Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter delivers a speech during a meeting of the Israeli Council of Foreign Relations in Jerusalem. Carter on Monday gave an account of his recent talks with the militant Palestinian group Hamas.

Jerusalem ? Former President Carter said Monday that the Islamic group Hamas was willing to accept the Jewish state as a “neighbor next door,” but the militants did not match their upbeat words with concrete steps to halt violence.

Hamas, which advocates Israel’s destruction, instead recycled previous offers, including a 10-year truce if Israel takes the unlikely step of withdrawing from the West Bank and Jerusalem first.

Hamas has repeatedly confounded observers with its conflicting messages. Actions on the ground – seven rockets were fired on Israel from Hamas-ruled Gaza Monday, including one that wounded a 4-year-old boy – contradicted the Islamic militant group’s positive words about coexistence and a truce.

And a leader of the Hamas military wing, which carried out a twin suicide bombing on the Gaza border Saturday, said his group would step up attacks against Israel in coming days.

The salvo of rockets came despite a last-minute phone call from Carter, urging a one-month halt to attacks on Israel, to gain some international goodwill and defuse tensions.

“I did the best I could,” Carter said of his conversation with Hamas supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, pressing him to declare a one-month truce. “They turned me down, and I think they’re wrong.”

Conflicting signals

Carter, who delivered a speech in Jerusalem on Monday summing up his visit, said top Hamas leaders told him during seven hours of talks in Damascus over the weekend that they are willing to live next to Israel.

Hours later, however, Mashaal sent mixed messages. He stressed that while the militants would accept a state in the 1967 borders, meaning alongside Israel, the group would never outright recognize the Jewish state.

The Bush administration and Israel, which shun Hamas as a terrorist group, have criticized the Carter mission as misguided. In Washington, a State Department official said Monday that it does not appear Hamas has changed its positions.

In Jerusalem, Carter defended his trip, saying peace in the region will be possible only if Israel and the U.S. start talking to Hamas and Syria, which supports several militant groups. He also called on the Bush administration to push harder to renew Israeli-Syrian peace talks.

“The present strategy of excluding Hamas and excluding Syria is just not working,” said Carter, who brokered a historic 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

Political maneuvering

Analysts said Hamas apparently decided to send Carter off largely empty-handed, despite the possibility he might have paved an opening to a hostile West, because it prefers doing business with leaders in the region who can deliver concrete achievements. Egypt has been shuttling between Israel and Hamas for nearly two years trying to broker a cease-fire, a prisoner swap and an opening of Gaza’s border crossings.

Over the weekend, Carter met twice with Hamas’ five-member politburo, headed by Mashaal. Carter said he won a written pledge from Hamas to accept any peace deal with Israel, even if Hamas disagrees with some of the terms, as long as it’s approved in a Palestinian referendum.

Carter said Hamas leaders told him they’re also ready to accept the Jewish state’s right to “live as a neighbor next door in peace” one day. Since its founding 21 years ago, Hamas has carried out scores of suicide attacks in Israel and has fired hundreds of rockets from Gaza at Israeli border towns.

The pledge did not reflect a new Hamas position, though it’s significant that it was made in writing. Hamas leaders have said in the past they would establish “peace in stages” if Israel were to withdraw to the borders it held before the 1967 Mideast War. Hamas has been evasive about how it sees the final borders of a Palestinian state, and has not abandoned its official call for Israel’s destruction.