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Saturday, June 9, 2012

Where Passion Against Israel Comes From

Nadene Goldfoot
There is an irrational hatred being expressed by relatively well-educated people that is staggering.  There is nothing comparable to this regarding any other nation.  Israel happens to be the only Jewish state in the world.  Could that be the problem?

In 2001 the ambassador of  France to the UK and Algeria, Daniel Bernard,  told a group at a dinner party that the current troubles in the world were all because of  "that shitty little country, Israel.  Why should the world be in danger of WWIII because of those people!"    Of course the host gossiped and the word got out.  The truth is that Israel has contributed more good to the world in the past 64 years of its existence than France has.  In fact, France has become a bastion of anti-Semitism.  Even Thomas Friedman of the New York Times and a strong critic of Israel commented that singling out Israel for conduct grossly wrong and needing international sanction is out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East and that in itself is being anti-Semitic.

One of the reasons there is this attitude can be attributed to Jimmy Carter, former Democratic president of the USA who wrote several books, one of which is full of such antagonism, "Palestine:  Peace Not Apartheid."  It is slanderous simply because of his high standing as a former president, and by writing such slander has been able to bring about "political deligitimization and vilification of Israel" once only seen on the extremes ends of the left and the right in the USA.  Academia, who are also looked up to as leaders in the thinking process, have swallowed what he has written hook, line and sinker without vetting a word.  Why should they?  Anyone with a Nobel Prize is above reproach, they must think.  Besides, they are too busy with their own endeavors to bother with checking out Jimmy Carter.  Anyway, they for some reason of their own makeup, like what he says and want to believe his slant on the situation.

Carter is known as a "humanitarian" but only supports the terrorists, Hamas, who overcame Fatah, a milder group of terrorists.  In fact they fought each other over power and Hamas, whose charter is like the Muslim Brotherhood and wants to force Israel into the sea so that they can take all the land, kicked Abbas out of Gaza and into the West Bank.  Hamas has fired rockets into Southern Israel since about 2000, and hasn't stopped.  This is terrorism and has affected cities like Sderot and Ashkelon, who never know when they will be pelted with this scourge-carrying death and destruction.  Carter doesn't give any support for these real victims of terrorism.  It should be mentioned that Israel left Gaza completely to the Arabs in the name of peace, who in turn have used it to shoot from constantly.  Peace be hung!

One of the things Carter does in his book is write misstatements, all being against Israel.  He even supported Yasser Arafat's decision to walk away from the Clinton-Barak offer of Palestinian statehood in all of Gaza and more than 95% of the West Bank.  He had to many of us become an advocate for the extreme Palestinian view instead of being an honest broker for peace.  It's even thought that he himself told Arafat not to accept it, which is neither here nor there since the Palestinians have turned down every offer to create their own state since 1948 when both parties were given the offer at the same time.  Israel accepted and the Palestinians turned it down.  He probably would even need to nudge Arafat to say no, but he, instead of bringing on peace, was not for it for his own selfish reasoning and was supposed to be working for peace.  

He has written lies in his book.  One such lie was that he told the Globe that he had turned down a chance to speak at Brandeis because it was suggested that he debate Alan Dershowitz, a friend of his, professor at Harvard Law School who has criticized his book containing the Apartheid word.    He lied.  Even Condoleezza Rice has accused Carter of lying when he denied that the State Department told him not to meet with Hamas leaders as they were terrorists, and she says that they did tell him.  Even laypeople know that we're not to do such things, but for a former president to go against the present president is really the height of contempt.

Carter has managed through the title of his book to accuse Israel of apartheid.  In fact, it is the opposite of such an accusation.  I've gone into this in another post.  He has associated Israel with an evil system declared a "crime against humanity" in reference to South Africa's apartheid practices in the 70's.  He struck a missile into the very foundation of "Israel itself implying that Israel is illegitimate, racist and deserving of destruction."  This also suggests that academic boycotts and divestment campaigns such as the BDS movement should be tools to use against Israel, and this is going on as I write.

Carter is using a double standard against Israel.  One wonders why Hitler had so much antagonism toward Jews.  There must be something behind his angst against Israel when other countries are performing acts too horrible to even think about, like Syria today.  His book is so full of errors of fact and of law and these false charges. He omits facts, which is also as dangerous as telling lies.   He had the audacity to tell Larry King on live TV that "everything in the book is completely accurate."

Carter is a very serious Christian in his own eyes and was a Sunday school teacher as I remember in reading articles about him.  He feels that Israel is too secular.  He holds this against them that they are not living up to his standard of religion.

 He claims that the USA has sided with Israel because of AIPAC, the only lobby group in the USA made up of citizens who speak for the rights of Israel.  He calls this the "powerful political, economic and religious force in the US and that voices from Jerusalem dominate our media.  The truth is that the media is very leftist and rarely says anything in favor of Israel.  The only positive programming I ever have found is from Fox News, who are also vilified most of the time by the others.  Newspapers are very biased in the accounting about Israel.  Many of my friends and myself cannot get our "letters to the Editor published in our local paper when we have found it necessary to combat more lies.  So  the old tune he's playing  that "Israel controls the media" is ridiculous.

Carter has been most cozy with Arafat.  Journalist Douglas Brinkley said that Carter told Arafat that he considered the Palestinians' plight his own "obsession."  They both enjoyed a belief that they were both ordained to be peacemakers by G-d, said Brinkley.  He even wrote a speech for Arafat to give to a group.  In 2008 Carter visited the grave of Arafat and laid a wreath on it calling him his dear friend.  Arafat was a mass-murderer of innocent children, women and men, including Americans and was the leader of the PLO who wouldn't make peace with Israel.

 So I say that Carter has his own agenda, religious outlook and personal feelings that have caused him to take a stand against Israel which has swayed so many away from true facts.  When elite and  well educated people will follow a leader without checking on his facts, we are all in deep trouble.  Isn't that what happened in Germany?  Putting a man on a pedestal untouched  without any critics is extremely dangerous in a democratic country.

Israel itself is full of its own critics.  No one is bashful there.  The politics run the full gamut of left to right.  Then there are the Jewish critics in the USA.  No other country has had so many for so few. J Street is one group that is highly critical to the point of going to extremes.   If you ever think Big Brother is Watching You, try living in Israel where there are more journalists waiting around for a mistake to be made than in any other country.  Besides that, the hotels are lovely accommodations. The journalists are probably helping to keep them employed.  Israel, that little state about as big as New Jersey where our world academia might freak out at the mention of Natan Sharansky's name and may not even think of reading anything fair about Israel.  The real problem in the world is the world's attitude, not Israel's.

Resource: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/06/AR2006120602171.html, covering Jimmy Carter and book
The Case Against Israel's Enemies-exposing Jimmy Carter and others who stand in the way of peace, by Alan Dershowitz
http://www.uk.ask.com/wiki/Daniel_Bernard_(diplomat)
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/08/palestinians-in-olympia-accuse-israel.html - on Apartheid
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2008/10/israel-like-rodney-dangerfield.html and Daniel Bernard
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/03/discuss-israel-with-me-first-read-these.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2008/10/jimmy-carters-views.html
http://israel-nadene.blogspot.com/2009/01/jimmy-carter-trashed-israel-again-in.html

1 comment:

Nadene Goldfoot said...

Carter ignored the laws of the USA by going to Syria to meet with Khaled Mashaal, leader of Hamas, a known terrorist organization. He calls Hamas a "peace partner."