The unique synthesis of activism, idealism and ignorance that drove Jimmy Carter to meet with Hamas in late April is nothing new for the former president. It dates back to well before his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” — all the way back to his time in office, when he nearly derailed the incipient peace effort that would eventually become the Camp David Accords.
On November 9, 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat startled the world by announcing his intention to go to Jerusalem. Ten days later he arrived for the groundbreaking three-day visit, which launched the first peace process between Israel and an Arab state. As would be the case with later Israeli-Arab peace initiatives, Washington was taken by surprise.
Since taking office that January, Carter had launched a major initiative to reorient America's Middle East policy away from superpower confrontation and toward cooperation. To that end he had suggested bringing Israel, the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel's immediate neighbors — Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan — to a renewed Geneva Conference at which the United States and the Soviet Union would try to work out a comprehensive peace agreement among their clients.
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