A bit late but still relevant - following Oslo, Hammas and Islamic Jihad nervously awaited his return to Gaza. They quickly learned that they should not have worried. As David Bedein reports so accurately in Road Map To Terror Arafat decided to hold on to the terror option by feigning impotance to control the terror organization and promising to co-opt them. The result was not as Carter asserted in Casting a Vote for Peace that"When given a chance by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel, Mr. Arafat responded well by concluding the Oslo Agreement of 1993, which spelled out a mutually satisfactory relationship on geographical boundaries between Israel and the Palestinians. The resulting absence of serious violence by either side was broken when a Jewish nationalist assassinated Mr. Rabin". On the contrary, Rabin was assassinated in part because he insisted that serious violence was the price Israel had to pay for peace. This does not seek to justify the heinous crime, only to set the record straight.

Here is the list -

July 24, 1995 Ramat Gan 6 Killed, 31 Wounded Hamas Suicide Bomber on Bus

June 25, 1995 Neve Dekalim 3 Wounded Islamic Jihad Explosives-ladden Cart

April 9, 1995 Gaza 8 Killed, 50 Wounded Hamas & Islamic Jihad 2 Suicide Bombers

January 22, 1995 Beit Lid Junction 21 Killed, 69 Wounded Islamic Jihad 2 Suicide Bombers at Bus Stop

December 25, 1994 Jerusalem 13 Wounded Hamas Suicide Bomber at Bus Stop

November 11, 1994 Netzarim Junction 3 Killed, 6 Wounded Islamic Jihad Suicide Bomber on Bike

October 19, 1994 Tel Aviv 22 Killed, 56 Wounded Hamas Suicide Bomber on Bus

October 9, 1994 Jerusalem 2 Killed, 14 Wounded Hamas 2 Gunmen Open Fire

April 13, 1994 Hadera 5 Killed Hamas Suicide Bomber

April 6, 1994 Afula 8 Killed Hamas Car Bomb next to Bus

On the other hand, on February 25th, 1994 and Israeli suicide bomber killed 29 worshippers in Hebron.

Bedein reports:"On May 9, 1995, I dispatched a Palestinian journalist to cover the Gaza press conference held by the PA Gaza police chief Ghazzi Jabali, in which the representatives the of the Palestine Authority officially announced that they would license weapons for the Hamas - this, only one month after Hamas had carried out an attack on an Israeli civilian bus near Gaza, killing six young Israelis and one American student (Aliza Flatow, R.I.P.).

At Jabali's packed press conference, carried live on PBC radio, Jabali announced that Hamas leaders such as Dr. Muhammed Zahar - who was present at the meeting - would be"encouraged" to own weapons under the protection of the Palestine Authority. On the same day, our Palestinian TV crew filmed an armed Zahar addressing an angry mob in Gaza. Zahar's speech called for the bloody overthrow of the State of Israel, as he stood in front of a skull and crossbones imposed on a map of Israel.

However, PA police chief Jabali would later assure the Associated Press on May 14, 1995, that he was expecting Hamas and Islamic Jihad to keep their licensed weapons"at home."

In late October 1995, shortly before Rabin's assassination, I asked Rabin at a public forum about the PA decision to provide weapons to Hamas. Rabin acknowledged that this practice existed and quipped, dead-pan,"Maybe they're for peace, too."

In other words, for the past eight years both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have operated with weapons licensed by the PA".

In seems that Carter so wanted to blame the Jewish assassin not only for the death of Rabin but also for the failures of Arafat that he conveniently forgot or rewrote the past.

Shame on him.