CAIRO - Former President Carter told a university audience here yesterday that the treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military was "a crime," while adding that there are "officials in Israel quite willing to meet with Hamas" and that might happen "in the near future."

Carter spoke to students and faculty at the American University in Cairo after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and a separate three-hour meeting with Hamas officials. The Bush administration and Israel have set rules not to talk to the militant Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip, but Carter said, "I consider myself immune" from such restrictions.

He added that he wasn't acting as a negotiator or mediator but hoped that he "might set an example to be emulated" by others.

The former president's meetings with Hamas in recent days have outraged Israelis, but Carter was undeterred, even suggesting that his recent book, "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid," was aptly named because apartheid "is the exact description of what's happening in Palestine now."

He played to a mostly appreciative audience, except for one American student who suggested that Carter was giving legitimacy to terrorists by meeting with Hamas.

Carter said he told Hamas officials that "the worst thing" they're doing to their cause is firing rockets into Israel, which he called "abominable and an act of terrorism." Carter did his own mathematics of bloodshed. He said that for every Israeli killed in the conflict, 30 to 40 Palestinians die because of Israel's superior military and "pinpoint accuracy."

Carter then slipped back into diplomatic mode: "I'm not blaming one [side] or the other. . . . Any side that kills innocent people is guilty of terrorism."

Carter said that Hamas officials told him that they would allow a referendum on the fate of Palestinians if Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the rival Palestinian Authority, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reached an agreement. Carter added that Israelis must be assured that Hamas would stop rocket attacks and suicide bombers.

It was almost 30 years ago that Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin made peace at Camp David. Carter drew applause when, with a jab to the Bush administration, he mentioned that he did not wait until his final days in office to try to find a way to peace.

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