Carter: Hamas will accept Israel as neighbour

FORMER US president Jimmy Carter said yesterday that Hamas — the Islamic militant group that has called for the destruction of Israel — is prepared to accept the right of the Jewish state to “live as a neighbour next door in peace”.

But he warned that there would not be peace if Israel and the US continue to shut out Hamas and its main backer, Syria.

Carter spoke in Jerusalem after meeting last week with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and his deputy in Syria.

It capped a nine-day visit to the Middle East aimed at breaking the deadlock between Israel and Hamas militants who rule the Gaza Strip.

“They [Hamas] said that they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, if approved by Palestinians and that they would accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbour next door in peace,” Carter said.

In Damascus, Mashaal said Hamas was offering Israel a 10-year truce if it withdraws from all lands it seized in the 1967 war.

He confirmed that Hamas would be satisfied with a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders — implicitly accepting that Israel would exist alongside that state. But Mashaal stressed the group would never outright recognise the Jewish state.