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| Boston Globe Sez Carter's A Putz |
| 2006-12-16 |
| When you lose the Globe's support, you've lost it all... HARRY TRUMAN famously said that if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. By refusing Brandeis's invitation to take part in a debate about his new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," former president Jimmy Carter is saying that he can't take the heat -- after giving his book a controversial title and boasting of a desire to be provocative. Some of the fury Carter has provoked is so overwrought that it appears to confirm his own overstated contention that any criticism of Israel is treated like heresy by the mainstream media. But it is precisely because of the hyperbole of his critics, and the seriousness of the issues he wants to raise, that Carter should agree to debate that inveterate defender of Israel, Alan Dershowitz. At the least, Carter should welcome a chance to defend his deliberate choice of the emotionally charged word, "apartheid," in his title. In one of the text's three references to apartheid, Carter quotes an unnamed "prominent Israeli" saying, "I am afraid that we are moving toward a government like that of South Africa, with a dual society of Jewish rulers and Arab subjects with few rights of citizenship. The West Bank is not worth it." This sentiment is not uncommon among members of Israel's vital peace camp. Their evocations of apartheid are usually intended, however, to emphasize the contradiction between the depredations of the occupation and the ideals of Israeli democracy. Carter himself describes "a system of apartheid" not as the inalterable essence of the status quo but as one of three options that confront Israel. The other two are "forcible annexation of Palestine" or a negotiated peace along the lines of the unofficial Israeli-Palestinian draft agreement known as the Geneva Initiative, with "mutually agreeable exchanges of land permitting a significant number of Israeli settlers to remain in their present homes near Jerusalem." This is a more conventional prescription than the furor over Carter's title might suggest. Large numbers of Israelis and Palestinians favor just this kind of negotiated end to their conflict. Moreover, Carter concedes that "the driving purpose for the forced separation of the two peoples is unlike that in South Africa -- not racism but the acquisition of land." This is true, and it is also true that the solution Carter commends is for a separation of Israelis and Palestinians into two sovereign states, the opposite of the political solution that ended South African apartheid. If he were to accept a genuine debate about his use of the word "apartheid," Carter would probably have to admit he was being irresponsibly provocative. The rest of his brief for Mideast peace hardly differs from the consensus of rational Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans. Carter is an orthodox peacenik posing as a heretic. Maybe that's the real reason he has declined to debate. No, he just hates Jooooz... |
| Posted by:Raj |
| #5 Boston Globe Sez Carter's A Putz I've been saying that since '76, yet I get no props.. |
| Posted by: JerseyMike 2006-12-16 20:51 |
| #4 He's a legend in his own mind. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2006-12-16 17:23 |
| #3 Carter's problem: his IQ is considerably less than he thinks. Even worse he is a fool. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2006-12-16 13:12 |
| #2 Fixed. :-) |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2006-12-16 13:09 |
| #1 Sorry - mods, please fix the headline... |
| Posted by: Raj 2006-12-16 13:05 |