Korean Job Discussion Forums

[stevemcgarrett]

Despite his gratuitiously extended Nobel Peace Prize and decades of jaunting around the MidEast and then writing about his travels, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter can hardly lay claim to being a legitimate peacebroker for the region.

Here's why:

1. He's a staunch defender of Arab gradualism which stipulates that Arab nations only need to demonstrate incremental progress politically to be accorded full diplomatic recognition.

2. He's a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who believes in victimhood and hence identifies readily with the Palestinian plight, despite the myriad means by which the Palestinian leadership has prolonged that plight.

3. He's a Christian of the same ilk as Pat Buchanan, who paradoxically occupies the other end of the political spectrum but nonetheless shares Carter's distrust of Jews, whether in America or in the Middle East. While likely not a closet anti-Semite, his statements and actions have often smacked of anti-Semitism and an inordinate suspicion of Jewish influence in the world.

4. Carter fancies himself a peacemaker and always has--he continues to take the lion's share of credit for brokering the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel when in fact it was Anwar Sadat who made overtures to Menachim Begin, which were reciprocated long before the trip to Washington. He has been quoted as saying that it his destiny and made no bones about his disappointment in having to wait so long to be recognized by the Nobel Committee.

5. Carter is the only modern American president to actually lose the backing of the majority of Jewish Americans despite being a stalwart in the Democratic Party, for which JA have voted 2 to 1 over the past half century. He also holds the dubious distinction of being the only former president to lose the support of Jewish American academics, and to be the cause for an exodus of Jewish American think-tankers and staffers, which happened at his Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia in recent years.

6. Carter is an Arab apologist extraordinaire. He has ingratiated himself to every Muslim leader, including the likes of the former Syrian dictator Assad and especially Yassar Arafat. He also assisted in the transition of the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini to Tehran prior to the hostage crisis while he was President, believing that the religious fanatic would bring about a mild-mannered theocracy modeled on democratic principles--a position that even his own National Security advisor at the time thought was naive and wishful thinking. The Carter Center continues to receive tens of millions of dollars of annual support from Saudi sources including a foundation sponsored by the royal family. He is quick to fault Israel for even the slightest transgression but loathe to condemn all but the most egregious Muslim misbehavior.

7. Carter supports the Hamas leadership and prior to the coup that led to their takeover of the Gaza strip, even had the audacity to blame the US for not giving them a fair shake despite their continued insistence on using terrorism and other violence against Israel and their refusal to grant Israel the right to exist. In the wake of the clash with Fatah, Carter is still calling on Abbas to bring Hamas back into the fold. For Carter, the Jews can do no right; the Arab leaders no wrong.

8. Carter was a huge supporter of Arafat even after the late PLO leader actively supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Carter has also whitewashed the record of Jordan whose King Hussein, while being a relative moderate, did in fact participate in the Six Day War against Israel in 1967.

9. Many of the most damning accusations against Israelis have been criticized by Jewish Americans including Kenneth Stein, the prominent historian and co-author of his best-selling 1984 book, The Blood of Abraham. Carter's most recent book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, is riddled with false charges, exaggerated claims, and innuendo, so much so that most of his staff who did the legwork for the book have left the Center. Much of the language in the book is inflammatory, hardly the kind of diction a careful diplomat concerned about the neutrality of his views would use.

10. In keeping with his unqualified trust in Arafat, Carter has been on record blaming Israel for the failure of the Dayton Peace Accords. He has misrepresented the Israeli position at the time and branded the accords as unrealistic and unfair. Yet former president Bill Clinton himself is on public record as saying, "If I were an Israeli I wouldn't like it, because it's not factually correct and it's not fair." Arafat was indeed offered 90% of his demands and walked away without an agreement, launching the second intifada. Carter believed and still believes that Arafat was a man of sincere intent, a man of peace when even the Hamas guerrillas defamed the late leader in Gaza and their leader accused Fatah of massive corruption, despite the dire needs of the Palestinian people. Carter even declared in 1990--a statement he has not since retracted--that the PLO charter never called for the destruction of Israel, which is a preposterous assertion to all familiar with the history of this organization.

11. The litany of charges against Carter is long and sordid. But none strikes my concern more than his support of the quiet campaign against Christian Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. While Fatah has denied the charge, places like Bethlehem have been forcibly transformed from Christian enclaves to Muslim strongholds. As one who attests to the Faith, it strikes me as despicable that Carter would rally behind the Palestinian Authority on this issue when even Arab sympathizing Western European observers have admitted such a campaing of ethnic cleansing has been carried out.

But if Carter were so certain of his convinctions and the rightness of his actions, why was it that he refused to debate the issues with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz at Brandeis University earlier this year? Carter even refused to debate the issue in the press with Dershowitz, who would no doubt serve him his lunch. Why is it that he has had nothing to say about the exodus of his Carter Center staff other than to retort, "They're all Jewish Americans you may have noticed."?

So what do you have to say in response to this, all you Arab apologists?

*******
NOTE: For a solid synopsis of all these claims and more, go online and conduct a word search for "Jimmy Carter's War Against the Jews," an expose by Jacob Laksin, sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Every accusation against the former president is documented in the End Notes of this pamphlet and one need not read more than a page to recognize just how articulate the author is in his scathing account of the man from Plains, GA.

[Tiger Beer]

To be a peacekeeper, you actually have to be able to understand both sides of a conflict to be able to resolve it or have an effective means to dealing with it.

You're entire argument seems to be based on the fact that Carter can understand both sides of a conflict (including the side you dislike and hate).. so therefore, strangely in your conclusions, an ineffective peacekeeper?

Maybe you are missing the point of exactly what an effective peacekeeper is suppose to do?

[crusher_of_heads]

He cannot be taken seriously as he starts all of his threads by abusing the CAPSLOCK KEY.


DUMBASS, ABUSING THE CAPSLOCK KEY IN YOUR TITLE OF THREADS IS STUPID AND ANNOYING.

[stevemcgarrett]

TigerBeer wrote:

[hogwonguy1979]

proof that steve is an idiot:

[Satori]

[root555]

I don't think it is unreasonable for Carter, or anyone else for that instance, to understand support the Hamas leadership when all Fatah has done up to this point is make back-door deals with Israel at the expense of their own people. The Palestinians knew this, and tolerated this for too long- hence their CHOICE in electing the Hamas government.

And of course- the majority of Israeli and American political figures were unhappy with this. They were able to bend Fatah for so long, and keep things more or less in their favor with the Fatah government. And the U.S. has been able to buy Fatah out for so long. Hence Israel agreeing to release Palestinian prisoners, and giving tax funds back to the Palestinians. And the US's funds being sent to Fatah. They're dying to get things back to their status quo.

I also don't think Carter is the only democrat to have fallen out of favor with the Jewish American lobby- or JA think tanks. They seem to float in and out of the political campaigns of various politicians- regardless of their political leanings. And their leanings towards the right-wing would have happened regardless to Carter's administration. (the CIA's involvement in Afghanistan in the 70's-80's, for example-, and the right wing leanings of these operations, would have happened regardless of his administration, and quite possibly also regardless to what happened in Iran/ and their revolution. This was cold-war era, remember?)

I just think that Carter takes a lot more heat than is properly due in his direction. And I also think it is difficult in retrospect to blame just him for the U.S. political mis-leadings regarding the middle east. We inherited the strategy and intelligence of mideast policy from WWII and all of their f**ck-ups in the area.

So is Carter the best for a mideast envoy? I ask you this- is Tony Blair any better???? I'd vote for Carter in a heart-beat.

[root555]

P.S. David Horowitz is a total jackass.

[stevemcgarrett]

hogwonguy wrote:

[root555]

Yeah- Jewish Americans vote Democrat. But do you think the Jewish American lobby is on the Dems side? You've got to be crazy. It's a well known fact that these lobbies have had ties w/ the neo-cons for ages now. And a majority of those think tanks that supported the Iraq war were Jewish think tanks with ties to the neo-cons.

[root555]

And yes- I'm sure youre right in your assumptions that a man like TONY BLAIR- who blindly supported the Iraq war will smooth things over nicely as a mideast envoy. I'm sure that the mideast would be *thrilled*

[root555]

For anyone interested in the issue of Fatah/US ties, and the current political situation- this is a very clear and well writen article that I found useful. For the most part- Margolis is usually right on the money:

http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2007/06/the_coup_agains.php

[stevemcgarrett]

root555 wrote:

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

[root555]

I think a large majority of it is misguided frustration towards U.S. policy for Israel than anything else. I personally am not 'anti-Israel,' and just because I would find problems with the U.S. position towards Israel (especially in their immediate response to the war with Lebanon last summer, or how they are dealing with Hamas,) doesn't make me 'anti-Israel.' However- I do see an inflated number of, say, college students who blindly become pro-Palestinian without much more regard to it than the fact it seems to agree with their overall 'lifestyle choices,' i.e. it matches well with that Che Guevara T-shirt.

Having said this- I don't think an article such as the Margolis one is 'anti-Israel' in the strictest sense that you are referring to here. (He is not advocating for the elimination of Israel.) But that seems to be the most popular, and reactionary response that people have to challenges of Israel's government/military. That and 'anti-semitism' which is a favorite of our good friend David Horowitz. He's the kind of jackass who will tell an American Jew they are anti-semites if they disagree with Israeli government policies. It's a petty stone to throw at a much bigger problem.