While much of the rest of the world is shunning Hamas for the murderous organization that it is, and ever more Palestinians (according to Palestinian opinion polls*) are despairing at its increasingly repressive rule in Gaza, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh yesterday thanked former U.S. President Jimmy Carter “for his intervention in the Palestinian domestic crisis.”

Carter had spoken out on behalf of Hamas against the secular Fatah party at the very time that Hamas thugs were throwing Fatah members to their deaths from Gaza rooftops last month.

Haniyeh’s comments were passed on during a meeting yesterday with Carter Center director Scott Caster at Haniyeh’s office in Gaza City, according to the Palestinian-run Ma’an news agency.

Kayhan, one of the most hardline Iranian government dailies, which supports Iran’s Holocaust-denying president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had also previously endorsed Carter’s pro-Hamas comments.