The former US president urges Obama to push for a one-sided UN Security Council resolution, rewarding the Palestinians for their entrenchment, while imposing harmful realities on Israel.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

Former US president Jimmy Carter has called on the outgoing Obama administration to take steps toward recognizing a Palestinian state before leaving office in January.

Former U.S. President Carter gives a hug to his friend, Hamas terror-leader, Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza in 2009

The 39th US president made the call in an op-ed published Monday in the New York Times under the title “America Must Recognize Palestine.”

“We do not yet know the policy of the next administration toward Israel and Palestine, but we do know that the current administration is keen on achieving a two state solution,” Carter wrote.

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“That prospect is now in grave doubt,” Carter said, pointing toward the uncertainty surrounding incoming US President-elect Donald Trump’s exact policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Carter urged the US to push for a UN Security Council resolution “laying out the parameters for resolving the conflict.” The resolution, he added, should “reaffirm the illegality of all Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 borders, while leaving open the possibility that the parties could negotiate modifications.”

Carter, who in recent year has been viewed as harboring an anti-Israel stance, asserted that his “primary foreign policy goal of my life has been to help bring peace to Israel and its neighbors.”

In his op-ed, Carter praised the Obama administration as well as other previous administrations for their role in trying to reach a peace deal, but said that the prospects of such a agreement are now growing slim.

He made the charge placing the onus on Israel, and criticizing Jerusalem’s policies without mention of Palestinian terrorism or Palestinian rejections of past offers.

“Israel is building more and more settlements, displacing Palestinians and entrenching its occupation of Palestinian lands,” he charged.

This process, Carter claimed, will bring about “a one-state reality that could destroy Israeli democracy and will result in intensifying international condemnation of Israel.”

American recognition of an independent Palestinian state will make it easier for other countries to follow suit, Carter argued.

“I fear for the spirit of Camp David. We must not squander this chance,” he said in reference to the 1978 peace accord between Israel and Egypt that was signed during his presidency.

Israel has urged outgoing US President Barack Obama against backing any such attempt to place outside influence on the conflict in the final weeks of his term.

Carter has been one of Israel’s most ardent critics in recent years and last year President Reuven Rivlin refused to meet him when he visited the region.An Israeli diplomatic official told The Jerusalem Post‘s Hebrew sister publication Ma’ariv at the time, that the Foreign Ministry recommended Rivlin not meet with Carter, in order to transmit the message that those who harm Israel will not meet with the president.