The Discerning Texan

... Even the Washington Post ridiculed Carter in an editorial April 17:

Mr. Carter justifies his meetings with familiar arguments about the value of dialogue with enemies. But he misses the point. Contacts between enemies can be useful: Israel is legendary for such negotiations, and even now it is engaged in back-channel bargaining with Hamas through Egypt. But it is one thing to communicate pragmatically, and quite another to publicly and unconditionally grant recognition and political sanction to a leader or a group that advocates terrorism, mass murder or the extinction of another state.

That's an odd thing for the Post to say, considering an op-ed column by Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar, an active leader of the group in Gaza was published on the next page. The editorial acknowledges Zahar's writing "drips with hatred for Israel, and with praise for former president Jimmy Carter." But publishing the column, granting Zahar recognition and political sanction, is justified, the Post said, because it could "provide some clarity about the group he helps to lead, a group that Mr. Carter contends is worthy of being included in the Middle East peace process."

As if Hamas' agenda requires clarity. Its charter invokes Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." The group "aspires to the realization of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

‘The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"

Forget, for a moment, whether the Post's argument is consistent. There is a more immediate question at stake: Did the Post pay its standard fee for Zahar's column? The Post compensates guest writers with a minimum $200 fee, spokeswoman Rima Calderon said. Other factors, including whether the column was solicited or had multiple authors, could increase the amount. So, what did the Post pay Zahar?

"As I suspected, we don't make this information public," Calderon said in an e-mail.

Payment of any amount could violate U.S. law banning material support or other transactions with the designated terrorist group Hamas, said Jeffrey Breinholt, senior fellow and national security law director at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. Breinholt knows the law well. Before taking leave last summer, he was the deputy chief of the Department of Justice's counterterrorism section. ...

Read the whole thing. And consider the fact that this is an American newspaper--one read by many members (maybe even a majority) of our government on a daily basis. Consider that the same Washington Post broke the story revealing how the US was using the financial system to track terror funding...highly classified information which arguably has cost the US dearly.

Isn't it time that the "freedom of the press" does not include the "freedom" to undermine American national security and prop up the regimes of those who want us dead? Especially when we are at War??