Stephanie
Diamond Member
- Jul 11, 2004
- 70,230
- 10,865
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Jimmy Carter was not only a disgrace as a President of the United States....He became a total disgrace against America...I'm so sad at some of the shit this man went and did to our Country while he was speaking overseas...
Yet people applauded him....
Well it's evident, this time he finally crossed the line that most of us had seen yrs ago........
I hate to say I told ya so....
I never wished anything bad on this man, what I had wished is just that HE WOULD JUST GO AWAY.....
Now it seems like, he will, finally.........:
Not soon enough.....
Eran Lerman
December 9, 2006
Former President Jimmy Carter is a man of good intentions, whose tireless efforts - deeply rooted in his interpretation of his Christian duties - to promote world peace need to be recognized, even when they lead him astray. Thus, there is a tragic element in his present failure to grasp the full implications of his own positions and statements.
At the root of the failure, as one might well conclude reading his new book - menacingly called Palestine Peace not Apartheid - is the honest urge to do something for the Palestinian cause. This urge then sadly translates into a one-sided judgment upon Israel, which breaks one of Carter's own rules: "The United States must be . . . a partner with both sides and not a judge of either" (Page 16).
The tragedy is that important elements in this book will be read by others - and by the Palestinians - not as an invitation to negotiate in good faith, but as a prelude to a "show trial" over Israeli policy, based on Carter's highly problematic reading of both history and international law.
Five key objections to his approach need to be raised - not because Israel should be above criticism, but rather because the false anticipation of such an external "verdict" is precisely what has vitiated the Palestinians' future, and the peace process, for much too long. Carter hopes to help the Palestinians; Carter's book does them a disservice.
1. To begin with, there is the title - and the jacket, which helps perpetuate a false image of the "wall" of separation (and the "facts" he quotes about the barrier are equally inaccurate). To allude to the loaded issue of race - from the depth of Carter's own experience in the transition form the old to the new South; let alone the apartheid regime in South Africa - is to misread the very nature of the conflict between two nations which have no racial differentiation between them.
2. Of far greater consequence is the constantly repeated assertion that Israel is in breach of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. Carter claims that the solution lies in "Withdrawal to the 1967 border as specified in U.N. Resolution 242 and as promised in the Camp David Accords and the Oslo Agreement and prescribed in the Roadmap . . . Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law" (Pages 215-216).
Therein lies, tragically, the false hope, offered here to the Palestinians, that the need to seek a reasonable accommodation with the mainstream of Israeli opinion can be replaced by some coercive international judgment upon Israel's policies.
But neither the specific history of 242 (which Carter ignores), nor the language of Camp David, Oslo and the Roadmap support his reading.
3. Overall, the tendency to rely upon the U.N. as an institution is bound to be troubling to Israelis, scarred over the years by the manner in which they were treated in U.N. or U.N.-sponsored forums in New York, Geneva or Durban. Moreover, Carter's reading of the issue of the "Right of Return," which is central to the Arab League "initiative" of March 2002, is colored by this peculiar interpretation of the role of the U.N.
4. While often informative about the complexities of the region, the book tends to overestimate the centrality of the Palestinian issue - even in the context of the Sunni-Shiite divide, which has nothing to do with it. At one point, Carter seems to be moaning the lack of commitment by other Arabs to the Palestinian cause (!) - a sure way to reach a quick impasse. Ironically, Carter's greatest historical achievement, the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, is rooted not in this attitude, but rather in Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's decision to focus on Egypt's legitimate need for peace with Israel.
5. The persistent tendency to minimize the role of terror attacks in destroying the process is another problematic aspect of Carter's narrative. Indeed, when Carter addressed the Herz- liyah Conference (a major annual event, co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, which surveys Israel's strategic options) early this year, he offered an apologetic interpretation of Hamas policies and the view, somewhat corrected in the book, that terror erupted only after Benjamin Netanyahu was elected Israeli prime minister in May 1996. The audience gasped in surprise; the distortion was too much for them to bear.
The same may be said of the present book. After all, as Carter himself admits, "the judgments will be made in Jerusalem, through democratic processes involving all Israelis who can express their views and elect their leaders."
His book would have been a better contribution to this debate - and perhaps of help to the Israeli political factions whose cause he seeks to promote - if Carter would have avoided the misguided, one-sided narrative he chose to espouse.
Eran Lerman is the director of the American Jewish Committee's Israel and Middle Eastern Office.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/speak_out/article/0,2777,DRMN_23970_5201255,00.html
Yet people applauded him....
Well it's evident, this time he finally crossed the line that most of us had seen yrs ago........
I hate to say I told ya so....
I never wished anything bad on this man, what I had wished is just that HE WOULD JUST GO AWAY.....
Now it seems like, he will, finally.........:
Not soon enough.....
Eran Lerman
December 9, 2006
Former President Jimmy Carter is a man of good intentions, whose tireless efforts - deeply rooted in his interpretation of his Christian duties - to promote world peace need to be recognized, even when they lead him astray. Thus, there is a tragic element in his present failure to grasp the full implications of his own positions and statements.
At the root of the failure, as one might well conclude reading his new book - menacingly called Palestine Peace not Apartheid - is the honest urge to do something for the Palestinian cause. This urge then sadly translates into a one-sided judgment upon Israel, which breaks one of Carter's own rules: "The United States must be . . . a partner with both sides and not a judge of either" (Page 16).
The tragedy is that important elements in this book will be read by others - and by the Palestinians - not as an invitation to negotiate in good faith, but as a prelude to a "show trial" over Israeli policy, based on Carter's highly problematic reading of both history and international law.
Five key objections to his approach need to be raised - not because Israel should be above criticism, but rather because the false anticipation of such an external "verdict" is precisely what has vitiated the Palestinians' future, and the peace process, for much too long. Carter hopes to help the Palestinians; Carter's book does them a disservice.
1. To begin with, there is the title - and the jacket, which helps perpetuate a false image of the "wall" of separation (and the "facts" he quotes about the barrier are equally inaccurate). To allude to the loaded issue of race - from the depth of Carter's own experience in the transition form the old to the new South; let alone the apartheid regime in South Africa - is to misread the very nature of the conflict between two nations which have no racial differentiation between them.
2. Of far greater consequence is the constantly repeated assertion that Israel is in breach of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. Carter claims that the solution lies in "Withdrawal to the 1967 border as specified in U.N. Resolution 242 and as promised in the Camp David Accords and the Oslo Agreement and prescribed in the Roadmap . . . Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law" (Pages 215-216).
Therein lies, tragically, the false hope, offered here to the Palestinians, that the need to seek a reasonable accommodation with the mainstream of Israeli opinion can be replaced by some coercive international judgment upon Israel's policies.
But neither the specific history of 242 (which Carter ignores), nor the language of Camp David, Oslo and the Roadmap support his reading.
3. Overall, the tendency to rely upon the U.N. as an institution is bound to be troubling to Israelis, scarred over the years by the manner in which they were treated in U.N. or U.N.-sponsored forums in New York, Geneva or Durban. Moreover, Carter's reading of the issue of the "Right of Return," which is central to the Arab League "initiative" of March 2002, is colored by this peculiar interpretation of the role of the U.N.
4. While often informative about the complexities of the region, the book tends to overestimate the centrality of the Palestinian issue - even in the context of the Sunni-Shiite divide, which has nothing to do with it. At one point, Carter seems to be moaning the lack of commitment by other Arabs to the Palestinian cause (!) - a sure way to reach a quick impasse. Ironically, Carter's greatest historical achievement, the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, is rooted not in this attitude, but rather in Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's decision to focus on Egypt's legitimate need for peace with Israel.
5. The persistent tendency to minimize the role of terror attacks in destroying the process is another problematic aspect of Carter's narrative. Indeed, when Carter addressed the Herz- liyah Conference (a major annual event, co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, which surveys Israel's strategic options) early this year, he offered an apologetic interpretation of Hamas policies and the view, somewhat corrected in the book, that terror erupted only after Benjamin Netanyahu was elected Israeli prime minister in May 1996. The audience gasped in surprise; the distortion was too much for them to bear.
The same may be said of the present book. After all, as Carter himself admits, "the judgments will be made in Jerusalem, through democratic processes involving all Israelis who can express their views and elect their leaders."
His book would have been a better contribution to this debate - and perhaps of help to the Israeli political factions whose cause he seeks to promote - if Carter would have avoided the misguided, one-sided narrative he chose to espouse.
Eran Lerman is the director of the American Jewish Committee's Israel and Middle Eastern Office.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/speak_out/article/0,2777,DRMN_23970_5201255,00.html
that's a huge stretch--wanna expound on that thought?
