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January 26, 2007
Former Carter Center Fellow Reveals Insider Details
Carter's Fabrications, Arrogance & Animus Toward Israel
Professor Kenneth Stein provides revealing insider details of how Carter's animus toward Israel and Israelis has escalated over the years into blind hostility. He describes how Carter has become so arrogant and agenda-driven against Israel that he refuses to accept as true the many facts that contradict his views. Stein provides several examples of how Carter has gone so far as to fabricate conversations and "history" to present Israel negatively and the Arabs positively.
My Problem with Jimmy Carter's Bookby Kenneth W. Stein
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2007
http://www.meforum.org/article/1633
Jimmy Carter's engagement in foreign affairs as a former president is unprecedented in U.S. history. Because he regards the Arab-Israeli conflict as among Washington's most important foreign policy topics, he has written more than two dozen articles and commentaries about the conflict, eight in the past year alone. In these publications, Carter uses his credibility as a former president, Nobel laureate, and key player in the September 1978 Camp David accords and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty to unfold his set of truths and often to criticize U.S. policy. He relishes the role of elder statesman and believes that with his accrued wisdom and experience, he can contribute to solutions.
But Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,[1] Carter's twenty-first book and his second to focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict, is deficient. He does what no non-fiction author should ever do: He allows ideology or opinion to get in the way of facts. While Carter says that he wrote the book to educate and provoke debate, the narrative aims its attack toward Israel, Israeli politicians, and Israel's supporters. It contains egregious errors of both commission and omission. To suit his desired ends, he manipulates information, redefines facts, and exaggerates conclusions. Falsehoods, when repeated and backed by the prestige of Carter's credentials, can comprise an erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and policymaking. Rather than bring peace, they can further fuel hostilities, encourage retrenchment, and hamper peacemaking.
[To read the entire compelling article, click here.]
Posted by LG at January 26, 2007 02:48 AM
Comments
I agree with Carter's that the settlements have been a huge obstacle to peace, and (while I was sympathetic to his feelings about the timing of the death of his wife) I didn't like Begin either.
I also rememeber **FROM THAT TIME** that it was reported THEN that Israel agreed to stop buiding settlements for ***5 years***as a confidence bulding measure no matter how Begain recounted it later.
My experience of Reagan (the newly invented one)
**AT THAT TIME** Was that he DROPPED THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS ON THE FLOOR and that it shattered which I characterized exactly the same way THEN.
In the same way I blame the deaths of about 1,000 Isrealis since 2000 upon Mr. Bush/Rove and Cheney who dropped the efforts of Clinton on the floor, in the Reagan way, and came into office intending to do to just that.
The aregument of the Radical right wing totallitarian opportunists who now control the US executive branch, and who came into office as isolationsists. was that: "These people have been in conflict since time immemorial, and we should not focus on losing policies"
All this does not justify Carter's out of context innacurate book, and I find his eyes when he smiles as scarey. because he looks like a madman.
He has clearly taken an advocate's postion and any representation of his as "peace maker" is eroneous.
Dershowitz made an interesting point: "Did Carter advise Arafat not to accept the Clinton/Barak offers.
Arafat was a child killer and child abuser. And Israel should have long ago tried to prosecute him for it. And it reminds me of the nebishy Kerry campaign that The daily baRrage of Palestinian prapaganda on its airwaves (about the la-di-da wonderfulness of suicide bombings was not openly, constantly and consistantly challanged REPEATEDLY in world public opinion campaign.
Mr Carter's consistant stumbling over the names
of Isreali leaders, not paying attention to current details (the day he was on the Newshour Omert announced that he will not hold Hamas responsible for rocket fire by individual Palestinians, That he understands that they cannot control everyone's actions which Carter had no idea it occurred) his claim that his only source of income is his books, and his apparent efforts the change the image of a child abuser..
along with advocating for suicide bombings against Israelis, shows what a dangerous man he is.
Dani
Posted by: Dani at January 30, 2007 06:00 AM
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