I’ve not written anything on Jimmy Carter and / or Israel for a while, but the controversy surrounding this former U.S. President doesn’t seem to go away. The debate about his book is still – rightfully – going on. David posted an interesting article yesterday in which he argues that Carter seems to endorse Palestinian terrorism in at least one passage in his book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.
The passage (from the article on this at David’s blog:
“It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel.” (Pg. 213)
David writes:
As Konner and Volokh both note, there doesn’t seem to be a way to read it that doesn’t have it specifically approving of “suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism” until such time as Israel “accepts” (whatever that means) international laws and the Roadmap for Peace (presumably, as interpreted by Carter and said Palestinian groups, as I’d imagine Israel would claim it does this already).
Although this passage is up for interpretation – one could also, for instance, argue that Carter did not endorse terrorism, but that he simply considers it to be realistic; namely that terrorism will not stop, although he hates it, until Israel does such and so – it seems to me that the interpretation of the three people mentioned above is correct. David argued on this point:
Now, one can believe that Israel is in grave breach of international law. One can even say that they don’t care about the peace process (though this strikes me as an empirically far less tenable position). However, my impression was that one of the horizons for respectable discourse on the Israeli/Palestinian issue was that terrorism must be rejected at all points in the process–it is not a bargaining issue, just something that has to happen. Under the most charitable reading of Carter’s work, he’s rejecting this position to instead say that Palestinian actors won’t move against terrorism their demands are met (which, of course, would lead to an indefinite stalemate). Under a less charitable reading, this is not an observation but a threat–terrorism will continue to occur, with our blessing and approval, until Israel capitulates. But since he is not just making a prediction, but specifically asking Palestinian groups to set this as their policy, it’s difficult for me to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Exactly my thoughts on this issue.
Now, let me interprete it in the more friendly way as described above. Again the passage:
“It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel.” (Pg. 213)
There seem to be 2 possible options for Carter to write this:
1- he doesn’t know what he’s talking about
2- he has fallen for the nonsense, the lies and the victim-mentality of the Palestinian terrorist organizations like Hamas
Of course there is a third option, although the interpretation for that one isn’t as friendly as with the two options above: he is simply an anti-Semite.
Since the first option can be ruled out (he knows or at least should know what he’s talking about), we’ve got only two options left. I leave it up to you to decide which option is the most likely one.
Palestinian terrorist organizations, like Hamas, will only stop committing terrorism against the state of Israel when the state of Israel ceases to exist. It is that simple. Read Hamas’s charter for evidence for this for instance. The problem is not where Israel’s borders are, the problem is that Israel has borders.
Meanwhile, there is more news on the Carter-front: 14 Carter Center advisors resign due to Carter’s new book.
Fourteen members of a Carter Center advisory board – including a former U.S. ambassador – quit today in protest of Jimmy Carter’s latest book, which they view as being critical of Israel.
In a letter to Carter, the members of the Board of Councilors wrote that the former president had “clearly abandoned your historic role of broker, in favor of becoming an advocate for one side.”
[…]
December, former aide Kenneth Stein resigned as the Carter Center’s Middle East fellow in protest saying the book is riddled with errors and omissions.Berman, who is Jewish, said all of the members of the board agonized before resigning, but added that Carter helped them make their decision with his subsequent reactions to the book’s criticism.
“The comments you have made the past few weeks insinuating that there is a monolith of Jewish power in America are most disturbing and must be addressed by us,” the letter stated. “In our great country where freedom of expression is basic bedrock you have suddenly proclaimed that Americans cannot express their opinion on matters in the Middle East for fear of retribution from the ‘Jewish Lobby.'”
Among the ones who resigned:
1. Alan R. Abrams, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of Servidyne, Inc., an Atlanta-based company serving the needs of commercial customers in the hospitality, industrial, corporate and institutional real estate markets.
2. Liane Levetan, former state senator and DeKalb CEO.
3. Cathey Steinberg, Executive Director of the Juvenile Justice Fund, former state Consumers’ Insurance Advocate and former state Senator.
4. Steve Selig, President and Chairman of the Board of Selig Enterprises. Has been in the commercial real estate field and employed with Selig Enterprises for over 35 years. He is also the Chairman of the Board of AAA Parking, a Selig subsidiary.
5. William B. Schwartz, Jr. was the U.S. Ambassador to The Bahamas from 1977-1981 during the Carter Administration.
What we can conclude, by now, is that Carter has made himself completely irrelevant for the Palestine – Israel debate.
Endorsing terrorism or at least excusing it has that effect.
Lastly, another good article on Carter(‘s new book) at JTA News written by Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi. Reversed racism, is that what lead Carter to his present views?
On New Year’s Eve, a time when many search their inner hearts, a column Carter wrote was published in the religion section of The Washington Post. It was called “Faith, Commitments and Mideast Peace.� What he wrote, perhaps inadvertently, shone a laser beam onto his own soul and may have revealed a new injustice — reverse racism — that has led him to anti-Israel sentiments. He may mistakenly believe his new mission to be a part of his personal redemption.
Carter’s New Year’s Eve piece sums up his political views through the lens of his childhood.
“Our life’s priorities are affected by our personal experiences,� he wrote. “I grew up as a farm boy in the segregated South, and all my early playmates and friends were black. Of the five adults who shaped my life, other than my parents, only two of them were white. My future political commitments were shaped by my aversion to the official discrimination that I condoned in my youth.�
To Carter, everything now may be about purging himself before his God from the racist sins of his youth. But in so doing, he may have unwittingly embraced a new racism in which he views every challenge as a struggle between dark- and light-skinned people, automatically assuming that those with darker skin are the oppressed and those with lighter skin are the oppressors.
[…]
True, many Palestinians are suffering mightily and deserve a better life. But their main oppressors are not the Israelis whom Carter classifies as white racists. Carter’s portrayal of the “Israeli oppressors� vs. “Palestinian oppressed� fails to consider the other side. Israelis also are oppressed, every day of their lives, by the threat of terrorism, by a nuclear Iran vowing to annihilate them, by the murder of innocent Israeli citizens by groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and by a historic animosity to Israel’s very existence by regional dictatorships that have the capacity to mobilize armies much larger than the entire population of Israel.The challenges faced by the typically darker-skinned Palestinians have nothing to do with race or the segregation of Carter’s Georgia childhood. They are largely due to the failures of Palestinian and other Arab leaders to accept a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians live side by side in peace. From the theft of millions of dollars of aid to the Palestinian people by Yasser Arafat, to the second intifada that has only harmed their own cause, the real oppression of the Palestinian people stems not from Israeli racism, but from a Palestinian leadership that has failed its people.
Reversed racism or not, it has to be pointed out time and time again: the Palestinians are in the mess they’re in these days, not because of Israel, but because of their own leaders. Corruption. Stupidity. Hatred. Chaos. Mismanagement.
Carter encourages the victim-mentality already adopted by so many Palestinians(‘ leaders). This attitude is a lie, of course, but an effective one.
Cross posted at Michael P.F. van der Galiën.com.
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