It has been reported that President Carter’s book titled PEACE,NOT APARTHEID has many Israeli supporters in Congress giving him the cold shoulder as if he has committed a sin.The sin in this case happens to be the use of the word Apartheid which casts the current state of Israeli society in a harsh light comparable to that of White South Africa.
Representatives like Tom Lantos,Henry Waxman, Jane Harman and Howard Berman are reportedly furious at Carter for using the word Aparthied in the title.
I respectfully disagree with these Congressmen and woman.I think the conditions in Israel are such that as an American the only word that would accurately describe the conditions there would be what President Carter used and what Archbishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela have confirmed.
To these representatives the crime of Carter,Tutu and Mandela has been that they want to apply the standards that apply to others to Israeli society.That is a no no.
In many of my trips to that unfortunate land,I have seen highways where no access to Palestinains is available even for emergency purposes.A grotesque wall has been built to keep West Bank residents away from their nearest relatives within a stone’s throw.And daily humiliations are visited on these people each day including meting out collective punishments.To call this anything but Apartheid would be a lie.
President Carter, who made it possible for Egypt and Israel to arrive at peace is now being reviled by these men and women for uttering the truth.For my part, President Carter remains a hero of mine not merely for the peace he has brought between two implacable foes but the exemplary way he has conducted himself after he left office.
Each day President Carter lives the statement of Mahatma Gandhi “Be the change you want the world to be”.These Congresspersons ought to be ashamed of themselves
I’d like to hear more about this meeting, but I had much the same reaction when I read that same account. Carter has done more for Israel than any president since Harry Truman reluctantly consented to the creation of the country.
What bothers me further is that these same congresspersons have not uttered a word condemning the tortures visited on prisoners at Abu Ghraib,Gitmo and Bagram.They seem to think that so long as it is the Arabs/Muslims that are being tortured it is OK with them.This is why the nomination of Mukasey does not appear to bother them one bit.
I think you will discover that all of the gentlemen and gentlewomen you are accusing of not having anything negative to say about Abu Ghraib, actually were critical. Some quite so.
I was specifically referring to Chuck Schumer and Jane Harman.In 2004 Chuck Schumer claimed that the President needed to be able to order torture at his discretion.
Jane Harman when confronted by a series of articles by Dana Priest iin November 2005 said that the article contained leaked information and she did not condone such information.That information was about the torture of prisoners in CIA detention centers.
The following post here says something about Mr.Lantos
and his support for tortures at Gitmo.
The only person on whom I have erred is Rep.Henry Waxman.He,as usual, has done the right thing.My apologies.
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Tom Lantos Wards Off Gitmo Criticism!
Dutch lawmakers who recently visited the Guantanamo Bay military prison said they were offended by a testy exchange in Washington with a senior congressional Democrat. The lawmakers said that Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told them that “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.”
… Before the Guantanamo exchange, the lawmakers had discussed a debate in the Netherlands about whether the country should maintain its 1,600 troops serving in NATO’s Afghanistan operations. “You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany,” Lantos said, according to the Dutch lawmakers.
“The comments killed the debate,” said Harry van Bommel, a member of the Socialist Party. “It was insulting and counterproductive.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Carter has done more for Israel than any president since Harry Truman reluctantly consented to the creation of the country.
My view precisely. The Camp David treaty gave them a security they could otherwise only dream about. Instead of building on it, Israel has taken it for a green light for larger ambitions.
I was part of the original Peanut Brigade who went to NH in 1976, back in the days of Jimmy Who. I am so proud of my contribution to his political career. I have supported many politicians, Jimmy Carter has made me prouder than the rest of them combined.
The term “Apartheid” as used by Carter in his title distinctly refers to Palestine not Israel, and took pains to make that clear. Internally, Israel may be practicing something segregation in the old South sense, where it had de jure support.
As the term was applied to Palestine, Carter had every right to call a spade a spade. No major political party in Israel supports an independent and sovereign Palestinian nation. What they support amounts to bantustans (Kadima, Labor) in the West Bank, if that (Likud). The facts on the ground clearly outline an apartheid solution in the worse South African Afrikaaner sense. That is what is meant by two states in the eyes of the right wing Zionists, and even Labor is right wing when it comes to this issue.
Those Democratic supporters are being dishonest, because the current path is leading to Apartheid, and they know it. It is just more exceptionalism that is seen in otherwise liberal representatives.
The democratic supporters of Israel are being sucked into a situation where they will be condoning Apartheid and also tortures including waterboarding.
They have to be very careful when they openly advocate tortures.In this country tortures are illegal in conformity with international norms.In Israel, torture is legal in violation of international laws and,specifically in violation of the Geneva protocols on the treatment of prisoners.
You can clearly see the progression of Israel toward barbaric practices that Justice Robert Jackson condemned at the Nuremberg Tribunal.I suspect that there will soon be advocates of genocide against the Palestinians among Israelis and their US supporters soon.
As Bill Blum has said many times whatever you can imagine the reality will be far worse than your imagination.
” suspect that there will soon be advocates of genocide against the Palestinians among Israelis”
Metaphorically, yes. The Israel High Court has legalized the killing of Palestinian militants by Israeli hit gangs in the West Bank and Gaza, as if the Israel High Court had any authority to abrogate international law, which permits an illegally occupied people to resist. For the most part, Israel has excused itself from respecting international law and has done do consistently since Ben Gurion’s days, when he also stated that the UN, which provided the resolution that created Israel, to go fuck itself regarding any other matters relating to justice or human rights that did not favor Israel quest to remain a majority Jewish state, and later, the illegal colonialism of the West Bank and Gaza, and of course, East Jerusalem.
What prompted my post on genocide advocacy among Israelis was an obscure item tucked away in the PNAC document REBUILDING AMERICA’s DEFENSES written by Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan.In that article the authors say bio weapons that specifically target one racial group should be developed.
Given the number of things that have already come to pass into reality from that document, it seemed reasonable to me that such wepaons may already be in the making.
Neoconservative mentality seems to be in everyway, a means-ends way of thinking. But since it does advocate war to advance democracy, One would suppose that inhumane methods of killing are not beyond it.
As a refresher, let me remind you that the phrase, a New Pearl Harbor,or a cataclysmic event to mobilize American public opinion against the Arabs/Muslims comes also from the same document.