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Carter Being Labeled a "Bully"!!

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by Mystery Squid, Jan 23, 2007.

  1. Mystery Squid

    Mystery Squid Junior Member

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    Q: Who's the crackpot?


    Carter


    JIMMY CARTER
    Reiterating the keys to peace
    By Jimmy Carter | December 20, 2006

    MY BOOK "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" was published last month, expressing my assessment of circumstances in the occupied territories and prescribing a course of action that offers a path to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. My knowledge of the subject is based on visits to the area during the past 33 years, my detailed study and personal involvement in peace talks as president, and my leadership role in monitoring the Palestinian elections of 1996, 2005, and 2006.

    Some major points in the book are:

    Multiple deaths of innocent civilians have occurred on both sides, and this violence and all terrorism must cease.

    For 39 years, Israel has occupied Palestinian land, and has confiscated and colonized hundreds of choice sites.

    Often excluded from their former homes, land, and places of worship, protesting Palestinians have been severely dominated and oppressed. There is forced segregation between Israeli settlers and Palestine's citizens, with a complex pass system required for Arabs to traverse Israel's multiple checkpoints.

    An enormous wall snakes through populated areas of what is left of the West Bank, constructed on wide swaths of bulldozed trees and property of Arab families, obviously designed to acquire more territory and to protect the Israeli colonies already built. (Hamas declared a unilateral cease-fire in August 2004 as its candidates sought local and then national offices, which they claim is the reason for reductions in casualties to Israeli citizens.)

    Combined with this wall, Israeli control of the Jordan River Valley will completely enclose Palestinians in their shrunken and divided territory. Gaza is surrounded by a similar barrier with only two openings, still controlled by Israel. The crowded citizens have no free access to the outside world by air, sea, or land.

    The Palestinian people are now being deprived of the necessities of life by economic restrictions imposed on them by Israel and the United States because 42 percent voted for Hamas candidates in this year's election. Teachers, nurses, policemen, firemen, and other employees cannot be paid, and the UN has reported food supplies in Gaza equivalent to those among the poorest families in sub-Sahara Africa, with half the families surviving on one meal a day.


    Dershowitz


    Why won't Carter debate his book?
    By Alan Dershowitz | December 21, 2006

    YOU CAN ALWAYS tell when a public figure has written an indefensible book: when he refuses to debate it in the court of public opinion. And you can always tell when he's a hypocrite to boot: when he says he wrote a book in order to stimulate a debate, and then he refuses to participate in any such debate. I'm talking about former president Jimmy Carter and his new book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid."

    Carter's book has been condemned as "moronic" (Slate), "anti-historical" (The Washington Post), "laughable" (San Francisco Chronicle), and riddled with errors and bias in reviews across the country. Many of the reviews have been written by non-Jewish as well as Jewish critics, and not by "representatives of Jewish organizations" as Carter has claimed. Carter has gone even beyond the errors of his book in interviews, in which he has said that the situation in Israel is worse than the crimes committed in Apartheid South Africa. When asked whether he believed that Israel's "persecution" of Palestinians was "[e]ven worse . . . than a place like Rwanda," Carter answered, "Yes. I think -- yes."

    When Larry King referred to my review several times to challenge Carter, Carter first said I hadn't read the book and then blustered, "You know, I think it's a waste of my time and yours to quote professor Dershowitz. He's so obviously biased, Larry, and it's not worth my time to waste it on commenting on him." (He never did answer King's questions.)

    The next week Carter wrote a series of op-eds bemoaning the reception his book had received. He wrote that his "most troubling experience" had been "the rejection of [his] offers to speak" at "university campuses with high Jewish enrollment." The fact is that Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz had invited Carter to come to Brandeis to debate me, and Carter refused. The reason Carter gave was this: "There is no need to for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."

    As Carter knows, I've been to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, many times -- certainly more times than Carter has been there -- and I've written three books dealing with the subject of Middle Eastern history, politics, and the peace process. The real reason Carter won't debate me is that I would correct his factual errors. It's not that I know too little; it's that I know too much.
     
  2. MegansPrius

    MegansPrius GoogleMeister, AKA bongokitty

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    I gotta admit, that Rwanda quote that Dershowitz pulls had me scratching my head (i.e., could Carter say something that stupid). So I looked it up. From Hardball with Chris Matthews. You'll note that a) Carter is not the one to introduce the Rwanda analogy and 2) that the Rwanda he refers to is the one of today ("right now"), not the genocide. from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15951792/

    I haven't yet read Carter's book.

    CARTER: So the persecution of the Palestinians now, under the occupying territories—under the occupation forces—is one of the worst examples of human rights deprivation that I know. And I think it‘s—

    SHUSTER: Even worse, though, than a place like Rwanda?

    CARTER: Yes. I think—yes. You mean, now?

    SHUSTER: Yes.

    CARTER: Yes.

    SHUSTER: The oppression now of the Israelis—of the Palestinians by the Israelis is worse than the situation in Africa like the oppression of Rwanda and the civil war?

    CARTER: I‘m not going back into ancient history about Rwanda, but right now, the persecution of the Palestinians is one of the worst examples of human rights abuse I know, because the Palestinians—

    SHUSTER: You‘re talking about right now, you‘re not talking about say, a few years ago.

    CARTER: I‘m not talking about ancient history, no.

    SHUSTER: Rwanda wasn‘t ancient history; it was just a few years ago.

    CARTER: You can talk about Rwanda if you want to. I want to talk about Palestine.

    Dershowitz has gone on to belabor this Rwandan quote ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershow...s-_b_35880.html ) which the transcript above pretty clearly indicates that Carter was talking about Rwanda 2006, and, more to the point, that Rwanda was not something in which Carter saw validity in re: discussion of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. So I guess I can understand Carter's dismissal of the opportunity to debate Dershowitz.
     
  3. Mystery Squid

    Mystery Squid Junior Member

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    Yup, this is another great example as to how anyone who dares criticize the Israeli's, they are labeled... well, actually, there IS no such thing as being a critic of Israeli politics WITHOUT being an anti-semitic bigot!! Even Carter, NOBEL PEACE PRIZE winner, is, apparently, an anti-semitic bigot.... :lol: