Wampum

The day before yesterday President Carter visited the grave of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah. He was unable to visit the grave of Ahmed Yassin in Gaza. Gaza is closed to American Presidents. These two men, prior to their murders, were Palestinian leaders, of the Fatah and Hamas organizations, respectively. Neither organization have particularly impressive leaders at present, but President Carter met with former Palestinian Authority deputy prime minister Naser al-Shaer (Hamas), who along with all other Hamas politicians, was dismissed by President Mahmoud Abbas (Fatah) after the Battle of Gaza. Today he meet with Mahmud Zahar, Said Siam, Mohammed Zahar, Jamil Rizq, Taher Nunu and a sixth person who's name I haven't found.. The Hamas party crossed from Gaza to Egypt yesterday morning and traveled by car to Cairo.

The President met with the Hamas delegation at the American University of Cairo today, and afterwards made a statement:

It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. It's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on.

The coverage from Ynet is here. The Ha'aretz coverage is here. You may want to compare the language from Senator Obama (towards the end of the Ynet piece), and the language of Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai at the top of the Ha'aretz piece.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Ben-Ami and a host of others have organized the lobbying group J Street and the political action group as JStreetPAC.

Here's Laura Rozen's write up in the Mother Jones blog New "Pro Israel, Pro Peace" Political Group Launches: J Street Hopes to Prod Washington MidEast Policy Towards Center. I'll check if the J Street agenda includes defining a boundary.

I wonder if Anna in Cairo still reads Wampum. I'll be there in November.