Israel's colonisation of Palestine blocking peace, says Jimmy Carter

Guardian ^ | March 18, 2006 | Chris McGreal

[ncountylee]

The former US president Jimmy Carter has described Israel's "colonisation of Palestine" through expanding Jewish settlements as the single greatest obstacle to a resolution of the conflict. Mr Carter, 81, who negotiated the 1978 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt, wrote in the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz yesterday that Israel's actions doom any Palestinian state to a "dismal" future and will perpetuate violence across the Middle East. "The pre-eminent obstacle to peace is Israel's colonisation of Palestine," he wrote. "Israel's occupation of Palestine has obstructed a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land, regardless of whether Palestinians had no formalised government, one headed by Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, or with Abbas as president and Hamas controlling the parliament and cabinet."

Mr Carter also questioned Israel's commitment to the US-led "road map" peace process. "Israel has officially rejected its basic premises with patently unacceptable caveats and prerequisites," he said.

He said Israel was insincere at peace negotiations during the 1990s when it offered to withdraw only a small proportion of the 225,000 settlers living in the West Bank. "Their best official offer to the Palestinians was to withdraw 20% of them, leaving 180,000 [Israelis] in 209 settlements, covering about 5% of the occupied land," he said.

"The 5% figure is grossly misleading, with surrounding areas taken or earmarked for expansion, roadways joining settlements with each other and to Jerusalem, and wide arterial swaths providing water, sewage, electricity and communications. This intricate honeycomb divides the entire West Bank into multiple fragments, often uninhabitable or even unreachable."

This week the acting Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said that if he wins this month's general election, as expected, he will annex the main settlement blocks that are home to about 80% of settlers.|

[Salem]

LOL!!   You're probably right.

[Nevermore]

Someone's writing this stuff for him.

I have a hunch that you are exactly right. It explaines a lot to hypothesize that:
Jimmah's gone soft in the haid, completely senile.
His family saw an opportunity and sold his (considerable) mouth to Arabs who feather the family nest.
They write the script, give it to Billy,
then Billy props his dottering brother up and hands him a script of propoganda to read.

What educated man in his right mind spouts stuff and nonsense like this!?

[GaryMontana]

Jimmy Carter would only be happy when all the Jews are dead. Jimmy Carter is a neo-Nazi who hates the West, hates Jews and as far as I am concerned no better than David Duke -- maybe worse.

[kenavi]

You, Hilter and the Sand-Nazi's all agree.

How ridiculous.

[kenavi]

Reread the Book of Joshua. Notice what God commanded.

He said to wipe out the inhabitants, but they were still around centuries later. One of their descendants was the Prophet Jeremiah. The sages didn't consider this a bad thing. Do you?

[MarkL]

Has Jimmy Carter ever been right in his life about anything? While he was president, I thought he was just stupid. But having watched him since, it's hard not to conclude that it's some sort of deep malice of the worst kind.

Was there ever a dictator, a terrorist, or a Communist, whom he didn't love?

Well, he certainly did a wonderful job, working on behalf of Clinton and Albright, with North Korea, in brokering a deal that would ensure peaceful nuclear power for NK... And managed to guarentee that they got nuclear weapons. I wonder why nobody mentioned that little tidbit in the Nobel Prize announcement. Well done, Mr. Peanut!

Mark

[American in Israel]

Yes it is ridiculous, but it is also true. It is the same doctrine.

[Convert from ECUSA]

Aw jeeze.....Jimmuh again! Neck and neck with King Ahab Willie as to which is a bigger disgrace to the South! The type of fool any good Southerner would have said to Sherman "take this sorry fool....puleeeeeeeeeze!" Jimmuh has halitosis of the soul, he's the poster boy for what happens to the brain when one does not get enough fiber in the diet! The only thing he's useful for is serving as the screen door on the nuclear sub that is named after him (which was a dumb-@#$ move by the US Navy)!