Even as Jimmy Carter makes speeches about what Hamas agreed to during his talks with them, they deny that they will abide by what they said. Even the AP is printing the contradictions in the same story that they headline one of the biggest lies I’ve ever heard:

Carter: Hamas is willing to accept Israel as its neighbor
Former US President Jimmy Carter on Monday said Hamas is prepared to accept the right of Israel to “live as a neighbor next door in peace.” His comments came after he met last week with the top Hamas leaders in Syria.

Carter also said Hamas won’t undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel. He said Hamas is ready to accept a Palestinian state the West Bank and Gaza.

And the yuks just keep on coming.

“They said they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders if approved by Palestinians … Even though Hamas might disagree with some terms of the agreement,” Carter said.

“It means that Hamas will not undermine Abbas’s efforts to negotiate an agreement and Hamas will accept an agreement if the Palestinians support it in a free vote,” he said.

However, Hamas said Monday it won’t necessarily accept the results of any Palestinian referendum on peace with Israel.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman said Carter’s comments ”do not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum.”

You just have to love it. The AP denies the agreement that Carter says he reached, even as Carter is announcing the supposed agreement. But wait. there’s more. It’s time for Jimmy to blame Israel for not reaching an agreement with a terrorist group that has worked for her destruction for decades.

“The problem is not that I met with Hamas in Syria,” he said. “The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved.”

“There’s no doubt that both the Arab world and Hamas will accept Israel’s right to exist in peace within 1967 borders,” he said, referring to Israel’s frontiers before it captured large swaths of Arab lands in the 1967 Mideast war.

Hm. Let’s stop and remember what else Jimmy had no doubts about. He had no doubts that the Russians would not invade Afghanistan. He had no doubts that the Ayatollah Khomeini would be a good ruler and usher in an era of democracy for Iran. He had no doubts that North Korea would stop production on nuclear weapons and would not get the bomb.

Well. That just gives me so much confidence in what he says about Israel and the Arab world, how about you? Oh, and speaking of the Arab world—does that mean he’s deliberately excluding Persian Iran?

And last, but not least: Hamas refused to release Gilad Shalit (big shock there), but says they’ll send another letter to his parents. Don’t hold your breath.

Meantime, Israeli authorities are stating the obvious: Carter’s effort was a waste of time and energy, because he has no authority over Hamas, and now that he’s conferred legitimacy on them, nothing else that they want.

Israel Radio reported that other government officials believe Carter is not able to follow through with what he has promised, both because he doesn’t have the tools to do so, and because the key to the solution is in Damascus-based Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal’s hands.

And Carter did not feel it necessary to speak to any Israeli officials before speechifying about his deal with Hama:

The government hasn’t received an update about former US president Jimmy Carter’s activities in Damascus, said Ofer Dekel, the official charged by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with dealing with the kidnapped soldiers’ issue, on Monday.

Way to go, Old Man and the Ego. Because when all is said and done, it’s not about Israel. It’s about YOU.

Really, that’s what irritates me the most about the man. His insufferable hubris, thinking that he will succeed where generations of people have failed, as well as his oversized ego—he is Jimmy Carter, therefore, he doesn’t have to abide by rules given to lesser mortals. Well, that, and his contempt for Israel (and Jews), which gets more and more blatant as he gets older.

The AP has an expose of the side of Islam that CAIR never tells you about: Servitude to greedy imams who send children out to beg so the imams can live in luxury.

For some reason, the International Herald Tribune—owned by the New York Times—thinks they need to preface the article with a caveat that children are treated like property all over Africa.

There are 1.2 million Colis in the world today, children trafficked to work for the benefit of others. Those who lure them into servitude make US$15 billion (€9.5 billion) annually, according to the International Labor Organization.

It’s big business in Senegal. In the capital of Dakar alone, at least 7,600 child beggars work the streets, according to a study released in February by the ILO, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Bank. The children collect an average of 300 African francs a day, just 72 US cents (45 euro cents), reaping their keepers US$2 million (€1.3 million) a year.

Most of the boys — 90 percent, the study found — are sent out to beg under the cover of Islam, placing the problem at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition. For among the cruelest facts of Coli’s life is that he was not stolen from his family. He was brought to Dakar with their blessing to learn Islam’s holy book.

In the name of religion, Coli spent two hours a day memorizing verses from the Quran and over nine hours begging to pad the pockets of the man he called his teacher.

It was getting dark. Coli had less than half the 72 cents he was told to bring back. He was afraid. He knew what happened to children who failed to meet their daily quotas.

They were stripped and doused in cold water. The older boys picked them up like hammocks by their ankles and wrists. Then the teacher whipped them with an electrical cord until the cord ate their skin.

Apparently, you’re not allowed to charge for an Islamic education. So things like this are the norm in the Muslim world.

Not all Quranic boarding schools force their students to beg. But for the most part, what was once an esteemed form of education has degenerated into child trafficking. Nowadays, Quranic instructors net as many children as they can to increase their daily take.

“If you do the math, you’ll find that these people are earning more than a government functionary,” said Souleymane Bachir Diagne, an Islamic scholar at Columbia University. “It’s why the phenomenon is so hard to eradicate.”

Middle men trawl for children as far afield as the dunes of Mauritania and the grass-covered huts of Mali. It’s become a booming, regional trade that ensnares children as young as 2, who don’t know the name of their village or how to return home.

Watch this story get buried quickly. Imagine the outcry if Christian or Jewish schools were doing the same thing. Double standards abound.

Buwaro is a thin man in his 30s who wears a pressed olive robe and digital watch. The children wear T-shirts black with filth. He expects them to beg to pay the rent, because there are no fields here to till.

But their earnings far exceed his rent of $50. If the boys meet their quotas, they bring in around $650 a month in a nation where the average person earns $150.

Buwaro expects the children to suffer to learn the Quran, just as he did at the hands of his teacher.

I won’t hold my breath waiting for CAIR to condemn these practices. Just as I won’t hold my breath waiting for the media to pick up this story the way they would pick up a negative story about Israel. It simply doesn’t fit the narrative.