By Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 15, 2008

JERUSALEM, April 14 -- With plans to meet a key Hamas leader later this week, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter is getting the cold shoulder during his visit to Israel.

Since his arrival Sunday, top officials have avoided him and the nation's elite security service has declined to help protect him, according to U.S. sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Israeli officials said the brushoff reflected Israeli disenchantment with Carter for choosing to meet with the exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, as well as lingering resentment over Carter's 2006 book titled "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," which sharply criticized Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.

"A meeting like this gives some semblance of legitimacy to those who do not deserve it," one Israeli official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "The book doesn't help him, either."

Both the United States and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist organization and refuse to meet with the group's leaders. But Egypt has been trying to mediate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in recent weeks, a process U.S. officials have encouraged behind the scenes.

In a speech near Israel's major airport Monday, Carter said he wants to become "a communicator" between the United States and Hamas. Carter has also said he will press for the release of an Israeli soldier held by the group.

"I hope then the Israeli government will deign to meet with me. They have so far refused," he said.

Carter, 83, has been snubbed by Israel's top officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. President Shimon Peres met with him Sunday evening, but Peres holds a largely ceremonial post. Afterward, a spokeswoman for Peres said he had told Carter that meeting with Hamas would be a mistake.

Carter has also been criticized by U.S. officials. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the Bush administration has "made clear our views that we did not think now is the moment for him or anyone to be talking with Hamas."

Hamas, an armed Islamist movement that has vowed to destroy Israel, won 2006 Palestinian elections. But a unity government with the rival Fatah party dissolved last year, and Hamas took sole control of the Gaza Strip. Since then, Hamas and its allies have been lobbing rockets almost daily from Gaza into southern Israel.

Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work in conflict resolution, brokered a historic 1979 peace deal between Israel and Egypt.

The former president has U.S. Secret Service protection in Israel, and the U.S. sources said Shin Bet, Israel's main domestic security agency, had not assisted with his protection. An Israeli official said there had been no request for help.

Carter's delegation released a statement saying it had "inquired with both the lead agent of the Secret Service detail and the State Department Regional Security Officer and were told unequivocally that an official request for assistance had been made."

Carter on Monday visited Sderot, the southern Israeli town that has borne the brunt of rocket attacks from Gaza. "I think it's a despicable crime for any deliberate effort to be made to kill innocent civilians, and my hope is there will be a cease-fire soon," he said.

He later visited a hospital where many of those injured by the rockets have been treated and met with Gazan children who have been allowed out of the strip for medical care.

Sderot resident Batya Kattar said she came to see Carter to ask him why he is "always defending the Palestinians." But after talking with him, she said she was hopeful about his upcoming meeting with Hamas.

"Maybe this dialogue can lead to quiet, and perhaps in the future even lead to peace," she said.

Special correspondent Samuel Sockol contributed to this report.