Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have spoken out urging President Bush to boycott the coming Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing. Neither will condemn former President Carter’s planned trip to meet with Palestinian’s Hamas.
Barack Obama recently said,
“If the Chinese do not take steps to help stop the genocide in Darfur and to respect the dignity, security and human rights of the Tibetan people, then the president should boycott the opening ceremonies.”
Hillary Clinton had already said,
“At this time, and in light of recent events, I believe President Bush should not plan on attending the opening ceremonies in Beijing, absent major changes by the Chinese government.”
Yet, when pressed about news of former President Jimmy Carter’s announced plans to meet with the Palestinian group, Hamas, a known and declared terrorist group, both could only
muster a softened "
disagreed" or did "
not agree" with Carter's planned trip to meet with Hamas, stopping short of calling on Carter to not make the trip.
The Olympic games, held every fourth year, were designed to be an athletic competition between nations and a time to put politics aside. 1980 in Moscow and 1984 in Los Angeles saw nations refuse to attend over political issues, America in 1980 and the Soviet Union in 1984.
The
1972 Olympics, held in Munich, Germany, saw Palestinian terrorists disrupt the games by kidnapping the Israeli athletes, resulting in the deaths of the entire Israeli Olympic Team of 11 athletes.
Surely, if the Democrat candidates can see a need to urge President Bush to boycott the coming Olympic opening ceremonies, they should be consistent and urge former President Carter to forgo his meeting with Palestinian terrorists, whose
history of attacks against the Israeli’s is just as well known as the Chinese mistreatment of Tibetans.
