Originally Posted by Washingtom Post

Jimmy Carter, Palestinian Sympathizer

Jimmy Carter has emerged as the most prominent pro-Palestinian public figure in America.

In a new book, the former president offers a passionate defense of Palestinian aspirations rarely heard in the U.S. media and unprecedented from someone who once occupied the Oval Office.

Entitled "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Carter's book has won him praise in the international online media and scathing criticism from U.S.-based Israel supporters. In the Israeli media, the reaction to Carter's defense of Palestinian rights has been more tempered.

"The bottom line is this," Carter writes in an online excerpt posted by his publisher." "Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens -- and honor its own previous commitments -- by accepting its legal borders. All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel's right to live in peace under these conditions."

In the United States, Carter's linkage of Israeli policy and the now-defunct South African system of racial apartheid has been greeted coolly by fellow Democrats, including incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously," Pelosi said.

It should come as no surprise that Palestinian-American Sherri Muzher, writing in the Jordan Times, welcomed Carter's apartheid analogy: "How are the situations similar? Well, in a 2002 speech in the United States, [South African Bishop Desmond] Tutu said he saw 'the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.' Back in 1999, former South African statesman Nelson Mandela told the Palestinian Assembly: 'The histories of our two peoples correspond in such painful and poignant ways that I intensely feel myself at home amongst my compatriots.'"

Gulf News columnist George Hishmeh praised Carter for "unflinchingly" stating his determination "to let the people of America know that there are two sides to many issues in the Middle East and that in order ever to have peace for Israel, Israel will have to comply with international law."

Al Hayat's Jihad el-Khazen wrote that Carter's book "shows that Israel has not offered, contrary to its claims, a deal for the withdrawal from all the occupied territories except for 5%."

"Carter falls short of a full critique of Israel's treatment of non-Jews under its rule," wrote Lena Khalaf Tuffaha in the Palestine Chronicle, "but his book challenges Americans to see the conflict with eyes wide open."

Carter's critics fault him both personally and politically.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said the apartheid analogy "is especially outrageous, considering his acknowledgment buried near the end of his shallow and superficial book that what is going on in Israel today "is unlike that in South Africa -- not racism, but the acquisition of land.... It's obvious that Mr. Carter just doesn't like Israel or Israelis."

Writing in the New Republic magazine, former publisher Marty Peretz declared Carter "will go down in history ...as a Jew hater."

By comparison, the reaction in the Israeli media has been mild.

In a column for the Jerusalem Post, David Harris, head of the American Jewish Committee, called the book "a crude polemic that compromises any pretense to objectivity and fairness."

"In accepting the Palestinian narrative, Carter has conveniently revised history, excused the Palestinians for their tragic failure to come to terms with Israel each time the chance presented itself, and blithely ignored Israel's very legitimate security concerns," Harris wrote Monday

"A quick and superficial scan of the book turns up no new or inflammatory disclosures, but it does contain some particularly harsh criticism," wrote Haaretz blogger Shmuel Rosner.

"Carter, who has gone on an intensive tour to promote the book, has certainly noticed that the people interviewing him were less interested in Palestine this week and more interested in Iraq, as was Bush these past few days," Rosner wrote. "And indeed, this is one of the basic criticisms in Carter's book: There is not enough vigorous debate in the United States regarding the Palestinian problem. And this week, once again, it was not easy to find people interested in paying attention to this problem," he said.

When Carter was asked by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, why the plight of the Palestinians receives comparatively little discussion in the U.S. media, he said it was "a mystery."

Carter continued, "There is no discussion of these issues in this country that amounts to anything. There is obviously no discussion among the members of Congress. And even the American news media, wonderful ones like who you work for, The New York Times, The Washington Post and so forth, as well as the major networks and even cable -- rarely bring up any of the issues that are dramatized very accurately in this book."

Carter suggested that any congressional candidate who declared, "I want the Israelis to comply with international law," wouldn't have a chance to be elected.

"But it is a mystery to me why the news media don't at least give a sharp discussion of these issues. ... I go to Israel fairly often and when I go to Jerusalem, the debate is vociferous in the news media and among politicians. In Europe the same thing. In the U.S., no debate."

Originally Posted by Ex-President Carter

"There is no discussion of these issues in this country that amounts to anything. There is obviously no discussion among the members of Congress. And even the American news media, wonderful ones like who you work for, The New York Times, The Washington Post and so forth, as well as the major networks and even cable -- rarely bring up any of the issues that are dramatized very accurately in this book."

Originally Posted by wikipedia

Menachem Begin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Menachem Begin
מנחם בגין

6th Prime Minister of Israel
In office
21 June 1977 – 10 October 1983
Preceded by Yitzhak Rabin
Succeeded by Yitzhak Shamir
Born August 16, 1913
Brest, then Russian Empire, now Belarus
Died March 9, 1992 (aged 78)
Tel Aviv, Israel
Political party Likud

Menachem Wolfovich Begin (help·info) (Hebrew: מְנַחֵם בְּגִין‎, August 16, 1913 – March 9, 1992) was a Jewish-Polish head of the Zionist underground group the Irgun, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the first Likud Prime Minister of Israel.

Though revered by many Israelis, Begin’s legacy remains highly controversial and divisive. As the leader of Irgun, Begin played a central role in Jewish military resistance to the British Mandate of Palestine, but was strongly deplored and consequently sidelined by the mainstream Zionist leadership. Suffering eight consecutive defeats in the years preceding his premiership, Begin came to embody the opposition to the Ashkenazi Mapai-led Israeli establishment. His electoral victory in 1977 not only brought to an end three decades of Labor Party political hegemony, but also symbolised a new social realignment in which hitherto marginalized communities gained public recognition. However, the extent to which this symbolic change was translated into government policy remains highly debatable.

Despite having established himself as a fervent nationalist ideologue, Begin’s first significant achievement as Prime Minister was to negotiate the Camp David Accords with President Sadat of Egypt, agreeing on the full withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from the Sinai Peninsula and its return to Egypt in 1978. Yet in the years to follow, especially during his second term in office from 1981, Begin’s government was to reclaim a nationalist agenda, promoting the expansion of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories. As retaliation to attacks from the north, he authorized a limited invasion into southern Lebanon in 1982, which quickly escalated into full-fledged war. As Israeli military involvement in Lebanon deepened, Begin grew increasingly depressed and reticent, losing grip on the IDF’s operation in Lebanon and the unstable economy which was gradually spiraling into hyperinflation. Mounting public pressure, exacerbated by the death of his wife Aliza in November 1982, increased his withdrawal from public life, until his resignation in September 1983.

Originally Posted by Ophiel Ophiuci

I Got What America Needs Right Here | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Needs to be posted over and over again until it sinks in, I feel.

Originally Posted by Jimmy Carter

But who comes to me, huh? Fucking nobody. Why ask old Jimmy anything? What the fuck could he know about peace in the Middle East? It's not like he fucking won the Nobel Peace Prize for that shit. You myopic pricks.

Originally Posted by Jimmy Carter

Oh, what's that I hear? The weather's all screwy? You got a global warming problem? Boo-fucking-hoo! I was telling you morons to turn off your lights and unplug all your shit at night to conserve energy in 19-fuckin'-75, for chrissake. Gee, I wonder what woulda happened if we'd all switched to solar power like I fucking did back when we had a fucking chance to do something about it. Think we'd still be sucking Saudi Arabia's dick like a five-dollar whore?

Originally Posted by Jimmy Carter

You want compassion? Somebody who's looking out for the little guy? Why don't you take a look at Jimmy Carter, 'cause unlike, oh, every motherfucking candidate out there, he spent the last fucking quarter-century building houses for the homeless.

Originally Posted by Jimmy Carter

I even got a degree in nuclear engineering or some shit.

Originally Posted by Sophia_