By Kevin Peraino 

Jimmy Carter has been roundly pilloried on the cable news channels for his meetings last week in Damascus and Cairo with senior Hamas leaders. When I saw the former president at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem this afternoon, I asked him why he thought American public opinion was so harshly critical of his trip. "You know the answer to that," Carter replied. "Let me say this without criticizing the news media in America. There is no balanced coverage of what goes on in the Holy Land in the American news media. It's ridiculous, if you analyze it column by column and headline by headline. I would say it's not a bias on the part of the Washington Post or The New York Times or The L.A. Times or so forth. Or Newsweek. It's a fact that in the political discussion – which is the origin of most of your news – it's politically suicidal for any candidate to say anything that's displeasing to Israel. It's suicide. So far as I know, there's only one member of Congress since my book ["Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid"] came out that's had one thing to say that wasn't completely compliant with what the Israeli government's policy was at a certain time. And what you [in the media] have to do is cover what McCain says, and what Hillary says, and what Obama says, about my trip. They're all critical. It's inconceivable that Obama or Clinton could say 'We approve of Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas.' I'm not complaining. I've been in politics myself. There's no discussion, no debate, in the United States."

The ironic thing is that some recent polls have shown that a majority of Israelis – including large segments of the hawkish Likud party – favor direct negotiations with Hamas. "I was impressed with that," Carter said when I asked him about the polls. "These are people who know what they're talking about, and they know that there's no way to have peace unless Hamas is brought into the discussion. They also know – sometimes they may be reluctant to admit it – that in an honest and free and fair and transparent election, Hamas candidates prevailed."