Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: (MO)  Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine


JIMMY CARTER was the 39th president of the United
States. His newest book is "Palestine: Peace Not
Apartheid," published last month. He is scheduled to
sign books Monday at Vroman's in Pasadena.
December 8, 2006
I SIGNED A CONTRACT with Simon & Schuster two years ago
to write a book about the Middle East, based on my
personal observations as the Carter Center monitored
three elections in Palestine and on my consultations
with Israeli political leaders and peace activists.
We covered every Palestinian community in 1996, 2005 and
2006, when Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas were
elected president and members of parliament were chosen.
The elections were almost flawless, and turnout was very
high - except in East Jerusalem, where, under severe
Israeli restraints, only about 2% of registered voters
managed to cast ballots.
The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and
the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among
Israelis and throughout other nations - but not in the
United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed
and experienced the severe restraints on any free and
balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to
criticize any policies of the Israeli government is
because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the
American-Israel Political Action Committee and the
absence of any significant contrary voices.
It would be almost politically suicidal for members of
Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel
and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with
international law or to speak in defense of justice or
human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign
to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus,
Hebron, Gaza City or even Bethlehem and talk to the
beleaguered residents. What is even more difficult to
comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major
newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise
similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private
assessments expressed quite forcefully by their
correspondents in the Holy Land.
With some degree of reluctance and some uncertainty
about the reception my book would receive, I used maps,
text and documents to describe the situation accurately
and to analyze the only possible path to peace: Israelis
and Palestinians living side by side within their own
internationally recognized boundaries. These options are
consistent with key U.N. resolutions supported by the
U.S. and Israel, official American policy since 1967,
agreements consummated by Israeli leaders and their
governments in 1978 and 1993 (for which they earned
Nobel Peace Prizes), the Arab League's offer to
recognize Israel in 2002 and the International Quartet's
"Roadmap for Peace," which has been accepted by the PLO
and largely rejected by Israel.
The book is devoted to circumstances and events in
Palestine and not in Israel, where democracy prevails
and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed
equal status.
Although I have spent only a week or so on a book tour
so far, it is already possible to judge public and media
reaction. Sales are brisk, and I have had interesting
interviews on TV, including "Larry King Live,"
"Hardball," "Meet the Press," "The NewsHour With Jim
Lehrer," the "Charlie Rose" show, C-SPAN and others. But
I have seen few news stories in major newspapers about
what I have written.
Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written
mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who
would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and
their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel.
Two members of Congress have been publicly critical.
Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for instance, issued
a statement (before the book was published) saying that
"he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel."
Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me "anti-
Semitic," and others accuse the book of "lies" and
"distortions." A former Carter Center fellow has taken
issue with it, and Alan Dershowitz called the book's
title "indecent."
Out in the real world, however, the response has been
overwhelmingly positive. I've signed books in five
stores, with more than 1,000 buyers at each site. I've
had one negative remark - that I should be tried for
treason - and one caller on C-SPAN said that I was an
anti-Semite. My most troubling experience has been the
rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the
book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment
and to answer questions from students and professors. I
have been most encouraged by prominent Jewish citizens
and members of Congress who have thanked me privately
for presenting the facts and some new ideas.
The book describes the abominable oppression and
persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories,
with a rigid system of required passes and strict
segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish
settlers in the West Bank. An enormous imprisonment wall
is now under construction, snaking through what is left
of Palestine to encompass more and more land for Israeli
settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than
what blacks lived under in South Africa during
apartheid. I have made it clear that the motivation is
not racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis to
confiscate and colonize choice sites in Palestine, and
then to forcefully suppress any objections from the
displaced citizens. Obviously, I condemn any acts of
terrorism or violence against innocent civilians, and I
present information about the terrible casualties on
both sides.
The ultimate purpose of my book is to present facts
about the Middle East that are largely unknown in
America, to precipitate discussion and to help restart
peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to
permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. Another
hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this
same goal might be motivated to express their views,
even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad
to help with that effort.
Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
-- 
www.iaciners.org

 Semitic,"
...
-- 
www.iaciners.org


Carter's Distorted World
by Alan M. Dershowitz
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is so biased that it inevitably raises
the question of what would motivate Jimmy Carter to write such an
indecent book.
Sometimes you really can tell a book by its cover. President Jimmy
Carter's decision to title his new anti-Israel screed "Palestine:
Peace Not Apartheid" (Simon & Schuster, 288 pages, $27) tells it all.
His use of the loaded word "apartheid," suggesting an analogy to the
hated policies of South Africa, 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." Nor does he
explain that Israel's motivation for holding on to land it captured in
a defensive war is the prevention of terrorism. Israel has tried, on
several occasions, to exchange land for peace, and what it got instead
was terrorism, rockets, and kidnappings launched from the returned
land.
In fact, Palestinian-Arab terrorism is virtually missing from Mr.
Carter's entire historical account, which blames nearly everything on
Israel and almost nothing on the Palestinians. Incredibly, he asserts
that the initial violence in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict occurred
when "Jewish militants" attacked Arabs in 1939. The long history of
Palestinian terrorism against Jews -- which began in 1929, when the
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem ordered the slaughter of more than 100
rabbis, students, and non-Zionist Sephardim whose families had lived
in Hebron and other ancient Jewish cities for millennia -- was
motivated by religious bigotry. The Jews responded to this racist
violence by establishing a defense force. There is no mention of the
long history of Palestinian terrorism before the occupation, or of the
Munich massacre and others inspired by Yasser Arafat. There is not
even a reference to the Karine A, the boatful of terrorist weapons
ordered by Arafat in January 2002.
Mr. Carter's book is so filled with simple mistakes of fact and
deliberate omissions that were it a brief filed in a court of law, it
would be struck and its author sanctioned for misleading the court.
Mr. Carter too is guilty of misleading the court of public opinion. A
mere listing of all of Mr. Carter's mistakes and omissions would fill
a volume the size of his book. Here are just a few of the most
egregious:
Mr. Carter emphasizes that "Christian and Muslim Arabs had continued
to live in this same land since Roman times," but he ignores the fact
that Jews have lived in Hebron, Tzfat, Jerusalem, and other cities for
even longer. Nor does he discuss the expulsion of hundreds of
thousands of Jews from Arab countries since 1948.
Mr. Carter repeatedly claims that the Palestinian Arabs have long
supported a two-state solution and the Israelis have always opposed
it. Yet he makes no mention of the fact that in 1938 the Peel
Commission proposed a two-state solution, with Israel receiving a mere
sliver of its ancient homeland and the Palestinians receiving the bulk
of the land. The Jews accepted and the Palestinians rejected this
proposal because Arab leaders cared more about there being no Jewish
state on Muslim holy land than about having a Palestinian state of
their own.
He barely mentions Israel's acceptance, and the Palestinian rejection,
of the United Nation's division of the mandate in 1948.
He claims that in 1967 Israel launched a preemptive attack against
Jordan. The fact is that Jordan attacked Israel first, Israel tried
desperately to persuade Jordan to remain out of the war, and Israel
counterattacked after the Jordanian army surrounded Jerusalem, firing
missiles into the center of the city. Only then did Israel capture the
West Bank, which it was willing to return in exchange for peace and
recognition from Jordan.
Mr. Carter repeatedly mentions Security Council Resolution 242, which
called for return of captured territories in exchange for peace,
recognition, and secure boundaries, but he ignores that Israel
accepted and all the Arab nations and the Palestinians rejected this
resolution. The Arabs met in Khartum and issued their three famous
"no's": "No peace, no recognition, no negotiation." But you wouldn't
know that from reading the history according to Mr. Carter.
Mr. Carter faults Israel for its "air strike that destroyed an Iraqi
nuclear reactor" without mentioning that Iraq had threatened to attack
Israel with nuclear weapons if Iraq succeeded in building a bomb.
Mr. Carter faults Israel for its administration of Christian and
Muslim religious sites, when in fact Israel is scrupulous about
ensuring those of every religion the right to worship as they please
-- consistent, of course, with security needs. He fails to mention
that between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan occupied the West Bank and
East Jerusalem, the Hashemites destroyed and desecrated Jewish
religious sites and prevented Jews from praying at the Western Wall.
He also never mentions Egypt's brutal occupation of Gaza between 1949
and 1967.
Mr. Carter blames Israel, and exonerates Arafat, for the Palestinian
refusal to accept statehood on 95% of the West Bank and all of Gaza
pursuant to the Clinton-Barak offers at Camp David and Taba in
2000-2001. He accepts the Palestinian revisionist history, rejects the
eyewitness accounts of President Clinton and Dennis Ross, and ignores
Saudi Prince Bandar's accusation that Arafat's rejection of the
proposal was "a crime" and that Arafat's account "was not truthful" --
except, apparently, to Mr. Carter. The fact that Mr. Carter chooses to
believe Arafat over Mr. Clinton speaks volumes.
Mr. Carter's description of the recent Lebanon war is misleading. He
begins by asserting that Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers.
"Captured" suggests a military apprehension subject to the usual
prisoner of war status. The soldiers were kidnapped, and have not been
heard from -- not even a sign of life. The rocket attacks that
preceded Israel's invasion are largely ignored, as is the fact that
Hezbollah fired its rockets from civilian population centers.
Mr. Carter gives virtually no credit to Israel's superb legal system,
falsely asserting (without any citation) that "confessions extracted
through torture are admissible in Israeli courts," that prisoners are
"executed," and that the "accusers" act "as judges." Even Israel's
most severe critics acknowledge the fairness of the Israeli Supreme
Court, but not Mr. Carter.
Mr. Carter even blames Israel for the "exodus of Christians from the
Holy Land," totally ignoring the Islamization of the area by Hamas and
the comparable exodus of Christian Arabs from Lebanon as a result of
the increasing influence of Hezbollah and the repeated assassination
of Christian leaders by Syria.
Mr. Carter also blames every American administration but his own for
the Mideast stalemate with particular emphasis on "a submissive White
House and U.S. Congress in recent years." He employs hyperbole and
overstatement when he says that "dialogue on controversial issues is a
privilege to be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior and
withheld from those who reject U.S. demands." He confuses terrorist
states, such as Iran and Syria, to which we do not extend dialogue,
with states with whom we strongly disagree, such as France and China,
but with whom we have constant dialogue.
And it's not just the facts; it's the tone as well. It's obvious that
Mr. Carter just doesn't like Israel or Israelis. He lectured Golda
Meir on Israeli's "secular" nature, warning her that "Israel was
punished whenever its leaders turned away from devout worship of God."
He admits that he did not like Menachem Begin. He has little good to
say about any Israelis -- except those few who agree with him. But he
apparently got along swimmingly with the very secular Syrian
mass-murderer Hafez al-Assad. Mr. Carter and his wife Rosalynn also
had a fine time with the equally secular Arafat -- a man who has the
blood of hundreds of Americans and Israelis on his hands:
Rosalynn and I met with Yasir Arafat in Gaza City, where he was
staying with his wife, Suha, and their little daughter. The baby,
dressed in a beautiful pink suit, came readily to sit on my lap, where
I practiced the same wiles that had been successful with our children
and grandchildren. A lot of photographs were taken, and then the
photographers asked that Arafat hold his daughter for a while. When he
took her, the child screamed loudly and reached out her hands to me,
bringing jovial admonitions to the presidential candidate to stay at
home enough to become acquainted with is own child.
There is something quite disturbing about these pictures.
"Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" is so biased that it inevitably
raises the question of what would motivate a decent man like Jimmy
Carter to write such an indecent book. Whatever Mr. Carter's motives
may be, his authorship of this ahistorical, one-sided, and simplistic
brief against Israel forever disqualifies him from playing any
positive role in fairly resolving the conflict between Israel and the
Palestinians. That is a tragedy because the Carter Center, which has
done much good in the world, could have been a force for peace if
Jimmy Carter were as generous in spirit to the Israelis as he is to
the Palestinians.
This article originally appeared in the NY Sun.
PS Jimmy Carter e' lo stesso genio delle trattative con la Corea del
Nord, lo hai dimenticato?
Author Biography:
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter professor of law at
Harvard Law School and author of The Case for Israel.
 
Ciao
Nicola
--
"Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence."


A parte che dovreste vergognarvi ambedue, qui hai veramente sballato.
Evidentemente tu hai dimenticato che Jimmy Carter è lo stesso 'imbecille'
degli accordi di pace fra Israele ed Egitto, uno dei pochi veri successi
della diplomazia americana nella zona. Che sia oggetto degli attacchi di un
propagandista come Dershowitz, entusiasta fautore dell'avventura irakena è
solo un titolo di merito. Malemalemalemale...
Moritz Benedikt
'L'intuizione estetica è come la divinazione delle armonie e dei rapporti
che collegano le forme all'universo' - Enzo Paci
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://arianna.libero.it/usenet/

 Nord, lo hai dimenticato?
sempre discorsi del cazzo.
E il tuo Dershowitz e' un fanatico ebreo, difensore, fra l'altro, di O.J.
Simpson nell'omicidio di sua moglie...
Il tuo articolo peraltro conferma quello che ho appena scritto.
-- 
www.iaciners.org

A parte che dovreste vergognarvi ambedue,
Perfetto.
Il senso era quello.



E allora perchè aggiungere una malevola sciocchezza su Carter?


E allora perchè aggiungere una malevola sciocchezza su Carter?
"Malevola sciocchezza"?
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/12/164726.shtml
http://www.davidstuff.com/incorrect/goldberg3.htm
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3093
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2006/10/jimmy_carters_omission_on_nort.html



Il bello di Google: qualsiasi sciocchezza uno voglia sostenere trova un
mucchio di links che lo fanno al suo posto. No thinking or skills required.
Certo, se tu te li leggessi tutti e facessi un riassunto di, diciamo, 200
parole...
Comunque non stai migliorando la tua posizione.


Comunque non stai migliorando la tua posizione.
Eh, questi abusati trucchetti dialettici...



Appunto, dovresti smettere.


Appunto, dovresti smettere.
Un altro? :-/


 E il tuo Dershowitz e' un fanatico ebreo, 
Di te si puo' dire che sei un fanatico cattolico?