Note that Carter does not specifically retract anything he has previously said or written. Even love for a grandson will not allow Carter to retract facts. He just apologizes for any hurt he may caused although the people he “hurt” can sure use some hurting on this issue.
…they said this. not me
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Jimmy Carter has consistently and falsely claimed that during the Camp David negotiations Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin agreed to a settlement freeze to last the duration of subsequent peace talks, and that Begin violated this unwritten agreement. via camera.org
Prime Minister Begin pledged that there would be no establishment of new settlements until after the final peace negotiations were completed. But later, under Likud pressure, he declined to honor this commitment, explaining that his presumption had been that all peace talks would be concluded within three months. (Washington Post, Nov. 26, 2000)
Carter makes a similar charge in his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, though with some subtle differences:
Sadat always insisted that the first priority must be adherence to U.N. Resolution 242 and self-determination for the Palestinians, and everyone (perhaps excepting Begin) was convinced that these rights had been protected in the final document. All of us (including the prime minister) were also confident that the final terms of the treaty would be concluded within the three-month target time. Everyone knew that if Israel began building new settlements, the promise to grant the Palestinians “full autonomy,” with an equal or final voice in determining the ultimate status of the occupied territories, would be violated. Perhaps the most serious omission of the Camp David talks was the failure to clarify in writing Begin’s verbal promise concerning the settlement freeze during subsequent peace talks. (p. 50; emphasis added)
While the first passage implies that it was Begin’s expectation alone that the subsequent peace talks would be concluded within three months, the book passage indicates that all participants had that expectation. This contradiction aside, in both passages Carter clearly charges that Begin broke a promise to impose an open-ended settlement freeze.
Carter’s long standing claims about the settlement freeze have been accepted by other experienced Middle East observers. For example, in an otherwise quite hostile review of the book in the New York Times, Ethan Bronner, a former Middle East correspondent for the Boston Globe, wrote:
To see the narrowness of Carter’s perspective, it is worth returning to 1979, the year of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty that resulted from Carter’s Camp David mediation as president, a hugely significant accomplishment. Carter rightly accuses Menachem Begin, then Israel’s prime minister, of deception regarding the expansion of West Bank settlements. Begin promised to freeze the settlements. Not only did he not do so; he had no intention of doing so. (New York Times, Jan. 7, 2007)
But did Prime Minister Begin make such a promise to freeze the settlements, and then violate it? The answer is no he did not – Begin promised and delivered a three month freeze, and further, Jimmy Carter knows this.
Here’s the proof. To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Camp David Accords, the Carter Center on Sept.17, 2003 held a symposium in Washington, DC. Participants included Mr. Carter, Samuel Lewis, who had been the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, William Quandt, who had been a staffer on the National Security Council, and Aharon Barak, who had been Israel’s Attorney General. Ambassador Lewis brought up the question of the settlement freeze, and Barak stated that he was in the relevant meeting, had been the only one taking notes, and that his notes showed that Begin had agreed only to a three month freeze. Off camera Carter is heard to state, “I don’t dispute that.” William Quandt then added that while he had not been in the meeting, Cyrus Vance, who had been, told him immediately afterwards that Begin had agreed to a three month freeze, but they hoped to get it lengthened the next day. Neither Carter, nor Barak, nor Quandt indicated that Begin had ever agreed to extend the freeze. Here’s the sequence from the symposium:
So, confronted with the evidence in 2003 Jimmy Carter admitted that Begin had agreed to only a three month settlement freeze, but now Carter revives his false charge that Begin violated a promise to impose an open-ended freeze.
In doing so, Jimmy Carter is once again violating his promise never to lie to the American people.
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Posted by Noah Simon
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jimmy Carter is asking the Jewish community for forgiveness — and insists it’s not simply because his grandson has decided to launch a political career with a run for the Georgia state Senate.
Jason Carter, 34, an Atlanta-area lawyer, is considering a run to fill a seat covering suburban DeKalb County should the incumbent, David Adelman, win confirmation as President Obama’s designated ambassador to Singapore. The seat, which is university heavy — Emory, among others, is situated there — also has a substantial Jewish community.
oh noes… quick think of something. do you think an apology will work? Would Jesus Apologize?
The senior Carter outraged Jewish leaders with his book “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid,” and they strongly criticized the former U.S. president for what appeared to be his likening of Israel’s settlement practices to apartheid and seeming to place the brunt of the blame for a lack of peace on Israel.
well of course he had to apologize. we just got used to treating an X president like Pete Rose
On the subsequent book tour, Carter further enraged many Jews by intimating that the pro-Israel lobby inhibited an evenhanded U.S. policy.
would it be better if we just let you libel us?
Such bad blood could potentially translate into problems for Carter’s grandson as he considers launching a political career.
how Biblical. the son is responsible for the father. Collective punishment. no wonder Dhimmi Carter got scared
But in an interview with JTA, Carter insisted that ethnic electoral considerations were not reason enough to reach out to the Jewish community, although he did not outright deny that it was a factor.
ok… then detail what you did wrong Jimmy. the haters will only assume you are playing politics. go on Jimmy. the mike is yours right now
“Jason has a district, the number of Jewish voters in it is only 2 percent,” he said, chuckling.
yes but those Jews are too powerful ;^) …maybe it’s because they aren’t cowards like Jimmy
In a statement issued through his campaign manager, the younger Carter said the statement was not connected to his campaign.
so then explain what is going on with the family… and hey Carter exaplain why you didn’t speak out against Grandpa.
“While I was very happy to see my grandfather’s letter, it was completely unrelated to my campaign. The letter is a product of discussions with some of his friends in the Jewish community that have been going on for a long time.
it isn’t a discussion. it is your grandpa being a senile angry old man picking on victims. face it… the family history is full of weak leadership. Iran was Grandpa’s doing.
I, like many others, see this as a great step towards reconciliation,” Jason Carter said in the statement. “As for my campaign, I intend to reach out to all people in District 42 and work hard to earn their trust and their votes. Ultimately, this campaign will focus on the people of this district and the issues that a good advocate in the Georgia State Senate can affect, including fixing a broken transportation system, getting the economy moving again, and providing a first-class education to our kids.”
change the subject…. like the fact that your family defamed a people for defending themselves for a decade is second bannana. apology not accepted now.
It seemed clear, however, that Jason Carter saw the apology, issued earlier this month through JTA, as a means of outreach. The younger Carter has been trying for days to reach Liane Levetan, a former state senator and CEO of DeKalb County, and as soon as they connected Tuesday, he directed her to the JTA Web site to read the letter.
“I wanted to let Jason know that I really and truly understand his position that he loves his grandfather, but you can love someone and not agree with their points of view and actions in certain areas, and Israel is my area,” Levetan told JTA in an interview after her conversation with the younger Carter.
Levetan is one of 14 Jews who split with the Carter Center in 2006 after the publication of “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.” The split with the center, which promotes peace and helps alleviate poverty, clearly pained her; she had known the Carters for years and had assisted Rosalynn Carter in expanding education for the mentally disabled when Carter was Georgia’s governor in the 1970s.
“I admire the Carter Center; Mrs. Carter did a lot of good things for women,” said Levetan, the daughter of Holocaust survivors. “But first I’m a Jew.”
again… the question remains. why didn’t the younger Carter speak out before? Is this leadership that he can’t speak out against senile family members?
Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, said he was not disturbed that the former president’s reaching out to the Jewish community might have been triggered in part by his grandson’s political aspirations.
oh shut up Abe… you let this enabling crap go on as well.
“If it turns out that President Carter’s love for his grandson brought about an epiphany in his relationship with the Jewish people, that’s fine,” said Foxman, who has criticized Carter over his statements on Israel. “I don’t care what stimulated him to re-examine his bias toward the Jewish people. If it’s his grandson and his understanding that his grandson’s relations to the Jewish community will help him succeed — I don’t think we have the right to judge.”
In his interview with JTA, the elder Carter acknowledged that the negative impressions about his book and book tour had ruptured his relations with the Jewish community. Jewish friends, including Atlanta Rabbi Alvin Sugarman, prominent Atlanta lawyer Miles Alexander and Stuart Eizenstat, who was Carter’s chief White House domestic policy adviser, urged him to reach out to the Jews.
notice that Carter is only concerned with his power and not with the harm he has done. ABE WAKE UP!
He attempted to do so by arranging a talk at a synagogue or another Jewish venue, Carter told JTA, but was rebuffed. Hence he opted for the Christmas-Chanukah plea for forgiveness for any stigma he may have caused Israel.
maybe because you really aren’t apologizing Jimmy… just say what you did wrong. not the effect of it
“We must recognize Israel’s achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel,” Carter wrote in his statement. “As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.”
“Al Het” refers to the Yom Kippur prayer asking God forgiveness for sins committed against Him. In modern Hebrew it refers to any plea for forgiveness.
but you are a public figure Jimmy. it isn’t just between you and g-d. tell us what you said specifically that was damaging.
Asked what in particular he might have done to stigmatize Israel, Carter referred to the title of his book. The former president said that he had attempted to conflate into a single title his belief that Palestine, not Israel, should control the West Bank, and that apartheid, not peace, would prevail were that not to happen. Apartheid was a predictor, he said, not a description; such an outlook was not inconsistent with Israeli leaders and pro-Israel groups.
details… details… details Jimmy. what about the inside of the book? let’s go over what is really going on in Judea. why is Obama now attempting ethnic cleansing on Jews. why are Muslim settlements allowed while Jewish settlements are not allowed?
“I never intended or wanted to stigmatize the nation of Israel, even though I have disagreed with the settlement policy all the way back to the White House,” he said.
he lied back then too apparently because he libeled Israel back then too by claiming a settlement freeze would last longer then in did for the run up to the peace talks that didn’t lead to any peace for Israel. It just made it harder to blame a power like Egypt and turned it into Guerilla war. It was peace without the means to enforce any peace. worse then WAR!
This apology cum defense has frustrated Jewish leaders in the past. Carter seems overly focused on the title, they say, and does not deal with what they say are the book’s distortions.
yes… that is putting it mildly
While Carter remained focused on the title in the interview with JTA, he appeared to have internalized criticisms that he was one-sided and unfair to the pro-Israel lobby.
internalized? what does that mean? he’s lying again! he’s sorry he didn’t make a more distracting argument because he was too honest about his own Anti-Semitism. He’s only sorry that he was caught.
He said he was pessimistic about current peace prospects, partly because Israel continued to build settlements — but also because of the Palestinian leadership’s “recalcitrance” in insisting on a total settlement freeze and its rejection of Israel’s partial settlement freeze as sufficient grounds to restart talks.
how about the Muslim settlements Jimmy? Jerusalem was two thirds Jewish in 1948
“The Israelis have said they’re not going to discuss East Jerusalem and are still constructing settlements in the West Bank, the Palestinians refuse to negotiate,” said Carter, who travels frequently to the region. “The recalcitrance on the part of the Palestinians and Israeli settlements — I don’t see at this moment a way to bring an end to the impasse.”
notice he doesn’t mention Bibi’s 10 month freeze
Carter said he never meant to convey the impression that the pro-Israel lobby silenced criticism of Israel, only that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was the “most influential lobbying group” and that presidents including himself and congresses have historically been “totally committed” to Israel’s security. He was grateful for the rise of J Street, saying that the dovish group’s views were aligned with his own.
Double talk and praise for J street. Carter does like a mirror. what is wrong with a good cause being powerful Carter?
“My pre-eminent foreign policy objective,” Carter said, “has been peace in the Middle East” fueled in part by his affection for Israel. He said he remained committed to helping release Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas since June 2006, and noted that he had helped relay two letters from Shalit’s parents to the captured soldier, and one letter from Shalit to his family.
it didn’t help Jimmy. It just enabled more terrorism and gave the idea of freeing thousands of murderers more momentum.
Jewish groups that had led criticism of Carter welcomed the outreach — and adopted a wait-and-see pose.
“Over the years NJDC has taken issue with what we perceived to be President Carter’s one-sided criticism of the State of Israel,” Ira Forman, the CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council, told JTA. “We think only fair that when the former president asks for forgiveness for any criticism that may have stigmatized Israel that we should respond in kind. We appreciate President Carter’s ‘Al Het’ and encourage him to keep these sentiments in mind as he speaks in the future about the State of Israel.”
another enabler coming from Jewish groups. the Jews should tell Carter to go away.
The younger Carter has downplayed his grandfather’s views in what will primarily be a race — likely to take place in March, if Adelman goes to Singapore — fought on local bread-and-butter issues.
again… why didn’t you speak out before Jr. if you knew Grandpa was wrong?
“You and I both know that the Georgia Senate doesn’t set Middle East policy. And I don’t think anybody would want it to,” he recently told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Still, the elder Carter launched his first bid for the governor’s mansion from a state Senate seat, and Jason Carter likely also has greater ambitions.
It would make sense for him to reach out to Jews, said Joy Malkus, the research director for JACPAC, a Chicago-based pro-Israel political action committee. She recalled the similar experience of Jesse Jackson Jr., the congressman who had to overcome Jewish animosity to his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Jews in Jackson’s district were “naturally somewhat skeptical,” she said, and Jackson worked hard, through visits to Israel and cooperation with the local federation, to overcome the skepticism.
“From what I remember at the very beginning when he ran,” Malkus said, “we really had to talk to people, and say, ‘Yes, we did sit down with him, and he had a position on Israel, and he worked with federation,’ and people had to be somewhat assured that he was going to be a friend.”
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Posted by Noah Simon
Jimmy sees a Big Government tyrant that claims to be a man of G-d and he sees himself. He saw the Ayatollah Khomeini and it was love.
The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini.
Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a religious holy man in a grassroots revolution than a founding father of modern terrorism. Carter’s ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, said “Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint.” Carter’s Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan, said, “Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure.” Carter adviser James Bill proclaimed in a Newsweek interview on February 12, 1979 that Khomeini was not a mad mujahid, but a man of “impeccable integrity and honesty.”
The shah was terrified of Carter. He told his personal confidant, “Who knows what sort of calamity he [Carter] may unleash on the world?”
there is the problem. the people who are getting hurt by our stupidity weren’t listened to. Carter of course was blaming the weak for being weak. how Darwinian
JPost BlogCentral: A personal note from Carter Let’s look at the results of Carter’s misguided liberal policies: the Islamic Revolution in Iran; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Carter’s response was to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics); the birth of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization; the Iran-Iraq War, which cost the lives of millions dead and wounded; and yes, the present war on terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
and still Jimmy’s people are still believers in boycotts obviously. Iran?
WHEN CARTER entered the political fray in 1976, America was still riding the liberal wave of anti-Vietnam War emotion. Carter asked for an in-depth report on Iran even before he assumed the reins of government and was persuaded that the shah was not fit to rule Iran. 1976 was a banner year for pacifism: Carter was elected president, Bill Clinton became attorney-general of Arkansas, and Albert Gore won a place in the Tennessee House of Representatives.
every villain in great literature is set in the dynamic of empathetic hypocrisy. we understand that hard times made these monsters.
In his anti-war pacifism, Carter never got it that Khomeini, a cleric exiled to Najaf in Iraq from 1965-1978, was preparing Iran for revolution. Proclaiming “the West killed God and wants us to bury him,” Khomeini’s weapon of choice was not the sword but the media. Using tape cassettes smuggled by Iranian pilgrims returning from the holy city of Najaf, he fueled disdain for what he called gharbzadegi (“the plague of Western culture”).
I can just imagine Carter’s empathy for that “fear”
Carter pressured the shah to make what he termed human rights concessions by releasing political prisoners and relaxing press censorship. Khomeini could never have succeeded without Carter. The Islamic Revolution would have been stillborn.
and of course Carter is still enabling this Islamic Revolution with Hamas and Hezballah
Gen. Robert Huyser, Carter’s military liaison to Iran, once told me in tears: “The president could have publicly condemned Khomeini and even kidnapped him and then bartered for an exchange with the [American Embassy] hostages, but the president was indignant. ‘One cannot do that to a holy man,’ he said.”
it’s the politics of equivalence of course… all holy men are the same for Carter
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has donned the mantle of Ayatollah Khomeini, taken up bin Laden’s call, and is fostering an Islamic apocalyptic revolution in Iraq with the intent of taking over the Middle East and the world.
why not… we told them to
Jimmy Carter became the poster boy for the ideological revolution of the 1960s in the West, hell bent on killing the soul of America. The bottom line: Carter believed then and still does now is that evil really does not exist; people are basically good; America should embrace the perpetrators and castigate the victims.
the victims are mere comedy. and the oppressors are merely existentially superior survivors unless they are the white man.
IN THE ’60S it was mass rebellion after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. When humanity confronts eternity, the response is always rebellion or repentance. The same ideologues who fought to destroy the soul of America with the “God is dead” movement in the 1960s are now running the arts, the universities, the media, the State Department, Congress, and Senate, determined more then ever to kill the soul of America while the East attempts to kill the body. Carter’s world view defines the core ideology of the Democratic Party.
Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther despite their flaws were real men of g-d who understood evil. Carter is a movements usurper. Jimmy was a Dixiecrat in the garb of social justice. Martin Luther King never trusted government and Robert Kennedy was a man who rejected establishment mob values while still respecting his mob family. These were men who bettered themselves not wolves is sheeps clothes.
What is going on in Iraq is no mystery to those of us who have had our fingers on the pulse of both Iran and Iraq for decades. The Iran-Iraq war was a war of ideologies. Saddam Hussein saw himself as an Arab leader who would defeat the non-Arab Persians. Khomeini saw it as an opportunity to export his Islamic Revolution across the borders to the Shi’ites in Iraq and then beyond to the Arab countries.
if Jimmy had wanted to apply equivalence he could of done it here, but this is a case where America needed pragmatism. both sides of the Iran Iraq war were evil. things are not always the same
Throughout the war both leaders did everything possible to incite the inhabitants of each country to rebel – precisely what Iran is doing in Iraq today. Khomeini encouraged the Shi’ites across the border to remove Saddam from power and establish an Islamic republic like in Iran.
Carter’s belief that every crisis can be resolved with diplomacy – and nothing but diplomacy – now permeates the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, Carter is wrong.
absolutism is the evil, not diplomacy.
There are times when evil must be openly confronted and defeated.
KHOMEINI HAD the help of the PLO in Iran. They supplied weapons and terrorists to murder Iranians and incite mobs in the streets. No wonder Yasser Arafat was hailed as a friend of Khomeini after he seized control of Iran and was given the Israeli Embassy in Teheran with the PLO flag flying overhead.
The Carter administration scrambled to assure the new regime that the United States would maintain diplomatic ties with Iran. But on April 1, 1979 the greatest April Fools’ joke of all time was played, as Khomeini proclaimed it the first day of the government of God.
In February 1979 Khomeini had boarded an Air France flight to return to Teheran with the blessing of Jimmy Carter. The moment he arrived, he proclaimed: “I will kick his teeth in” – referring to then prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar, who was left in power with a US pledge of support. He was assassinated in Paris by Iranian agents in 1991.
I sat in the home of Gen. Huyser, who told me the shah feared he would lose the country if he implemented Carter’s polices. Carter had no desire to see the shah remain in power. He really believed that a cleric – whose Islamist fanaticism he did not understand in the least – would be better for human rights and Iran.
He could have changed history by condemning Khomeini and getting the support of our allies to keep him out of Iran.
The writer is a New York Times best-selling author. His newest book is The Final Move Beyond Iraq. www.beyondiraq.com
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Posted by Noah Simon
Daled Amos surprised me by considering that perhaps a growth freeze in Judea and Samaria is not a bad thing. his argument is that Begin did it before his peace talks, but then it is pointed out that Carter claimed the agreement was different. Let’s hope that the paper trail of the internet age clarifies that Bibi’s agreement is to ten months and no more then that.
For example, in an op-ed published in the Washington Post in 2000, Carter claimed:
Prime Minister Begin pledged that there would be no establishment of new settlements until after the final peace negotiations were completed. But later, under Likud pressure, he declined to honor this commitment, explaining that his presumption had been that all peace talks would be concluded within three months. (Washington Post, Nov. 26, 2000)CAMERA finds the charge in Carter’s Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid as well.
This is a distortion picked up by others in the media.As it turns out, as CAMERA points out, during a symposium commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Camp David Accords, Carter agrees that it was a limited 3-month freeze. In the clip below, after former Attorney General of Israel Aharon Barak describes how he knows that the freeze was only intended for 3 months, you can hear Carter say, “I don’t dispute that” (at 1:04)
Considering the stand of the Obama administration, denying previous understandings between Israel and the US, Netanyahu had better be sure that his 10-month freeze is not interpreted as an ongoing commitment to be re-examined and extended later.
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Jewish Commentary
June 11, 2007I offended people at my old job when I exaggerated and said I didn’t read books (I worked in publishing). Since college I avoid paper media (I read philosophy, theology and history in paper form… but if they were online I would prefer it). I would tell you where I worked, but working in advertising is like working for the mafia and there have been physical threats made. A lot of Left Wing Palestinian sympathizers work in fashion and the advertising world. I have a child and they threatened to murder him.
The beauty of the Torah is my warning of an abused text is built in. It is a good manual… and like all good manuals the idol worship issue and the destruction of the temple is a very serious warning.
Coming from a “FRUM” family might be an understatement. My great great grandfather was Rabbi Sivitz (most well known orthodox Talmud scholar in the world @ the time) Rabbi Sivitz disowned my great grandfather for not observing the sabbath. His son was a scientist and he enjoyed every hour in his lab. The research of the younger Sivitz led to nuclear energy. The younger Sivitz was in the first class ever at Carnegie in Pittsburgh… (the college I went to as well). If the younger Sivitz had observed the sabbath we would not have nuclear energy today. That same nuclear energy that gives leverage to state of Israel over it’s neighbors… and protects millions of Jewish people from the oppression of Jewish enemies.
Whose knowledge helped the Jewish people more? The greatest Talmudic scholar of his time,… or his humble disowned son who did the research into radioactive isotopes?
The most dangerous book in my opinion is religious text… with the exception to Jewish commentary, which evolves unlike other religious perspectives. Judaism was a Blog before Blogging. This is why great ideas come from the Jewish community. We are the chosen people for a reason. When you take our ideas and make them stale, the concepts eventually become oppressive without questioning. If you follow any idea in a strict interpretation (no matter how universal the philosophy), then you are an idol worshiper. To me Christianity and Islam are just an orthodoxy that I refute like I refute many Orthodox in my own religion. No material can replace the will of G-d… no single book, idea or messiah speaks for G-d alone…
Piss off fundamentalists!
It is interesting to note that the first paradox in Jewish religious code predates “Jesus” and the destruction of the second temple. It is during the expulsion to Babylonia where the Jews first come across a dilemma where the scripture tells them they must sacrifice animals in the temple (how could they if Solomon’s temple was destroyed?) Judaism had an understanding of religion as being un-concrete from this period on if you look at the bible strictly. That is why it is called the Babylonian Talmud, because it was commentary written in Babylon, not in Israel. From that point Judaism was no longer fundamentalist. It is with great irony that the effect of conservatism on a liberal movement would be reflected by two thousand years of a repressive orthodox church that would branch off from the very same liberal movement that was meant to universalize humanity. It is with even more irony that militant monotheism or modern Islam reflected the militaristic Maccabees. On the other hand post-temple pacifism eventually led Israel into the Holocaust. The “Religious Right” does not understand this, and the “Left” never seems to understand the effect of misunderstanding absolutes (or maybe the “Left” understands perfectly, but is subverting the truth for devious benefit!).
Many books I have read I do not agree with… I read them to argue with ignorant people who get their ideas from them. I read a lot of French Post-Mod philosophy. I think it is silly (but I admire the creativity of thought… French Philosophy Post-Mod is a response to the end of Europe as we know it… they don’t have any ability to make any concrete statement because of the shock and cruelty of World War II, so they pretend the world doesn’t exist)… I read it to argue with these people who think everything is virtual. What does it matter if these people think they live in some kind of “Matrix” or “Virtual World”? Many have gone “Anti-Zionist”, I wonder if reality still is a fiction to these Europeans when my relatives bomb Lebanon? No? I guess this is why the French voted in Nicolas Sarkozy, so they could get back to a reality. Civilization is so full of extremes in leadership. One moment Europe is throwing Jews in the oven, the next moment they are afraid of social contracts like laws and money. I look forward to being friends with Europe again. I miss them… especially the pretty girls. I hope they can get their politics back to normal and find some kind of moderation with security, but without hatred and criticism of other people’s security.
I am not a socialist. I believe in my heart that society must have certain discriminations and roles for people to play as long as they can keep personal human rights to live cruelty free and with liberty and security. Leftists have a tendency to think that anybody that doesn’t agree with them is stupid. Never call someone stupid who is interested in one’s own benefit and is certain that radical change would be dangerous to one’s family. It might be a better strategy if you have something to lose to understand the impasse you are having before rushing to judgment. There is nothing revolutionary about socialism these days. It is a tried philosophy that failed to improve our lives and devalued labor. Borders and boundaries are there to increase liberties and protect jobs. Internationalist pressure is tyranny and can wear the guise of a good cause. Moral perspectives are often less inherent to a political party then how power and money distributes. There is never a riotous reason to sacrifice your security for the liberties of others if there is an impediment to your family’s safety. It is also necessary to take the liberties away from people who are a threat. Concerning the infringement of other people’s security and rights, it does not matter if it was you who did it or your neighbor. If you do nothing you are culpable and should expect punishment. Two examples are “The Golden Calf” and the recent “Israeli Defensive in Lebanon”. Before you say that you don’t believe in the bible… just check your sarcasm at the door for one second and give me some creative freedom with a little suspension of disbelief for the sake of my point which I will get to. With the “The Golden Calf”, not all the Hebrews were worshiping, but all Hebrews were culpable because they failed to react. Therefore all Hebrews spent forty years in the desert and Moses was completely denied entry into the “Promised Land” for his frustration. It is interesting that during Israel’s war with Egypt, Nasser kept on bringing up “The Golden Calf”, because I am going to relate it to my next point involving the Middle-East. Nobody believes that all of the country of Lebanon was responsible for the resent hostage crises. If you fail to fight injustice in your neighbor’s house, then you will reap the responsibility for those around you. I find it hard to believe that the “so called” innocent Lebanese” never noticed rockets aimed and fired to the south in their neighbors backyard. It doesn’t matter if it is a Buddhist colony in Lebanon (and certainly Buddhist “Pacifists” might be tempted to do nothing); you are culpable for allowing the crime.
Another huge mistake the “Left” takes part in is confusing corporate allegiance with the Republican Party. The only television station, which is completely a “slave” to corporate contributions, is PBS. All “commercial T.V.” either is dependant on subscriptions like cable or completely dependant on advertising (corporate as well, but the viewer will change the channel if unhappy). In other words, the best way to get the “Corporate” viewpoint is to watch a PBS newscast or talk show. Channels like FOX, MSNBC or CNN are influenced by the audience’s prejudices because they depend on advertising and the advertisers want people to watch. With PBS you get the unadulterated “Corporate” opinion, because they are trying to get the “Corporate” idea out there. And what is the “Corporate” idea? I would categorize it as “Corporate Socialism”. The corporations want us to have health care that is paid by our taxes, because the corporations will find a way to shirk their responsibilities. If we have federal health care, then the companies don’t have to buy it for their employees or feel the pressure to do so. And what type of company is generally the major contributor to PBS? Energy companies. But wait… Isn’t PBS generally slanted against the war in Iraq? How can that be? Maybe it is because the “Leftist” slur of the war being supported by “Energy Companies” is false. In fact the war in Iraq has hurt most “Energy Companies”. Energy Companies need to negotiate with “Third World Dictators” like Chavez, and the Iraq war has hurt price negotiations.
Next Time there is a major outbreak of violence… do yourself a favor… pick up the phone and call and find out what is really going on before you trust biased news. Case in point: The New York Times, which has had huge nine page ads in it’s Sunday Magazine section for Dubai Tourism.
“As the world’s most important daily newspaper, the New York Times is enormously influential in framing the public and diplomatic discourse on many issues, both in the U.S. and beyond. This is particularly true with regard to the Middle East, given how much space it devotes to the subject. One of the great myths of modern journalism, particularly outside the U.S., is that the New York Times is “pro-Israel.” It would be truer to say that the reverse is the situation… to a greater extent than even most of those readers who suspect it of bias might think. In all kinds of small, insidious ways – most of which are not apparent unless you have detailed knowledge on the Middle East – the Time’s coverage is slanted against Israel. And at least until recently it was also slanted against Palestinian moderates and reformers, the Times preferring to put a positive spin on those Palestinian leaders who were corrupt, dictatorial and violent. And since the Times has a reputation as being the great paper of record, the consequences of its distortions can be much more damaging than those found elsewhere. Especially outside the U.S., some mistakenly presume that the New York Times must be pro-Israel since it is owned by a family that was originally Jewish and has a number of prominent Jewish writers and editors. In fact, it may be precisely for this reason that it bends over backward to avoid being seen as favorable to Jewish concerns. There would be nothing new in this, as was seen when the Times deliberately downplayed reports on the Holocaust in the 1940s.”
“The New York Times is not the most anti-Israel newspaper. And it is much too measured to slander like in for example, in the London Guardian – which in a lead editorial compared Israel to al Qaeda, concluding that Israel’s behavior was “every bit as repellant.” Still, in all kinds of diminutive, menacing ways – most of which are not obvious unless you have proficient knowledge on the Middle East – the Times’s coverage is more prejudiced than many readers might comprehend and the consequences of its distortions are in some ways much more detrimental than those found elsewhere because of it’s better articulated lies.
The Times does have a pro-Israel columnist, William Safire. But this hardly makes up for the slant of other columnists like Tom Friedman, let alone those of its outside contributors – such as Allegra Pacheco, a Jewish lawyer-activist who represents Palestinians in the West Bank and condemns Israel as an “apartheid” state; Henry Siegman, another Jewish activist whose writings were proudly displayed on the website of the Palestine Liberation Organization, or Deborah Sontag who is about as biased as they come on many issues, not just Israel.
The New York Times’s idea of equilibrium almost seems to be to run discontinuous pieces – first by Palestinians and others condemning Israel, then by far-left Jews condemning Israel. When an outside op-ed writer, the noted international human-rights expert Prof. Anne Bayefsky, incorporated a compassionate sentence on Israel in her article (May 22, 2002), the Times tried to silence her. Only through determined perseverance, Bayefsky says, did she manage to convince the Times to reinstate a sentence condemning the U.N. Human Rights Commission for undeviating a full 30 percent of its resolutions against Israel. Bayefsky was so infuriated by her experience with the Times op-ed desk that she wrote an entire article about it in the June 2002 edition of the legal magazine Justice.”
-this quote I will find a link to soon
If you want to really understand the news you have got to understand advertising (an industry I worked in). The politics of the company will always reflect it’s revenue.
A lot of people say if I am a Jewish Zionist, then why don’t I move to Israel? Here’s my response: (1) it is easier to fight the hatred outside of borders through media penetration. (2) It’s harder for somebody to bomb me where I am (3) I’m not going to let racists Pogrom me into a Ghetto surrounded by enemies, I prefer the mobility of attack. I admire Israelis courage, but my ass is not going to be much of a help against “Hez-Ballz”. I’m of better use annoying the fuck out of the media and making sure they get the facts straight. They never do because the media will always be influenced by money and the Arabs have Oil!
A democracy without limitations of it’s constituents is not a democracy. The United States has a border. Israel has defined who it’s constituents are as well and the members of Israel do not stop other states from involving themselves in Democracy. Without the Republic and the limitations of the Republic you have internationalist tyranny. Internationalist tyranny comes in many forms such as Marxism. It is the boundary of who it’s members are that gives a democracy it’s freedoms. All freedoms in specific are not absolute. Freedom of speech is not the freedom to libel or use hate speech. The freedom to own a gun and bare arms is not the freedom to own a nuclear missile. The limitations are what makes freedom work. To declare Israel not a democracy because of it’s limitations on who it’s constituents are is internationalist tyranny. It is called arbitrary gerrymandering and it is an act of violence, racism and bigotry. The Jimmy Carters of this generation might seem enlightening to those that would hate anyway, but 100 years from now when the axioms are seen is a different juxtaposition, these people will be seen as racists. In the same way that the “German Democratic Republic” of East Germany is seen today as a play on language and not a defining character of it’s state. Israel has a right to decide who it’s members are. This does not make it any less of a Democracy then any other Democratic Republic. Israel is a Democratic Republic and in being a Republic gets to define the borders of it’s constituents. Being that outside these borders are violence and hatred, my argument takes on an even more existential argument… but you can not nullify the quality of Israel’s democracy based on terms that you insist to be a member.