Jimmy Carter: “I'm trying to prepare myself to make decisions as they come up in the future.”

I recognize that Israel is a wonderful democracy with freedom of speech and equality of treatment under the law between Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis.

That our country for the first time in my lifetime has abandoned basic principles of human rights.

We look on human rights as an ability to live in peace. And to believe that your future will be better than your past might be.

The aircraft carrying the 52 American hostages had cleared Iranian airspace on the first -- first leg of a journey home. And at every one of the 52 hostages was alive, was well and free.