – Carter – now a member of the independent Elders Group of global leaders – declared:

"We hope that sometime we'll see elections all over the Palestinian area and east Jerusalem and Gaza and also in the West Bank"

No Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections have been held in over a decade – even though Abbas's te)rm in office as President expired in January 2009 – a position he continues to fill without any constitutional authority to do so.

In 2006 – a year after Abbas was elected as President – Hamas overwhelmingly won the one and only election ever held in Judea and Samaria. The PLO refused to accept its electoral defeat and a year afterwards Hamas violently ousted Abbas's Fatah faction from Gaza and seized control there.

Carter’s call can be seen as timely – given the current stalemate in the negotiations between Israel and the PLO and the distinct likelihood they will not be resumed.

Indeed one could see Carter’s election call as the most constructive contribution he has made to peace in the Middle East since his following statement in Time magazine on 11 October 1982 [cover above] concerning Jordan and Jordan’s late monarch, King Hussein:

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