Hamas Would Accept Peace With Israel: Carter

Hamas would accept a peace deal brokered by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas if  Palestinian voters favored the agreement, Jimmy Carter said after talks with a Hamas leader in Damascus. "There's no doubt that both the Arab world and the Palestinians, including Hamas, will accept Israel's right to live in peace within the 1967 borders," Carter said, urging reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas leaders as a step in the peace process.

Carter has drawn flak for meeting with leaders of Hamas, which the US and Israel classify as a terrorist organization, but the Nobel peace prize winner argues that isolation of Hamas has failed as a strategy and increased violence and suffering in Gaza. Hamas rejected his proposal for a unilateral ceasefire, Carter said. (More Jimmy Carter stories.)