Jimmy Carter's Foolishness About Israel

NRO: Former President's New Book Rife With Simplistic, Naïve Ideas

(National Review Online)  This column was written by Mona Charen

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Having scolded the Western world for its "inordinate fear of communism," Jimmy Carter is now, 30 years later, attempting to legitimize the shameful Zionism Equals Racism resolution passed and later repealed by the United Nations. The man has a seemingly unerring instinct for error. Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is touted (by Carter himself) as an evenhanded analysis of the Israeli/Arab conflict — but one need go no further than the title to suspect otherwise.

Carter, like all Israel bashers, proclaims his courage. Please. It takes courage to criticize Israel? The world is teeming with Israel-haters. No other nation in the world — not Russia, not Saudi Arabia, not Cuba — is the subject of so much concentrated calumny. In Europe, as Melanie Phillips recounts in her dazzling book Londonistan, Israel is cursed not just among the rabble but at elegant dinner parties and embassy soirees. And while it's true that in the United States Israel enjoys high levels of support, it is also routinely castigated (and nearly always by people who imagine they are defying some powerful cabal). What is amazing is that even a former president of the United States confuses freedom of speech with freedom from criticism for the content of that speech.

Here's a precis of the book: Israel is the problem. In fact, it's all summed up in the final paragraph: "Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens — and honor its own previous commitments — by accepting its legal borders." By the way, that kind of awkward phrasing is found throughout this slapdash work.

Sixty years of withheld recognition by its neighbors, ceaseless terror against Israeli civilians, countless agreements defaulted upon — none of this disturbs President Carter's certitudes.

The book is so foolish that you can pretty much close your eyes and point to any page to find something simplistic, naïve, or tendentious. On page 97, for example, Carter asserts that "The militant group Hezbollah ... was formed in Lebanon in 1982 to resist the Israeli occupation." Not quite. Hezbollah's founding document calls for Islamic rule in Lebanon, an end to Western imperialism and the destruction of the state of Israel. An arm of the Iranian Islamic revolution, Hezbollah's operatives have been found in France, Spain, Cyprus, Singapore, the "triborder" region of South America and the Philippines, reports Foreign Affairs magazine.

Carter tells the history of the Six-Day War in 1967 this way: "On June 5, Israel launched preemptive strikes, moving first against Egypt and Syria, then against Jordan." That's false. Israel did strike first at Egypt and Syria (waiting to be attacked would have meant national suicide), but specifically called upon Jordan to stay out of the fighting. Jordan's King Hussein, putting faith in Gamal Abdel Nasser's claim that Egypt was defeating Israel, chose to shell Jerusalem. Israel then turned its full might on Jordan, driving them out of Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Carter claims that "The Israelis have never granted any appreciable autonomy to the Palestinians." What? In December 2000, pursuant to the Oslo Accords, Israel (unwisely) gave nearly complete autonomy to the Palestinians in the disputed territories and even gave the Palestinian security forces weapons. In return, the Palestinians were supposed to prevent terror attacks against Israel. Not only did the PA fail to prevent terror attacks, it organized and carried them out.

Explicating last summer's Israel/Hezbollah war, Mr. Carter offers a distorted history. He claims that Hezbollah "attacked two Israeli vehicles, killing three soldiers and capturing two others." Hezbollah did this, Carter explains, in order to exchange them for captives in Israel. Very understandable. But then Israel just went wild, attacking Lebanon without mercy. In fact, Hezbollah's attack on the Israel Defense Forces was accompanied by rocket attacks on several Israeli towns, which wounded several civilians and displaced many others. It was also timed to hit Israel when she was already under attack by Hamas from Gaza.

These are not careless errors, they flow from Carter's pointed animus toward Israel and corresponding softness toward the Arabs (read his elegy to Saudi Arabia if you want to gag). How else to account for the fact that he takes Yasser Arafat's peaceful declarations at face value? Or that he lets slip nasty anti-Semitic asides like this: "It was especially interesting to visit with some of the few surviving Samaritans, who complained to us that their holy sites and culture were not being respected by Israeli authorities — the same complaint heard by Jesus and his disciples almost two thousand years earlier." Those Jews never change, do they? What complaints exactly did Jesus receive about holy sites and culture? We could ask President Carter, but we should know better than to expect an honest answer.

[on_alert247]

Realdemocrat,

Sounds like if you were calling the shots, you'd feed Israel to the wolves. Oh, what a wonderful peaceful world we would have. The Arab Palestinians could have a recognized state for the 1st time in history and the Jewish and Christian Arabs, well being not Muslim, I suppose they would either have to die or leave. Then Hamas and Hezbollah can turn their attention to Egypt to kill off the secular National Democrats to assure the success of the Wafd party to bring Sharia to Egypt. The message being abundantly clear to the Salafist and Qutbees across the peaceful religion of Islam. Then God help us.

[shroomer_dav]

DO JEWSOWN CBS TOO !
/

[joehill101]

I've been reading Carter's book and have found it a very fine historical account and well-reasoned analysis of the problems in the Middle East. President Carter, who, unlike his critics, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, is absolutely right to criticize Israel for its neverending incitement of hatred and conflict in the region. He is also absolutely right to question the United States' unequivocal support of a country that shells civilians, leaves hundreds of thousands of unexploded cluster bomblets all over southern Lebanon, and, in general, thumbs its nose at the world and its antiquated ideas of the rules of war. Carter is to be applauded for his courage in expressing these views and I recommend his book to everyone.

[elfoozlero]

Mona Charen:
Columnist for "Towhnall.com" a right-wing cesspool.

From her Bio on towhnall.com

"In 1984, Ms. Charen joined the White House staff, serving first as Nancy Reagan's speechwriter and later as associate director of the Office of Public Liaison. In the latter post, she lectured widely on the administration's Central America policy"

Not only did she write speeches for Nancy Reagan, she lectured widely on the [Reagan] administration's Central America policy - what a loser.

[realdemocrat]

Another incorrect "fact cited by Mona Charen...

"Carter is now, 30 years later, attempting to legitimize the shameful Zionism Equals Racism resolution passed and later repealed by the United Nations."

The resolution she refers to is UN Resolution 3379, which Carter does not endorse or even mention.

And yet another is this bit of absurdidty

"Carter claims that "The Israelis have never granted any appreciable autonomy to the Palestinians." What? In December 2000, pursuant to the Oslo Accords, Israel (unwisely) gave nearly complete autonomy to the Palestinians in the disputed territories and even gave the Palestinian security forces weapons."

This is positively laughable, the Israelis granted such autonomy in name only, the checkpoints and all movement of Palestinians was controlled by the Israelis, who still manned the watchtowers and controlled the automatic machine guns perched atop the concertina wire fences, still bulldozed without notice the homes of the "autonomous" Palestinians to make way for subsidized housing for settlers and the private "settler only" roads that would shelter them from those they stole their land from. Autonomy? Only in the fantasy world Mona Charen and her ilk inhabit.

[johntoma]

Leave it to CBS to thrash Pres. Carter.If I hear one more PSA on giving to the laheim society,I think I will finally delete 880 from my a.m. radio.Pres.Carter is absolutly correct about Zionism and not afraid to speak about it.

[realdemocrat]

DaliGiraffe said...

"Say what you want about Israel "taking" land from Arabs, the fact is that it is a UN-recognized country that was acquired legally from the Ottoman Turks, the British Empire, then the UN. Israel, like any sovereign nation, has every right to defend itself. I hope that Israel continues its war against the terrorists that wish to destroy it, and I hope that the United States continues to support it."

The subject at hand is a UN-recognized countries' illegal occupation of other people's land acquired in a war of choice in 1967. An occupation that has gained America enemies it does not need. I hope that the United States Government finally figures out what country the people it serves live in, and stops supporting the ever expanding colony of Israel.

[realdemocrat]

DaliGiraffe Said...

"By the way, I've read a lot of posts attacking Mona Charen%u2019s credibility, but does anyone here wish to refute a fact she laid out in this article? I%u2019ll some them up for you. Mona Charen refutes Mr. Carter%u2019s views on the six-day war, the Lebanon conflict, and Palestinian autonomy. Read her responses to those points and discuss."


I refuted her bogus claim about the six day war..

General Yitzhak Rabin, Chief of Staff IDF
"I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it." (Le Monde, February 28, 1968 )

Menachem Begin-Prime Minister
"In June l967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." (New York Times, August 21, 1982)

Gen. Mattityahu Peled
"To pretend that the Egyptian forces massed on our frontiers were in a position to threaten the existence of Israel constitutes an insult not only to the intelligence of anyone capable of analyzing this sort of situation, but above all an insult to the Zahal(tne Israeli army)"

I will post later on her claims of "Palestinian Autonomy" and the cluster bombing of Southern Lebanon.

[realdemocrat]

Kaliveotin said...

"'...However, he seems to ignore the irrational hatred of all things Jewish, american and christian. He seems not to accept the fact that Komienie declared a holy war (Gihad) against america whic 25 years later is only gainiong steam. President Carter, is it your position to give in to these holy warriors who are beheading people rather that give women equal rights?"

Based on what information do you reach these conclusions? Certainly no the book "Palestine,Peace not Apartheid". I can think of nothing Carter has done or said that would suggest any of what you allege.

BTW, nice trick of trying to sound reasonable by starting out that Carter was "one of our Greatest Presidents" and then a few lines later launch into character assassin mode.

[daligiraffe]

Say what you want about Israel "taking" land from Arabs, the fact is that it is a UN-recognized country that was acquired legally from the Ottoman Turks, the British Empire, then the UN. Israel, like any sovereign nation, has every right to defend itself. I hope that Israel continues its war against the terrorists that wish to destroy it, and I hope that the United States continues to support it.

By the way, I've read a lot of posts attacking Mona Charen%u2019s credibility, but does anyone here wish to refute a fact she laid out in this article? I%u2019ll some them up for you. Mona Charen refutes Mr. Carter%u2019s views on the six-day war, the Lebanon conflict, and Palestinian autonomy. Read her responses to those points and discuss.