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| Fifth Column |
| The Question of CarterÂ’s Cash |
| 2007-01-23 |
| by Claudia Rosett, National Review Did Jimmy Carter do it for the money? That’s the question making the rounds about Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, an anti-Israeli screed recently written by the ex-president whose Carter Center has accepted millions in Arab funding. Even in Carter’s long history of post-presidential grandstanding, this book sets fresh standards of irresponsibility. . . . If there is a silver lining to any of this, it is that Carter’s book has drawn much-overdue attention to some of the funding that pours into the Carter Center, whose intriguing donor list includes anti-Israeli tycoons and Middle East states. Founded in 1982 and appended to Carter’s presidential library, the center has served for almost a quarter century as the main base and fund-raising magnet for Carter’s self-proclaimed mission to save the world. In recent weeks, a number of articles have noted that Carter’s anti-Israeli views coincide with those of some of the center’s prime financial backers, including the government of Saudi Arabia and the foundation of Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, whose offer of $10 million to New York City just after Sept. 11 was rejected by then-mayor Rudy Giuliani because it came wrapped in the suggestion that America rethink its support of Israel. Other big donors listed in the Carter Center’s annual reports include the Sultanate of Oman and the sultan himself; the government of the United Arab Emirates; and a brother of Osama bin Laden, Bakr BinLadin, “for the Saudi BinLadin Group.” Of lesser heft, but still large, are contributions from assorted development funds of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as well as of OPEC, whose membership includes oil-rich Arab states, Nigeria (whose government is also a big donor to the Carter Center), and Venezuela (whose anti-American strongman Hugo Chávez benefited in a 2004 election from the highly controversial monitoring efforts of the Carter Center). |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #5 What question? Anything involving Peanut Boy is |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-01-23 22:10 |
| #4 OK, how about this compromise: brain dead. Oh, wait a minute. That would be no change at all .... |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-01-23 16:26 |
| #3 Rambler, how about "committed"? |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-01-23 15:41 |
| #2 Frankly, I am sick and tired about hearing about Jimmy Carter. The only news article I want to see about him should also include one the words "died" or "dead". (Of natural causes, of course.) |
| Posted by: Rambler 2007-01-23 14:07 |
| #1 Ms. Rosett is one of my heroes. She's worth a unit of fighting troops all by herself, given what she's done to ferret out criminal malfeasance in UN/NGO circles. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-23 12:36 |