Carter is taking a lot of flack for criticizing Israel, even the US Democrats have flung themselves away from him. I found him thoughtful and interesting in the interview. He straight forwardly called Harper's punishment of Hamas a crime.

They later showed a clip of Harper being asked about this during his photo op today. According to Harper Canada's position is good as we are working with Abbas. As though that resolved the withholding of funds to Palestine and Hamas.

There's an ad for Carter's book on this site which takes you to the Simon&Schuster site. Palestine Peace

They further ruined it by following up with an interview of that bought-and-paid-for pseudo scholar creep, Janice Stern. There must be a museum where people like that can be put on display - Juste Pour Rire, maybe.

I may have posted this before, but here is an excellent (IMO) audio interview (about 20 min.) with Carter on The Current last week:

quote:

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Originally posted by unionist:
They further ruined it by following up with an interview of that bought-and-paid-for pseudo scholar creep, Janice Stern. There must be a museum where people like that can be put on display - Juste Pour Rire, maybe.

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I think her name is Stein.

At the same time, Jimmy Carter is not using the term apartheid in the same way that those of us on the left who are proponents of a one state solution use the term Apartheid. Those of us who support a one state solution use the term Apartheid to describe the denial of the right of return to Palestinians. Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, is using the term apartheid to describe the separation of the West Bank into Israeli settlements, and Palestinian areas (what Chomsky and others refer to as bantustans, in reference to South Africa). If Israel were to withdraw from the West Bank, dismantle the Apartheid wall, and remove the settlements, but no allow the right of return, Jimmy Carter would probably consider the apartheid to be over. Those of us on the left who support a one state solution would not consider the apartheid over until Palestinians are granted the right of return.

[ 08 December 2006: Message edited by: Left Turn ]

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...To tell you the truth, it's not much of a book. I looked for a segment I cold excerpt on my website and couldn't find anything that was really worthy. It's simplistic and homiletic and gives only part of the story most of the time. Jimmy Carter is in some ways a great man, and in almost all ways a good man, but he's not much of a historian,

Still the vituperation is explained not by the above, but by one thing and one thing only. Carter has departed from the accepted narrative that Israel's so-called friends in the United States insist on imposing on the Israeli-Palestinian narrative. Depart from it and expect to get called all kind of names, none of them nice...

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A professor has made some accusations which are serious if true. So far he has not produced evidence to back them up: reported in the Washington Post.

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...Kenneth W. Stein, a professor at Emory University, accused Carter of factual errors, omissions and plagiarism in the book. "Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information," Stein wrote in a harshly worded e-mail to friends and colleagues explaining his resignation as the center's Middle East fellow.

Stein offered no specifics in his e-mail to back up the charges, writing only that "in due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins."...

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Originally posted by siren:

I think her name is Stein.

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You're right, I dislike her so much I inadvertently misspelled her name.

She is a warmonger and not-very-well-concealed apologist for the U.S. Here is an exchange between a Bloc MP and her when she appeared before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Nov. 27, 2002 - when the U.S. was hell-bent on concocting evidence of WMD in Iraq:

From official record:

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Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was somewhat surprised by your comment that inspectors were allowed back into Iraq only as a result of a credible threat of force. I find that pronouncement rather ironic given that we now know for a fact that inspectors left Iraq in the first place at the request of the United States which was preparing to launch an attack on the country. It's ironic, although I do understand the underlying issue here.

By claiming that Iraq acted under threat of force, we're employing the same carrot and stick approach that the Americans employ so very skilfully to ensure their way prevails internationally. When we read resolution 1441, we see that we aren't the ones wielding the stick and that there is no carrot. You seem to think that if Iraq complies with resolution 1440, the sanctions that have been imposed will eventually be lifted.

Shouldn't the fact that resolution 1441 makes no provision for sanctions to be lifted if Iraq complies with the terms set out serve as an indication that any eventual move on Iraq's part to comply with the terms of the resolution might not necessarily lead to the lifting of the sanctions?

Ms. Janice Stein: You've asked two questions.

On the first one, I think it is unambiguously clear, whether we like it or not, that it was the threat, the credible threat of the use of force, that led to the return of the inspectors. I think the issue is not how the inspectors left four years ago, but how the regime treated the inspectors for the previous three years, when the record, I think, is unambiguously clear that there was every effort to subvert their mission, to hide critical information, and to deny the inspectors the access they needed to establish meaningful inspections.

The valuable information that was discovered about the biological weapons program and the nuclear program were in fact discovered only as a result of information from defectors from Iraq. But for virtually the whole period those inspectors were on the ground, the regime of Saddam Hussein did not cooperate.

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[ 09 December 2006: Message edited by: unionist ]

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A professor has made some accusations which are serious if true. So far he has not produced evidence to back them up: reported in the Washington Post. -Contrarian

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As Winston Churchill said:

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A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

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Why the mystery ? Why not lay out the evidence so people can judge ?

By the time this Professor's allegations are proven unfounded, the task of discrediting Jimmy Carter is hafl done ?

Pres. Carter knew his stuff as far as it went. The interviewer, McKenna I think, adopted an antagonistic approach in his interrogation but the former President stood up pretty well. Stein was intolerable but was there for "balance" no doubt.

http://tinyurl.com/yerua6

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Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel. Two members of Congress have been publicly critical. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for instance, issued a statement (before the book was published) saying that "he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel." Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me "anti-Semitic," and others accuse
the book of "lies" and "distortions." A former Carter
Center fellow has taken issue with it, and Alan
Dershowitz called the book's title "indecent."

Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've signed books in five stores, with more than 1,000 buyers at each site. I've had one negative remark — that I should be tried for treason — and one caller on C-SPAN said that I was an anti-Semite. My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish
enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors. I have been most encouraged by prominent Jewish citizens and members of Congress who have thanked me privately for presenting the facts and some new ideas.

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[ 09 December 2006: Message edited by: sidra ]

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The two faces of imperial power include the iron fist of military intervention and the "soft sell" of electoral frauds, intimidating diplomacy and democratic blackmail. Jimmy Carter is "the quiet American" of Graham Greene fame, who legitimates voter fraud, blesses corrupt elections, certifies murderous rulers, encourages elections, in which the opposition is funded by the US state and semi-public foundations, and the incumbent progressive regime suffers repeated violent disruption of the economy.

Behind the simple and humane façade, Carter has a strategy to reverse progressive regimes and undermine insurgent democrats. Carter and his "team" from his Center probe and locate weaknesses among insecure democrats, particularly those under threat by US-backed opponents and thus vulnerable to Carter's appeals to be "pragmatic" and "realistic"--meaning his barely disguised arguments to accept fraudulent electoral results and gross US electoral intervention. Carter is a quiet master in mixing democratic rhetoric with manipulation of susceptible democrats who think he shares their democratic politics. The international mass media feature his self-promoted overseas trips to conflictual countries and above all his phony "human rights" record. The mass media provide Carter with the appearance of democratic credentials.

In fact, his frequent political interventions have been dedicated to sustaining dictators, legitimizing fraudulent elections and pressuring popular democratic candidates to capitulate before US-backed opponents. Carter has deliberately and systematically worked over the past quarter of a century to undermine progressive regimes and candidates and promote their pro-imperialist opponents.
....

Carter Certifies a Stolen Election: Dominican Republic 1990

....Jimmy Carter headed the mission "monitoring" the election. Bosch presented Carter with a wealth of documents and testimony, witnesses and photos of Balaguer supporters dumping ballots in the river. Carter acknowledged the corruption and fraud, but urged Bosch to accept the results "to avoid a civil war". Bosch accused Carter of covering up to gain a US client. He led a march of 500,000 in protest. Carter certified Balaguer as the product of a "free election" and left. Balaguer proceeded to repress, pillage and privatize basic services.

Haiti I: Carter the Smiling Blackmailer

In 1990, Bertrand Aristide, a very popular former priest was leading in the polls with over 70% against a US-backed former World Bank functionary, Marc Bazin with barely 15% of popular support. Jimmy Carter, the self-styled neutral electoral monitor, set up a meeting with Aristide in which he demanded that Aristide withdraw from the elections in favor of the unpopular US candidate in order to avoid a "bloodbath". Carter did everything in his power to frighten Aristide and deny the populace its right to choose its president. Carter must have known in advance from his contacts with President Bush (Senior) that Washington was intent on preventing Haiti from taking an independent road. Eight months after Aristide's accession to the Presidency, a coup, backed by the US took place. Aristide was ousted and replaced and Carter's preferred candidate, Marc Bazin, was appointed Prime Minister, backed by a paramilitary terrorist group called FRAPH that instituted a "bloodbath" killing more than 4,000 Haitians. Carter and Bush, the quiet diplomat and the President with the iron fist worked in tandem, when the first failed, the latter stepped in.

Haiti II: General Cedras--Sunday School Teacher--1991-94

With Aristide out of the way, the US-backed regime proceeded to massacre thousands of Haitian supporters of the former elected President. The key member of the governing junta was General Cedras. With thousands of Haitians fleeing his brutal regime and heading for Florida, Jimmy Carter spoke in defense of the bloody General Cedras, "I believe and trust in General Cedras." Later Carter gushed, "I believe he would be a worthy Sunday school teacher." Carter later certified the respectability of the disreputable dictator on his way to exile--after emptying the treasury. President Clinton convoked a meeting with Aristide in Washington. A Congressional aide privy to the meeting told me that Clinton's aide handed Aristide a neo-liberal program and list of cabinet ministers and told him his return to Haiti was contingent on accepting Washington's dictates. After many hours of psychological pressure, threats and arguments, Aristide capitulated. Clinton allowed him to return. Carter welcomed the return of "democracy" -US style.

Ten years later when Aristide refused to comply with threats from the US to privatize public utilities and break relations with Cuba (which was providing hundreds of doctors and nurses for Haiti's public health system), the US sponsored a paramilitary attack, followed by a US invasion. Aristide, the elected President, was kidnapped by US forces and flown--virtually blindfolded--to the Central African Republic. Carter did not protest the gross US intervention but questioned Aristide's election. Carter's criticism of Aristide (at a time when Aristide was a prisoner in the Central African Republic) provided a fig leaf of legitimacy for the US invasion, kidnapping, occupation and establishment of a murderous puppet regime....

Nicaragua 1979: Part I--Carter and Somoza

In June 1978, President Jimmy Carter sent a private letter to the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza lauding Somoza for the "human rights initiatives" while he criticized Somoza publicly. Carter had made "human rights" a centerpiece of his interventionist propaganda ( Morris Morley, Washington, Somoza and the Sandinistas, 1994, pp 115-116). This two-faced policy occurred during one of the bloodiest periods of Somoza's rule when he was bombing cities sympathetic to the revolution. Carter's rhetorical declaration of concern for human rights was for public consumption, his private assurances to Somoza encouraged the dictator to continue his scorched earth policy.

Nicaragua May 1979 : Part II--Carter Proposes Intervention

In June 1993 the Foreign Minister under the late Panamanian President Torrejos told me of President Carter's briefest regional meeting. It took place less in May 1979 less than two months before Somoza was overthrown. Carter convened a meeting of foreign ministers of several Latin American countries who were opposed to Somoza's dictatorship. President Carter entered and immediately tabled a proposal to form an "Inter-American Peace Force", a military force of US and Latin American troops to invade Nicaragua to "end the conflict" and support a diverse coalition. The purpose, according to the former Panamanian minister present, was to prevent a Sandinista victory, preserving Somoza's National Guard and replace Somoza with a pro-US conservative civilian junta. Carter's proposal was rejected unanimously as unwarranted US intervention. Carter in a pique ended the meeting abruptly. Carter's attempt to throttle a popular revolution to preserve the Somocista state and US dominance clearly belied his pretensions of being a "human rights" President. His legacy of using "Human Rights" to project imperial military power became standard operating procedure for Reagon, Clinton and both Bush presidencies.

Afghanistan: Carter Finances the Invasion of Islamic Terrorists

In the late 1970's Afghanistan was ruled by a nationalist secular regime allied with the Soviet Union. The regime promoted gender equality, free universal education for women and men, agrarian reform including the redistribution of feudal estates to poor peasants, the separation of religion and the state and adopted an independent foreign policy with a Soviet tilt. Beginning at least as early as 1979, the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia orchestrated a massive international recruiting campaign of Islamic fundamentalist to engage in a "Jihad" against the "atheistic communist regime." Tens of thousands were recruited, armed by the US, financed by Saudis Arabia and trained by the CIA and Pakistani Intelligence. Pakistan opened its frontiers to the flood of armed invaders. Internally the displaced Mullahs, horrified by the equality and education of women, not to speak of the expropriation of their huge land holdings, joined the Jihad en masse.

The Carter Presidency (and not Reagan) was responsible for the organization, financing, training of the Islamic uprising and the terror campaign which followed. Zbig Brzesinski later wrote of the US-Afghanistan campaign as one of the high points in US Cold War diplomacy--it provoked Soviet intervention on behalf of the secular Afghan ally. Even when confronted with the consequences of the total devastation of Afghanistan, the rise of the Taliban and Al Queda and 9/11, Carter's former National Security Adviser, Brzesinski replied that these were marginal costs in comparison with a war which successfully hastened the fall of the Soviet Union. President Carter's intervention in Afghanistan initiated the Second Cold War, which was pursued with even greater intensity by Reagan. Carter backed a series of surrogate wars in Angola, Mozambique, Central American, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Carter was clearly an advocate and practitioner of the worst kind of imperial intervention and a master of public relations: he was an early practitioner of "Humanitarian Imperialism"--humane in rhetoric and brutally imperialist in practice.

The Carter Factor: Venezuela 2002-2004

Nowhere and at no time does Jimmy Carter, the kindly-appearing human rights rhetorician, pose a more dangerous threat to democratic freedoms and national independence than he does today in Venezuela. With the ardent backing of the violence-prone opposition, Carter has frequently intervened in Venezuelan politics, presenting himself as a neutral mediator. At every step of the way Carter has moved to legitimate an opposition engaged in coups, uprisings, paramilitary terrorists and bosses lockouts devastating the economy. Carter convinced President Chavez to "reconcile" with the elite leaders and supporters of a violent coup which briefly overthrew his elected government. He continually pressured the elected President to negotiate and "share power" with an opposition even after he had won six national elections. Carter refused to recognize Chavez' electoral victories and constitutional mandates--instead he supported the opposition's demand for new unscheduled elections and then promoted the "referendum". Carter endorsed the referendum results pronounced by the opposition--even though there were gross electoral violations. He then exercised pressure on the National Electoral Council to accelerate its examination of votes--urging them to get on with the referendum. Carter never acknowledged hundreds of thousands of instances of voter fraud (as he refused to do in the case of Juan Bosch's stolen victory earlier) and fraudulent identity cards. Carter was acting in Venezuela as the "Quiet American"--one espousing high ideals while engaged in dirty tricks. The historical record is abundantly clear--Carter cannot be trusted to act as a "neutral observer". He has been and is today a partisan of US imperial interests and is not merely an "observer" but an active, insidious partner of US clients. He continues to defend and promote any political opposition or regime, any ruler or "coordinator" which will defeat popular movements and progressive governments.

Carter is not a democrat! He is a lifelong partisan of the US Empire. He is especially dangerous as the Venezuela referendum approaches. The US is illegally providing millions of dollars to the anti-Chavez opposition via the National Endowment for Democracy and other "foundations". And the Carter Institute will be there to legitimate fraud and deceit: to question the questions for the referendum and the election if Chavez wins. Carter is especially likely to take advantage of some opportunist politicos who surround Chavez and are prone to make concessions to secure "democratic legitimacy" from the presence of this envoy of Empire. Carter fits into the larger strategy of US-backed coups and lockouts, paramilitary violence and support of Colombia's military threat.

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[ 09 December 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

The US is still an imperialist country no matter who occupies the chair in the Oval Office. But former Pres. Carter is providing a useful service by identifying some of the most egregious atrocities of the current Israeli regime, noting the complicit role that Canada and other countries are playing by destroying any workable Palestinian authority and government, and outlining the direction that needs to be taken for peace. His views are being read and heard by millions who never hear the silenced voice of the left in his country. Gah!

[ 09 December 2006: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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I hate to break up this Jimmy Carter lovefest with a reality check M. Spector

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quote:

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Meh. Carter isn't the first high profile politician to change his tune once out of office. Former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axeworthy took a much better approach to foreign policy once he was no longer the Minister.

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
...change his tune once out of office.

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In office: Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran (the latter not mentioned in the article)

Out of office: Dominican Republic, Haiti, Venezuela

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M. Spector: How did he change his tune?

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...On Israel's responsibility for the current impasse. The fact that neither the current Democratic nor the current Republican leadership agrees with him, and, in fact, have gone out of their way to disagree with Pres. Carter should be clear enough. If Carter was the current President he would never say or write such things.

Elaborating the imperialist policies of the Carter administration is useful but beside the point.

Since you and I have disagreed so strongly on our small differences in relation to atheist Richard Dawkins I will use another example from the role of religion in society. When Nelson Mandela was released, after 28 years of imprisonment by the apartheid regime, he made a famous speech. In the course of that speech Mandela elaborated and thanked all those who had contributed to the anti-apartheid struggle. One group that Mandela thanked was the churches of South Africa. Mandela said that the the churches spoke up "... when all other voices had been silenced." Give credit where credit is due. I don't understand your ungracious tone.

quote:

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
The fact that neither the current Democratic nor the current Republican leadership agrees with him, and, in fact, have gone out of their way to disagree with Pres. Carter should be clear enough. If Carter was the current President he would never say or write such things.

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Elaborating the imperialist policies of the Carter administration is useful but beside the point.

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I don't understand your ungracious tone.

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unionist: But I only wish I could influence world public opinion the way Carter can.

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Or, at least US public opinion. I dunno how much influence Pres. Carter has globally.

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Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. This puts him in the distinguished company of Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Kissinger, and Mikhail Gorbachev.

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The [Nobel] committee’s citation singled out Carter’s role in negotiating the Camp David treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1978. Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that year. While the Nobel committee wanted to include Carter at that time, they were unable to because his nomination had been submitted too late.

The Camp David accord was not a framework for Middle East peace, but rather an instrument of rapprochement between a section of the Arab bourgeoisie on the one hand and Israel and US imperialism on the other, at the expense of the Palestinian people. The main “achievement” of this deal was to isolate the Palestine Liberation Organization and leave the central questions of the status of the Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and the rights of Palestinians unresolved to this day. Twenty-five years later, Israeli military occupation and raids in those territories continue, while the death toll among both Palestinians and Israelis has never been higher. Source

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Maybe in the context of the United States, where every politician is obliged to genuflect before the Israel Lobby, Carter's characterization of the situation as "apartheid" can open up discussion - if only because of its shock value. He has certainly been pilloried mercilessly by the pro-Zionists in both imperialist parties as a result of his book.

But in Canada and the rest of the world, where criticism of Israel is actually a permissible (if not actually common) part of political discourse, there's no reason for anyone to see him as a visionary.

[ 09 December 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

Alan Dershowitz has an article at the Huffington Post laying in point form out what he views to be the largest errors and ommissions:

The World According to Jimmy Carter

I read the comments below the article. Supporters of Mr. Dershowtiz' article were asking for a point-by-point response to the article from those that disagreed with it. I didn't find one.

Anyone here care to take a shot?

[ 17 December 2006: Message edited by: modlib ]

quote:

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Alan Dershowitz has an article at the Huffington Post laying in point form out what he views to be the largest errors and ommissions -modlib

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I think it is a side-show to deflect from the main thesis.

Whether Jews were expulsed from Arab countries, whether Arabs rejected an earlier proposal of division of land and all these topics have no bearing whatsoever on the reality, NOW, TODAY.

Unless (torture) Dershowtiz considers that these constitute the justification for Israeli Apartheid, which would surprise no one.

[ 10 December 2006: Message edited by: sidra ]

quote:

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Originally posted by sidra:

I think it is a side-show to deflect from the main thesis.

Whether Jews were expulsed from Arab countries, whether Arabs rejected an earlier proposal of division of land and all these topics have no bearing whatsoever on the reality, NOW, TODAY.

Unless (torture) Dershowtiz considers that these constitute the justification for Israeli Apartheid, which would surprise no one.

[ 10 December 2006: Message edited by: sidra ]

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You don't think the history of the region has anything to do with the reality today? Both sides speak of hundreds of year old grievances, both sides speak of war and land acquisition or loss from the past few decades - you don't think this has anything to do with the conflict? -EmmaG

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I am not talking about the conflict. I am talking about the Apartheid style Israel is pursuing. Does the "history of the region" justify Apartheid, EmmaG ? Are you, justifying Apartheid with some historical events ?

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I like Carter for his devotion to Habitat for Humanity.

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Originally posted by modlib:
Regarding the errors that Mr. Stein alleges:

Alan Dershowitz has an article at the Huffington Post laying in point form out what he views to be the largest errors and ommissions:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/the-world-according-to-ji_b_34702.html

I read the comments below the article. Supporters of Mr. Dershowtiz' article were asking for a point-by-point response to the article from those that disagreed with it. I didn't find one.

Anyone here care to take a shot?

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Why would one debate a plagarist, unless to discredit their plagarism? Dershowitz cribbed from Joan Peter's cringingly bad From Time Immemorial , and got caught out. He has spent the intervening time complaining about being caught. Now we're supposed to take him or his demands seriously?

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The Anti-Defamation League has launched a full-frontal assault, with advertising campaigns in major newspapers suggesting that “Mr. Carter does not advance public debate. He diminishes it.”

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...He also has a veiled hint of plagiarism, saying you took from other sources.
The only source that I took anything from that I know about was my own book, which I wrote earlier—it's called "The Blood of Abraham" ... Somebody told me this morning [Stein] was complaining about the maps in the book. Well, the maps are derived from an atlas that was published in 2004 in Jerusalem and it was basically produced under the aegis of officials in Sweden. And the Swedish former prime minister is the one who told me this was the best atlas available about the Middle East...

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http://jpundit.typepad.com/jci/2006/12/carters_maps_wo.html

Barak offered an awful lot in these negotiations and Arafat turned him down. It's hard to imagine that the parties could get back to this stage of negotiations, or that the Palestinians could get better terms.

Here are the 'Clinton Parameters' that Arafat turned down:

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-- a Palestinian state on approximately 97% of the West Bank (phrased as “between 94 and 96 percent of West Bank territory” plus a “land swap of 1 to 3 percent,” for a total of between 95 and 99 percent -- with 97% thus being the midpoint), and 100% of Gaza, with “contiguity of territory for each side” and 80 percent of the settlers remaining in blocs within the retained 4-6% area;

-- a capital in East Jerusalem, with sovereignty over all Arab parts of the City (including Arab parts of the Old City) and Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount;

-- an unlimited right of refugees to return to the new state of Palestine, plus limited absorption of refugees into Israel (depending on Israel’s policies and sovereign decision); and

-- an international presence for security purposes as Israel withdrew from the West Bank, with a “small Israeli presence in fixed locations” remaining in the Jordan Valley -- under the authority of the international force -- for a limited time.

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Here's a detailed breakdown of factual inaccuracies and map plagiarism & distortion in Carter's accounts of the Clinton-Arafat-Barak negotiations for a two state solution in 2000 (they conflict with Clinton's own accounts). -modlib

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As I mentioned above, Dershowitz lays out more innacuracies:
The World According to Jimmy Carter

Interestingly, Carter is unwilling to debate him
Carter Invite Fizzles

I wonder what's he afraid of? Surely he can blow away Dershowitz with his evidence of, as you say "oppressive, discriminatory and dehumanizing policies that can be best characterized as Apartheid"

[ 17 December 2006: Message edited by: modlib ]

[ 17 December 2006: Message edited by: modlib ]

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Originally posted by modlib:

I wonder what's he afraid of? Surely he can blow away Dershowitz with his evidence of, as you say "oppressive, discriminatory and dehumanizing policies that can be best characterized as Apartheid"

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quote:

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I wonder what's he afraid of? Surely he can blow away Dershowitz with his evidence of, as you say "oppressive, discriminatory and dehumanizing policies that can be best characterized as Apartheid" -modlib

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Maybe for the same reason you and I have for not debating the Holocaust: Reality. Facts.

[ 16 December 2006: Message edited by: sidra ]

try:

{url=http://www.greatsite.com}Carter's current stance on Palestine/Israel relations is admirable{/url}

using square [] rather than curved {} brackets.

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Sidra said...
Maybe for the same reason you and I have for not debating the Holocaust: Reality. Facts.

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Wow. You've got me there. Sidra and Jimmy Carter say it's Apartheid and there's no point in arguing due to 'reality' and 'facts'.

I'd love to see you try that one in a live debate.

See, if someone's argument is strong and it is challenged, that person should take the opportunity to publicly refute the challengers. It's how public discourse and debate has evolved. The fact is, if Mr. Carter had written this as his PHD thesis, he'd have to defend it against vigorous questioning. Luckily for him, he's just releasing a book then dodging his challengers.

Carter himself said he wrote to book to 'spark debate'. How about having one? Could it be that his characterization of Israel as being an Apartheid state is just plain damned hard to defend?

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I'd love to see you try that one in a live debate.

See, if someone's argument is strong and it is challenged, that person should take the opportunity to publicly refute the challengers. It's how public discourse and debate has evolved. The fact is, if Mr. Carter had written this as his PHD thesis, he'd have to defend it against vigorous questioning. Luckily for him, he's just releasing a book then dodging his challengers. -modlib

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Neither the Israeli Apartheid nor the Holocaust are debatable.

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if someone's argument is strong and it is challenged, that person should take the opportunity to publicly refute the challengers. It's how public discourse and debate has evolved.

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I am pretty sure that -like me- you have strong arguments that the Holocaust existed, but would you have gone to Teheran to take the opportunity to publicly refute the challenges? I wouldn't.

It was President Carter who reigned in the CIA and demanded that dictators allied with the U.S. make human rights concessions. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. But he tried.

A palestinian state has no chance of success as long as it is pockmarked with foreign Israeli enclaves. No country could execute sovereignty effectively with that situation.

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Winnie the Pooh: It was President Carter who reigned in the CIA and demanded that dictators allied with the U.S. make human rights concessions.

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You might want to have a read of the contribution by M.Spector in this thread beginning with "I hate to break up this Jimmy Carter lovefest ...", etc.

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Could it be that his characterization of Israel as being an Apartheid state is just plain damned hard to defend?

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Well, you could ask Desmond Tutu or Mandela about Apartheid and it's parallels to Israel. I doubt you'd like their answers though, even though you'd be completely unable to deny their first hand knowledge of the subject and certain expertise on the subject really.

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Scout: It takes very little study of SA's aparthied policies to see direct comparisions with Israel's policies.

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For the record ...

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Willie Madisha, President COSATU:

I congratulate CUPE Ontario for their historic resolution on May 27th in support of the Palestinian people - those living under occupation and those millions of Palestinian refugees living in the Diaspora. We fully support your resolution.

As someone who lived in apartheid South Africa and who has visited Palestine I say with confidence that Israel is an apartheid state. In fact, I believe that some of the atrocities committed against the South Africans by the erstwhile apartheid regime in South Africa pale in comparison to those committed against the Palestinians.

The latest outrage by the apartheid Israeli regime-the construction of the hideous Apartheid Wall-condemned by the International Court of Justice- extends the occupation of Palestinian lands, disrupts the already precarious economic, social, health and education well being of an entire people and entrenches the Bantustanisation of Palestine.

When the governments of the world turn a blind eye to these injustices; when they are seduced by apartheid Israel’s justification of brutality through the pretext of ‘security’; when they silence criticism of state terror through the canard of ‘anti-semitism’-then it is time for the global workers movement to stand firm and principled against hypocrisy and double standards. We cannot remain silent any longer. ....

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Madisha: Despite the action of some Western governments and big business, workers and democrats of the world including the citizens of Canada, heeded our call when we struggled against apartheid. Boycotts, disinvestments and sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa hastened our march to democracy. Why should it be different for Palestinians? ....

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Madisha: South African workers will never forget the support given by the Israeli state to the apartheid South African regime. In the same way we will never forget the thousands of acts of solidarity of ordinary citizens around the world who sustained our struggle through the boycott weapon. ....

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Madisha: Those supporting the ideology of Zionism and the pro-Israeli lobby will muster their substantial resources against you. Despite these pressures, we ask you not to doubt for a single moment the correctness of your just stand.

We salute the courage and vision of CUPE Ontario’s leadership and members in unanimously passing resolution 50. Your unwavering resolve inspires us ...

In Solidarity,

Willie Madisha
President
Congress of South African Trade Unions

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We Salute You!

Madisha is very clear here. And Canadians ought to listen when the President of such a heroic anti-apartheid organization takes the time to honour our own citizens with words of encouragement and solidarity. Other than the cause of peace, these are the deepest and most sacred values of the left; principled internationalism, solidarity with the just struggle of others and fraternal and kindly relations with all peoples of the world.

[ 17 December 2006: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Pretoria Calling
By DENNIS ROSS

THE Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has a credibility problem that his visit with President Bush is unlikely to help: how to convince his people that violence against Israel will not lead to an independent Palestinian state. While Mr. Abbas must certainly show that he can deliver for his people, he needs help in discrediting Hamas and other terrorist groups. And one of the best sources for that help is not in Washington, Brussels or Riyadh, but in Pretoria. Indeed, South Africa's experience can provide valuable inspiration for the culture of peace that Mr. Abbas says he hopes to create.

Yasir Arafat loved to equate the Palestinian struggle for statehood with the struggle of South Africans against apartheid, but his was always a false analogy. In South Africa, less than 15 percent of the population controlled all the power and wealth and subjected the other 85 percent to a degrading, inhuman and segregated existence. For the oppressed majority, the answer was not one state for non-whites and one for whites; rather, the goal was justice and majority rule.

Compare that to the Palestinian movement for self-determination. Arabs today remain a minority in the area that encompasses Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. To be sure, given demographic trends, Jews will become a minority in that area within this decade, but even by 2050, Arabs would outnumber Jews by only 60 percent to 40 percent.

The international community supports a two-state solution because it recognizes that there are two national movements with populations in rough equality. That was never the case in South Africa. And while Palestinians have endured occupation and a denial of their rights, their commitment to violent struggle has sadly perpetuated this condition and stymied their national aspirations.

Why raise the South African comparison today? Because Palestinians respect the South African model but are not learning from it. For all of Arafat's comparisons to the African National Congress, it did not have an ideology of violence: although the congress attacked the military and economic underpinnings of apartheid, it forswore attacks on civilians and generally expelled those members who violated that policy.

In contrast, no Palestine Liberation Organization member has ever been drummed out for violence against Israelis. As the price of joining the Oslo process, Arafat renounced terrorism, but he never delegitimized it; he never called those who carried out terrorist acts against Israeli enemies of the Palestinian cause.

I don't mean to idealize the African National Congress. But the Palestinians urgently need a credible and effective role model for assuming responsibility and rejecting violence. First, they must act in Gaza to prove that they can govern themselves and fulfill their responsibilities, including their security responsibilities. Second, they now have a leader, Mr. Abbas, who rejects violence but lacks Arafat's revolutionary authority and is being challenged by Hamas, which claims that Gaza vindicates the resort to terrorism. Arab leaders - who could have an impact - remain nowhere to be found.

The South Africans are far less reticent, especially in challenging those who call for violence, and they are likely to be taken seriously by the Palestinian public. I know from my conversations with members of South Africa's government in Pretoria this summer that they are interested in playing a role - an interest that they have signaled in several venues, including meetings with Palestinian and Israeli officials. Now is perhaps the time for a visit to Ramallah by Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's president, to share his country's experience and its lessons for the Palestinians.

No one can question whether South Africans struggled. No one can doubt the moral authority of their words. And no one can more forcefully offer a successful and nonviolent pathway to national liberation and a government of basic decency.

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http://tinyurl.com/ybja2p

[ 19 December 2006: Message edited by: Peech ]

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MYTH

"Israel's treatment of Palestinians is similar to the treatment of blacks in apartheid South Africa."

FACT

Even before the State of Israel was established, Jewish leaders consciously sought to avoid the situation that prevailed in South Africa. As David Ben-Gurion told Palestinian nationalist Musa Alami in 1934:

We do not want to create a situation like that which exists in South Africa, where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers. If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland.6

Today, within Israel, Jews are a majority, but the Arab minority are full citizens who enjoy equal rights. Arabs are represented in the Knesset, and have served in the Cabinet, high-level foreign ministry posts (e.g., Ambassador to Finland) and on the Supreme Court. Under apartheid, black South Africans could not vote and were not citizens of the country in which they formed the overwhelming majority of the population. Laws dictated where they could live, work and travel. And, in South Africa, the government killed blacks who protested against its policies. By contrast, Israel allows freedom of movement, assembly and speech. Some of the government's harshest critics are Israeli Arabs who are members of the Knesset.

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Guardian Promotes Apartheid Slur

The Guardian publishes a lengthy two-part feature comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa.

Despite other newsworthy stories concerning Hamas and Muslim reaction to newspaper cartoons, the Guardian has chosen to publish a lengthy two-part diatribe (see parts 1 and 2) comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa. The false and unfounded portrayal of Israel as an "apartheid state" is certainly not new and has been examined many times by HonestReporting (see below for related communiques). In the past five years, however, this charge has been revived and promoted as part of a deliberate campaign and strategy to demonize and delegitimize Israel. As Professor Gerald Steinberg notes, this was an outcome of the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa.....
The situation of Palestinians in the territories is different. The security requirements of the nation, and a violent insurrection in the territories, forced Israel to impose restrictions on Arab residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that are not necessary inside Israel's pre-1967 borders. The Palestinians in the territories, typically, dispute Israel's right to exist whereas blacks did not seek the destruction of South Africa, only the apartheid regime.

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[ 19 December 2006: Message edited by: Peech ]

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1219-23.htm

"Palestinians are not only dying, their olive trees uprooted, their farmland and homes destroyed and their aquifers taken away from them, but on many days they can’t move because of Israeli 'closures' that make basic tasks, like buying food and going to the hospital, nearly impossible. These Palestinians, after decades of repression, cannot return to land from which they were expelled. The 140-plus U.N. votes to censure Israel and two Security Council resolutions—both vetoed by the United States—are blithly ignored...

"Palestinians in Gaza live encased in a squalid, overcrowded ghetto, surrounded by the Israeli military and a massive electric fence, unable to leave or enter the strip and under daily assault. The word 'apartheid,' given the wanton violence employed against the Palestinians, is tepid. This is more than apartheid. The concerted Israeli attempts to orchestrate a breakdown in law and order, to foster chaos and rampant deprivation, are on public display in the streets of Gaza City, where Palestinians walk past the rubble of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Economy, the office of the Palestinian prime minister and a number of educational institutions that have been bombed by Israeli jets. The electricity generation plant, providing 45 percent of the electricity of the Gaza Strip, has been wiped out, and even the primitive electricity networks and transmitters that remain have been repeatedly bombed. Six bridges linking Gaza City with the central Gaza Strip have been blown up and main arteries cratered into obliteration. And the West Bank is rapidly descending into a crisis of Gaza proportions....

"The debate over Jimmy Carter’s book, one that dishes up a fair number of Israeli myths about itself and states a reality that is acknowledged even by most Israelis, misses the point. The question is not whether Israel practices apartheid. Apartheid is a fond dream for most Palestinians. The awful question is rather will Israel be able to unleash a policy so draconian and cruel that it will obliterate a community that has lived on this land for centuries. There are other, far more loaded words for what is happening to the Palestinians. One shudders to repeat them..."

For some good reasons why Hamas doesn't recognize Israel, this article by Johnathon Cook is quite good:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cook12142006.html

"First, as has already been understood, at least by those paying attention, Hamas' recognition of Israel's 'right to exist' would effectively signify that the Palestinian government was publicly abandoning its own goal of struggling to create a viable Palestinian state.

"That is because Israel refuses to demarcate its own future borders, leaving it an open question what it considers to be the extent of "its existence" it is demanding Hamas recognise. We do know that no one in the Israeli leadership is talking about a return to Israel's borders that existed before the 1967 war, or probably anything close to it.

"Without a return to those pre-1967 borders (plus a substantial injection of goodwill from Israel in ensuring unhindered passage between Gaza and the West Bank) no possibility exists of a viable Palestinian state ever emerging.

"And no goodwill, of course, will be forthcoming. Every Israeli leader has refused to recognise the Palestinians, first as a people and now as a nation. And in the West's typically hypocritical fashion when dealing with the Palestinians, no one has ever suggested that Israel commit to such recognition...

"The second element to the trap is far less well understood. It explains the strange formulation of words Israel uses in making its demand of Hamas. Israel does not ask it simply to 'recognise Israel', but to 'recognise Israel's right to exist'. The difference is not a just matter of semantics.

"The concept of a state having any rights is not only strange but alien to international law. People have rights, not states. And that is precisely the point: when Israel demands that its 'right to exist' be recognised, the subtext is that we are not speaking of recognition of Israel as a normal nation state but as the state of a specific people, the Jews.

"In demanding recognition of its right to exist, Israel is ensuring that the Palestinians agree to Israel's character being set in stone as an exclusivist Jewish state, one that privileges the rights of Jews over all other ethnic, religious and national groups inside the same territory. The question of what such a state entails is largely glossed over both by Israel and the West.

"For most observers, it means simply that Israel must refuse to allow the return of the millions of Palestinians languishing in refugee camps throughout the region, whose former homes in Israel have now been appropriated for the benefit of Jews. Were they allowed to come back, Israel's Jewish majority would be eroded overnight and it could no longer claim to be a Jewish state, except in the same sense that apartheid South Africa was a white state."

[ 19 December 2006: Message edited by: Michael Nenonen ]

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The World According to Carter

By ALAN DERSHOWITZ
November 22, 2006

Sometimes you really can tell a book by its cover. President Jimmy Carter's decision to title his new anti-Israel screed "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" (Simon & Schuster, 288 pages, $27) tells it all. His use of the loaded word "apartheid," suggesting an analogy to the hated policies of South Africa, is especially outrageous, considering his acknowledgment buried near the end of his shallow and superficial book that what is going on in Israel today "is unlike that in South Africa—not racism, but the acquisition of land." Nor does he explain that Israel's motivation for holding on to land it captured in a defensive war is the prevention of terrorism. Israel has tried, on several occasions, to exchange land for peace, and what it got instead was terrorism, rockets, and kidnappings launched from the returned land.

In fact, Palestinian-Arab terrorism is virtually missing from Mr. Carter's entire historical account, which blames nearly everything on Israel and almost nothing on the Palestinians. Incredibly, he asserts that the initial violence in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict occurred when "Jewish militants" attacked Arabs in 1939. The long history of Palestinian terrorism against Jews — which began in 1929, when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem ordered the slaughter of more than 100 rabbis, students, and non-Zionist Sephardim whose families had lived in Hebron and other ancient Jewish cities for millennia — was motivated by religious bigotry. The Jews responded to this racist violence by establishing a defense force. There is no mention of the long history of Palestinian terrorism before the occupation, or of the Munich massacre and others inspired byYasser Arafat. There is not even a reference to the Karine A, the boatful of terrorist weapons ordered by Arafat in January 2002.

Mr. Carter's book is so filled with simple mistakes of fact and deliberate omissions that were it a brief filed in a court of law, it would be struck and its author sanctioned for misleading the court. Mr. Carter too is guilty of misleading the court of public opinion. A mere listing of all of Mr. Carter's mistakes and omissions would fill a volume the size of his book. Here are just a few of the most egregious:

Mr. Carter emphasizes that "Christian and Muslim Arabs had continued to live in this same land since Roman times," but he ignores the fact that Jews have lived in Hebron, Tzfat, Jerusalem, and other cities for even longer. Nor does he discuss the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries since 1948.

Mr. Carter repeatedly claims that the Palestinian Arabs have long supported a two-state solution and the Israelis have always opposed it. Yet he makes no mention of the fact that in 1938 the Peel Commission proposed a two-state solution, with Israel receiving a mere sliver of its ancient homeland and the Palestinians receiving the bulk of the land. The Jews accepted and the Palestinians rejected this proposal because Arab leaders cared more about there being no Jewish state on Muslim holy land than about having a Palestinian state of their own...

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As Norman Finkelstein has demonstrated pretty damn conclusively in Beyond Chutzpah, Dershowitz relies heavily in The Case for Israel on Joan Peters' thoroughly discredited book, From Time Immemorial. Here's a link that shows just how closely Dershowitz's material matches Peters:

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1

In Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Finkelstein demolishes Peters' arguments about recent Palestinian history. Finkelstein summarizes the flaws in Peters' work in the following way: "To begin with the fraud falls into two basic categories. First, the evidence that Peters adduces to document massive illegal Arab immigration into Palestine is almost entirely falsified. Second, the conclusions that Peters draws from her demographic study of Palestine's indigenous Arab population are not borne out by the data she presents. To confound the reader further, Peters resorts to plagarism."

By relying upon (and, indeed, plagiarizing) Peters' work, Dershowitz demonstrates that his most basic positions regarding Palestinian history are grounded in either deceitfulness or ineptitude.

Given this, there's little reason to take Dershowitz's criticism of Carter's book very seriously. There are undoubtedly problems with Carter's work, but Dershowtiz has neither the credibility nor the competence to address them.

[ 19 December 2006: Message edited by: Michael Nenonen ]

You really did the world a big favour, J-dawg, thanks a million.

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Israel maintains two separate road networks in the West Bank: one for the exclusive use of Jewish settlers, and one for Palestinian natives. Is that not apartheid?

Palestinians are not allowed to drive their own cars in much of the West Bank; their public transportation is frequently interrupted or blocked altogether by a grid of Israeli army checkpoints -- but Jewish settlers come and go freely in their own cars, without even pausing at the roadblocks that hold up the natives. Is that not apartheid?

A system of closures and curfews has strangled the Palestinian economy in the West Bank -- but none of its provisions apply to the Jewish settlements there. Is that not apartheid?

Whole sectors of the West Bank, classified as "closed military areas" by the Israeli army, are off limits to Palestinians, including Palestinians who own land there -- but foreigners to whom Israel's Law of Return applies (that is, anyone Jewish, from anywhere in the world) can access them without hindrance. Is that not apartheid?

Persons of Palestinian origin are routinely barred from entering or residing in the West Bank -- but Israeli and non-Israeli Jews can come and go, and even live on, occupied Palestinian territory. Is that not apartheid?

Israel maintains two sets of rules and regulations in the West Bank: one for Jews, one for non-Jews. The only thing wrong with using the word "apartheid" to describe such a repugnant system is that the South African version of institutionalized discrimination was never as elaborate as its Israeli counterpart -- nor did it have such a vocal chorus of defenders among otherwise liberal Americans.

The glaring error in Carter's book, however, is his insistence that the term "apartheid" does not apply to Israel itself, where, he says, Jewish and non-Jewish citizens are given the same treatment under the law. That is simply not true.

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Originally posted by Slumberjack:
There's a completely ignored double standard here at Babble. Conservative apologists who like to muddy the waters of a discussion with inane points of view are usually called trolls and banned, however zionist apologists are allowed free reign to heap lie upon lie in their defence of the indefensible. Why is that allowed here?

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For many of us the muddy waters are on the left. I notice most name calling is from the left. If they don't like what people say they call them trolls. Should all Conservatives be banned? Should all the Zionists be banned? Should all the extreme left wingers be banned? I think not. That's what debate is all about. Just stop calling each other names.

As far as I know we still live in a free country and unless we spread hate towards a race or religion we are free to say as we wish.

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At long last the Boston Globe published an op-ed by former President Jimmy Carter, defending his book "Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid," from the predictable, scurrilous attacks (e.g.,"lie" and "blood libel") by Alan Dershowitz, Abe Foxman and David Horowitz. Quite wisely, Carter used most of his space to reiterate the main contentions of his book, making his op-ed must reading for those who cannot get to the book....

The precipitating event in the Beantown brouhaha was a speaking invitation to Carter by a professor at Brandeis University, a "traditionally Jewish college." The invitation was issued way back in the middle of November when Carter's book was published. Upon learning that there was opposition on the campus to the invitation, Carter consulted an old adviser Stuart Eizenstadt, now on the Brandeis board of trustees, and good old Stu offered to be an intermediary. But Stu betrayed Carter. (Shades of Menachim Begin.) Eizenstadt contacted Brandeis president, Jehuda Reinharz, and suggested that Carter only be allowed to appear if he debated Alan Dershowitz. A debate "would make this a real academic exercise," Eizenstat enthused to the Globe, adding, "The president of the university is not in the business of inviting someone, even a former president, for a book tour." (Excellent put-down, Stu.) Carter was "stunned by the proposal," according to The Globe, saying: "I don't want to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz. There is no need to for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."

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Carter fans keep reminding us that he is a huge international celebrity and that we couldn't buy this kind of publicity to expose the horrors being perpetrated by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza. But before we become too enamored of Mr. Carter, we need to ask some important questions. Since when isn't apartheid racism? According to Jimmy Carter's new glossary, it isn't. In his recent piece in the Los Angeles Times, in reference to the segregation of Palestinians by Israel's apartheid wall, Carter writes (with a straight face I assume), "I have made it clear that the motivation is not racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonize choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens."

This statement is breathtakingly surreal. We are expected to believe that even though the segregation of Palestinians in the West Bank is based solely on their racial and ethnic origin, somehow this particular version of apartheid isn't racism. Instead, it's only the confiscation and colonization of their land and resources. Oh, and by the way, when Palestinians resist this theft, Israel's suppression of that resistance isn't racially motivated. In addition, all of these crimes are supposedly only being committed by "a minority of Israelis." Wonderful. Too bad that Zionist "minority" he refers to happens to run the country, and has for the last sixty years. It's a good thing Mr. Carter has enlightened us with his new definition of apartheid. Racism has such a negative connotation, after all.

Continuing to peruse Carter's glossary, one notices his definition of democracy seems to be different than any we are familiar with. He claims democracy is thriving in Israel. He says his book "is devoted to circumstances and events in Palestine and not in Israel, where democracy prevails and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed equal status." I suspect the Bedouin people in the Negev desert in southern Israel would view this statement with some degree of skepticism....

Half the Bedouin population, about 70,000 people, live in these townships, while the other half live in dozens of what are cleverly designated "unrecognized villages." Because Israel wants the Bedouin's land in order to expand Jewish population centers, they refuse to provide municipal services such as water, electricity, sewage, and roads to these villages. By withholding basic services from tens of thousands of Israeli citizens, issuing home demolition orders and forcibly relocating Indigenous populations based solely on race, Israel has certainly put democracy in motion in the Negev. This is also another example of Carter's new definition of apartheid. Remember, it's not racism, just land and resource theft.

Then there is the housing situation in places like the central Galilee, home to about 25,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel. Jonathan Cooke, a British journalist based in Nazareth, writes about luxury Jewish communities known as "mitzpim." These "mitzpim" are surrounded by extensive areas of land zoned for construction of new residential housing. Residents of these communities are required by law to screen the applications of anyone who wishes to build there. Surprise, surprise; also by law, non-Jews are not allowed to apply to join these communities. Very clever. The Jewish residents of the "mitzpim" can claim they don't discriminate against Palestinians because no Palestinians ever apply. Why? The law prohibits them from doing so. Plausible deniability is everything.

Meanwhile, in Palestinian villages like Sakhnin, also in the central Galilee, Palestinians are denied permits to build on their own land because Israel's Planning and Building Law has rezoned the property in a way that prohibits new construction. I wonder if "by law," Israel would permit Jimmy Carter to build a home in Sakhnin. I wonder if "by law," they would allow him to submit an application to one of the "mitzpim." Maybe someone will ask him those questions at his next book signing.

Let's take a look what Carter considers "equal status." Israel's High Court recently upheld a law denying Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza who are married to Israeli citizens the right to live in the country with their spouses. This law applies only to Arab spouses. Anyone from any other ethnic group married to an Israeli citizen is entitled to residency. Israelis married to Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza will either have to move to the Occupied Territories or live apart from their spouses. If you happen to be an Israeli citizen, be careful who you fall in love with. Israel's bright and shining democracy is likely to "prevail" over the institution of marriage.

Welcoming the High Court's decision, Israeli Immigration Absorption Minister (yes, there really is such a position) Zeev Boim said, "We have to maintain the state's democratic nature, but also its Jewish nature." This chillingly racist statement illustrates the cornerstone of Zionism. In order to preserve the "Jewish character" of Israel, the Arab population must be oppressed and reduced if necessary so that there will never be any threat to Jewish dominance. But in Mr. Carter's glossary this isn't defined as racism....

Jimmy Carter is engaged in the practice of soft Zionism. He acknowledges that Palestinians are being exploited, but suggests these wrongs are committed by a "minority" of Israelis while most are behaving in a fair and impartial manner. Israel's policies may be apartheid in nature but he denies they are racist. He admits Zionism is exclusionary but insists it is also democratic.....

I applaud Jimmy Carter's willingness to indict Israel for their mistreatment of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories. But his promulgation of the myth that Israel is a democratic society, and his dissonant assertion that their apartheid policies are not racist is dangerously misleading. This kind of apologist rhetoric continues to deny the Palestinian people the equality they deserve.

Talking tough about human rights abuses is the next best thing to doing something to end those abuses. But it is only the next best thing, not a solution....

Getting it half right is the same as getting it half wrong. Carter is well more than half wrong in his comments about the situation in Israel. We can appreciate his attempt to normalize certain terms and concepts which are currently taboo in the dialogue concerning Palestine, but we shouldn't excuse his denial of the root of the problem. And just on general principle, I'm still waiting to hear an apology from him for the crimes against humanity he committed while in office. Source

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Suppose it was inevitable that some (here on babble and in the outside world) would consider Carter too strident and others point out that the situation is even worse that Carter suggest.

I concur that whatever the man's faults in the past, he has lent a credible voice to the Israel/Palestine debate.

I wonder if it is possible to not deal out death while in the White House. America is, of course, a world power very largely as a result of its military might. No president can really be expected (I would think) to be fully up to speed on the internal politics of every part of the globe. If you had a Brzezinski advising you on a part of the world about which you knew little to nothing, would you trust him? Keeping in mind that several other people are standing outside your office door to advise you on several hundred other affairs of state.

14 resign from Carter Center Advisory Board

From their letter:

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"Israelis, through deed and public comment, have consistently spoken of a desire to live in peace and make territorial compromise to achieve this status. The Palestinian side has consistently resorted to acts of terror as a national expression and elected parties endorsing the use of terror, the rejection of territorial compromise and of Israel's right to exist. Palestinian leaders have had chances since 1947 to have their own state, including during your own presidency when they snubbed your efforts."

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For instance, the PLO did not exist until 1964. How is it that "Palestinian leaders have had chances since 1947" given that there was no official Palestinian leadership until 1964, and they were represented by Hashemite Arabs in the West Bank, and Egyptians in Gaza.

But then what are a few facts gone astray when you are really only interested in making a racist attack against a whole people?

[ 11 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Hmm. I'm thinking of Peter Gabriel here:

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To keep in silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doors would soon be shut
So I went from day to day
Oh, my life was in a rut
'Til I thought of what I'd say
Which connection I should cut
(...)

When illusion spin her net
I'm never where I want to be . . .

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Sounds something like what Carter had to know was coming. Breaking with establishment consensus brings consequences.

is that piece postable ?

here it is:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/09/opinion/edross.php

[ 12 January 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]

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To my mind, Carter's presentation badly misrepresents the Middle East proposals advanced by President Bill Clinton in 2000, and in so doing undermines, in a small but important way, efforts to bring peace to the region.

In his book, Carter juxtaposes two maps labeled the "Palestinian Interpretation of Clinton's Proposal 2000" and "Israeli Interpretation of Clinton's Proposal 2000."

The problem is that the "Palestinian interpretation" is actually taken from an Israeli map presented during the Camp David summit meeting in July 2000, while the "Israeli interpretation" is an approximation of what President Clinton subsequently proposed in December of that year.
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Without knowing this, the reader is left to conclude that the Clinton proposals must have been so ambiguous and unfair that Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was justified in rejecting them. That is simply untrue.

In actuality, Clinton offered two different proposals at two different times. In July, he offered a partial proposal on territory and control of Jerusalem. Five months later, at the request of Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister, and Arafat, Clinton presented a comprehensive proposal on borders, Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and security. The December proposals became known as the Clinton ideas or parameters.

The Clinton parameters would have produced an independent Palestinian state with 100 percent of Gaza, roughly 97 percent of the West Bank and an elevated train or highway to connect them. Jerusalem's status would have been guided by the principle that what is currently Jewish will be Israeli and what is currently Arab will be Palestinian, meaning that Jewish Jerusalem — East and West — would be united, while Arab East Jerusalem would become the capital of the Palestinian state.

The Palestinian state would have been "nonmilitarized," with internal security forces but no army and an international military presence led by the United States to prevent terrorist infiltration and smuggling. Palestinian refugees would have had the right of return to their state, but not to Israel, and a fund of $30 billion would have been created to compensate those refugees who chose not to exercise their right of return to the Palestinian state.

When I decided to write the story of what had happened in the negotiations, I commissioned maps to illustrate what the proposals would have meant for a prospective Palestinian state. They were American ideas, created at the request of the Palestinians and the Israelis, and I was the principal author of them. I know what they were and so do the parties.

It is certainly legitimate to debate whether Clinton's proposal could have settled the conflict. It is not legitimate, however, to rewrite history and misrepresent what the Clinton ideas were.

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[ 12 January 2007: Message edited by: Peech ]

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Originally posted by Geneva:
Dennis Ross knows much more detail about the issue than Jimmy Carter, and he published an op-ed in the Int'l herald Tribune yesterday saying Carter misinterpreted (wilfully) the Clinton proposal maps of December 2000

is that piece postable ?

here it is:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/09/opinion/edross.php

[ 12 January 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]

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And perhaps Robert Malley knows more than Dennis Ross?

Didn't Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak make the most generous offer in history to the Palestinians? Why did they reject it?

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What was more important than how generous it was compared to earlier Israeli offers, was the simple fact that, according to Clinton negotiator Robert Malley, it was simply not true that "Israel's offer met most if not all of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations." That was the reason Palestinians rejected the offer. One can certainly question the wisdom of a diplomatic strategy that did not provide an immediate counter-proposal to an unacceptable offer. But there should be little difficulty in understanding why Palestinian negotiators would reject an offer based on a set of disconnected pieces of territory amounting to only 80 percent of the remaining 22 percent of historic Palestine; a network of roads, bridges and tunnels accessible only to Israeli settlers and permanently guarded by Israeli soldiers; permanent loss of water resources; no shared sovereignty in Jerusalem; the right of return for refugees not even up for discussion; and with 80 percent of the illegal settlers to remain in place.

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So in fact that final status agreement would have institutionalized Bhantuzization, and entrenched Apartheid practice as agreed to by a Quisling Palestinian administration.

And further more, it is simply not even true that Arafat ceased negotiations, if this were the case how did a whole new deal end up getting produced out of Taba?

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Barak suggests that Arafat had planned as his response to the Camp David summit a campaign of violent terror. That is a curious assertion in view of the fact that the Palestinians had argued that the parties were not ready for a summit and that Camp David should be understood as merely the first of a series of meetings. In contrast, as he knows well, Barak conceived of Camp David as a make-or-break-summit. He made clear early on that he foresaw only two possible outcomes: a full-scale agreement on the "framework" of a settlement, or a full-scale confrontation.

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Robert Malley and Hussein Agha: Why Barak is wrong

It was Barak and the Israeli side that defined Camp David in terms of brinksmanship, and take it or leave it offers.

[ 12 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors

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In accounts of what happened at the July 2000 Camp David summit and the following months of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, we often hear about Ehud Barak's unprecedented offer and Yasser Arafat's uncompromising no. Israel is said to have made a historic, generous proposal, which the Palestinians, once again seizing the opportunity to miss an opportunity, turned down. In short, the failure to reach a final agreement is attributed, without notable dissent, to Yasser Arafat.

As orthodoxies go, this is a dangerous one. For it has larger ripple effects. Broader conclusions take hold. That there is no peace partner is one. That there is no possible end to the conflict with Arafat is another.

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He even manages to get Ross to agree that Barak mad "misakes," in a follow up response:

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But their account of "the tragedy of errors" of Camp David—though correct in many aspects—is glaring in its omission of Chairman Arafat's mistakes. One is left with the impression that only Barak did not fulfill commitments. But that is both wrong and unfair, particularly given Arafat's poor record on compliance. Moreover, while striving to prove that the reality was far more complicated than Israel offering and Palestinians rejecting, they equate tactical mistakes with strategic errors. Did Prime Minister Barak make mistakes in his tactics, his negotiating priorities, and his treatment of Arafat? Absolutely. Did the American side make mistakes in its packaging and presentation of ideas? Absolutely. Are Prime Minister Barak and President Clinton responsible for the failure to conclude a deal? Absolutely not.

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Note, more importantly Ross is forced fo concede "...that the reality was far more complicated than Israel offering and Palestinians rejecting...."

But then he, as confused as he is, he goes back on this assertion, and then accuse Arafat of precisely this folly;

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Throughout the course of the Oslo process, Chairman Arafat was extremely passive. His style was to respond, not initiate ideas. That is a good tactic, especially for a weaker party that feels it has little to give. If it was only a tactic, it should have stopped when serious ideas or package proposals were put on the table. Whether the Israelis put a generous offer on the table is not the issue. The issue is, did Yasser Arafat respond at any point—not only at Camp David—to possibilities to end this conflict when they presented themselves?

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In the end, what makes Arafat culpable to the demise of the Camp David process? According to Ross it amounts to the crime of failing to be positive, and wearing a t-shirt with a smiley face on it and humming the refrain, "don't worry be happy."

As for the meat of the dispute, Ross asserts, but does not example, Palestinian non-compliance with previous commitments under Wye and the original Oslo deal, while in the original article by Malley, Malley carefully outlines specific examples of Israeli non-compliance under Netanyahu and also Bharak.

In the end as far as substance goes, Ross's account relies heavily on very generalized social-psychological explanantions about "mythologies," and the like, while Malley's account rests more or less entirely on the record of facts, and bread and butter issues.

Ross's touchy-feelie notions about keeping a positive attitude and qua-phiilosophizing are more or less completely abstract and unprovable pop-psychology.

[ 12 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Why is it important to set the record straight? Nothing has done more to perpetuate the conflict between Arabs and Israelis than the mythologies on each side. They shape perception. They allow each side to blame the other while avoiding the need to face up to its own mistakes.

Peace can never be built on these myths. It can come only once the two sides accept and adjust to reality.

If, as I believe, the Clinton ideas embody the basic trade-offs that will be required in any peace deal, it is essential to understand them for what they were and not to misrepresent them.

This is especially true now that the Bush administration, for the first time, seems to be contemplating a serious effort to deal with the core issues of the conflict.

Of course, one might ask if trying to address the core issues is appropriate at a moment when Palestinians are locked in an internal stalemate and the Israeli public lacks confidence in its government.

Can politically weak leaders make compromises on the issues that go to the heart of the conflict? Can the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, tell his public that refugees will not go back to Israel? Can Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, tell his public that demography and practicality mean that the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem will have Palestinian and not Israeli sovereignty?

The basic trade-offs require meeting Israeli needs on security and refugees on the one hand, and Palestinian needs on territory and a capital in Arab East Jerusalem on the other.

But producing such trade-offs won't simply come from calling for them. An environment must be created in which each side believes the other can act on peace and is willing to condition its public for the difficult compromises that will be necessary.

If history tells us anything, it is that for peace-making to work, it must proceed on the basis of fact, not fiction.

Dennis Ross, envoy to the Middle East in the Clinton administration, is counselor of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

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[ 12 January 2007: Message edited by: Peech ]

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Originally posted by Peech:
More from Denis Ross who actually had a direct involvement in ME policy under Clinton (as opposed to farting into one's couch, although I suppose that requires some expertise):

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Your a little slow toaday Peech. I know you have very selective attention, and not enough time apparently to read anything other than what confirms your already established world view, But Robert Malley was there, and even if you don't feel a need to read and respond to what he says, your friend Ross takes him seriously enough to try and dispute what he says, given that Malley was on the same negotiating team under Clinton, and also at Camp David.

[ 12 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Carter Center Advisers Resign Over New Book

Washington Post

Fourteen members of an advisory board to the Carter Center in Atlanta resigned yesterday in protest over former president Jimmy Carter's best-selling new book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying that they could "no longer in good conscience continue to serve."

The resignations were the latest episode in an escalating controversy over the book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," published in late November. It has been criticized within the American Jewish community as tilting sharply toward the Palestinians. Scholars have found fault with his fact-checking on small and large points. At least one former Mideast negotiator expressed outrage over what he called "misrepresented" history.

The deciding factor for board member Steve Berman, he said yesterday, was a passage on Page 213 that he quoted easily from memory: It was imperative, Carter wrote, that Arabs and Palestinians "make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals" of an internationally proposed peace accord "are accepted by Israel."

"What does that say to you?" asked Berman, a commercial real estate developer in Atlanta. "It says they can stop when they get their state. He's condoning terror as a means of obtaining the objective of a Palestinian state.
But he and the others who signed yesterday's letter say Carter went too far. "The thing that really disenchanted all of us, it broke our hearts, was to see the president abandon his traditional position of mediator, promoter of peace and honest broker [to become] an advocate for one side of the conflict." It wouldn't even have mattered, Berman said, "if he had promoted the Israeli side."

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Ambassador Dennis Ross is The Washington Institute's counselor and Ziegler distinguished fellow. For more than twelve years, Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process and dealing directly with the parties in negotiations. A highly skilled diplomat, Ambassador Ross was U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He was instrumental in assisting Israelis and Palestinians to reach the 1995 Interim Agreement; he also successfully brokered the 1997 Hebron Accord, facilitated the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty, and intensively worked to bring Israel and Syria together.

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In essence, he says that Camp Dacid failed not because of anything Arafat did, but because he wasn't open to the good vibes that Bharak was sending his way.

What a bunch of shit.

This is in marked contrast to Malley who details specific aspects of the evolution of the narrative, facts, and the history of the Oslo accords.

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Ross is currently Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a hawkish Israeli-American think-tank started by Martin Indyk (himself a former research director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee).

Ross's colleagues at WINEP are Joshua Muravchik, who recently wrote that "WE MUST bomb Iran," Indyk, Martin Kramer, a neo-McCarthyite who writes for the National Review and David Horowitz's Frontpage Mag (and is a supporter of Campus-Watch and an advocate of HR 3077) and Moshe Ya'alon, a former IDF Chief of Staff, briefly wanted in Australia for war crimes, who's famous for his claim that "The Palestinian threat harbors cancer-like attributes that have to be severed."

As rightweb notes, "WINEP aims to cultivate close ties among senior military officials in the United States and Israel, as well as in Turkey and Jordan…"

When he's not working his regular Fox News gig, Ross is also the first chairman of a new Jerusalem-based think tank called the Institute for Jewish People Policy Planning, which is funded by … yup, the Israeli government.

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Joshua Holland is a progressive muckraker who lives with a loyal mutt named Red.

He is a staff writer at Alternet (a project of the Independent Media Institute in San Francisco) and a recipient of a Schumann Center for Media and Democracy writing grant for independent journalism.

He is also a Research Fellow with the Los Angeles-based Center for Active Learning in International Relations‹a youth outreach program‹and an Honorary Fellow with People For The American Way¹s youth program, Young People For.

He is a graduate of USC with a B.A. in international relations.

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That Joshua Holland, he's a real "expert".

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Originally posted by josh:
Attack the messenger. Leave the facts unchallenged.

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Originally posted by josh:

Attack the messenger. Leave the facts unchallenged.

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[ 12 January 2007: Message edited by: Peech ]

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Originally posted by pogge:

That's been Peech's style from the day he arrived. Then he goes off and finds the most obviously biased sources on the planet to support his own points.

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Originally posted by Peech:

Like your Palestinian apologist sources aren't biased!
You're killing me!

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Thanks for proving my point. You love to turn threads into arguments about the quality of sources. It means the actual subject isn't being discussed.

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Originally posted by Khimia:
All of the financing discussed in the article is documented. Perhaps it is Jimmah himself who is possessed of base motives.

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Heres a roundup of crit.

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Originally posted by Khimia:
All of the financing discussed in the article is documented. Perhaps it is Jimmah himself who is possessed of base motives.

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