Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter

Three decades after Jimmy Carter brokered the first-ever peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country, the former U.S. president has become persona non grata in the Jewish state.

Both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak refused to meet with Carter during his four-day visit here. So did former prime minister and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who accused the former U.S. president of holding "anti-Israel views in recent years." And in a highly irregular move, Israel’s Shin Bet security service refused to assist U.S. agents guarding Mr. Carter. The Shin Bet, which is overseen by Mr. Olmert’s office, is routinely involved in assisting with the protection of visiting dignitaries.

Israeli leaders were furious about the former president’s plan to meet with Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshal during his trip to Syria the week of April 18. Some Israeli politicians have described Mr. Carter’s readiness to meet with an organization whose founding charter calls for Israel’s destruction and which has carried out most of the suicide attacks and rocket attacks on Israel as a "legitimization of terror."

Mr. Carter, who arrived in Israel on April 13, did visit the southern Israeli town of Sderot, which has been peppered with rockets by Palestinian militants in Gaza. Presented with a local souvenir—a piece of rocket fired from the coastal strip—Mr. Carter called the attacks a "despicable crime."

But the condemnation of the rocket attacks by Mr. Carter, who brokered the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1978, has not won over Israeli leaders, who continued to snub him throughout his visit. His decision to lay a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah—something U.S. President George W. Bush and other U.S. political leaders have pointedly refused to do—certainly did not help to soften official Israeli animus. Neither did his meeting with Naser al-Shaer, who served as deputy prime minister in the government formed by Hamas after it won parliamentary elections in January 2006.

One person who did meet Mr. Carter was Shimon Peres, Israel’s president and three times former prime minister. But Mr. Peres used the meeting to chastise his guest for his decision to meet with Mr. Meshal, who Mr. Peres said was behind Hamas’ takeover of Gaza in June last year when they routed the more moderate Fatah movement. Mr. Peres told Mr. Carter that his actions in recent years had harmed Israel and the cause of peace. Israel’s elder statesman was referring also to the former U.S. president’s 2006 book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" in which Mr. Carter compared Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza with those of the old apartheid regime in South Africa.

But the snubs have failed to deter President Carter. Nor has the criticism of his visit by the Bush administration. Asked about Mr. Carter’s planned meeting with Mr. Meshal, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she found it "hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace." If Israel wants peace with the Palestinians, Mr. Carter has argued, Hamas cannot be excluded from the process. "I think it is absolutely crucial that in the final and dreamed-about and prayed-for peace agreement for this region that Hamas be involved and Syria be involved," he said during his visit.

Mr. Carter could be encouraged by the fact that not all Israelis oppose contact with Hamas. In fact, a poll published in the daily Haaretz newspaper in February found that 64 percent of Israelis supported direct talks with Hamas over a ceasefire and over the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been held captive in the strip by the Islamic movement since June 2006. Only 28 percent said they opposed such talks.