Israel's secret service has declined to assist US agents guarding former US President Jimmy Carter during a visit in which Israeli leaders have shunned him, US sources close to the matter said Monday. Carter angered the Israeli government with plans to meet Hamas's top leader, Khaled Meshaal, in Syria, and for describing Israeli policy in the occupied Palestinian territories as “a system of apartheid” in a 2006 book. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who brokered Israel's first peace treaty with an Arab neighbor, Egypt, signed in 1979, met Israel's largely ceremonial president, Shimon Peres, Sunday but was shunned by the political leadership, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Israel has also rejected Carter's request to meet jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi, who is seen as a possible successor to President Mahmoud Abbas, a spokesman for Carter said. Barghouthi was convicted in 2004 of murder by an Israeli court over the killing of four Israelis and a Greek Orthodox monk in attacks by Palestinian militants. He is serving five life sentences. American sources close to the matter said the Shin Bet security service, which helps protect visiting dignitaries and is overseen by Olmert's office, declined to meet the head of Carter's Secret Service security detail or provide his team with assistance as is customary during such visits. “They're not getting support from local security,” an American source said. Another source described the snub as an “unprecedented” breach between the Israeli Shin Bet and the US Secret Service, which protects all current and former U.S. presidents, as well as Israeli leaders when they visit the United States. Carter included the southern Israeli town of Sderot on his itinerary. The area is often hit by rockets from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and one of the sources described the lack of Shin Bet assistance there as particularly “problematic”. Israeli police have provided some technical assistance to Carter's delegation. Olmert's office had no immediate comment. The Bush administration and close US ally Israel oppose Carter's planned meeting with Meshaal. Israel and the United States have sought to isolate Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June from more secular Fatah forces loyal to Abbas. Abbas holds sway in the occupied West Bank and has launched US-backed peace talks with Olmert. Hamas leaders have offered a long-term truce with Israel in return for a viable Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but the group's 1988 founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. Ahead of his visit, Carter defended talks with Hamas. “I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process,” Carter told US television network ABC News's “This Week”. __
