Posted on 01/30/2007 11:07:30 AM PST by dennisw
Jimmy Carter’s Jewish Problem
For those with eyes to see, there were hints as far back as the 1976 presidential campaign of the trouble to come. Early that year, Harper’s magazine published “Jimmy Carter’s Pathetic Lies,” a devastating exposé of Carter’s record in Georgia by a then little-known journalist named Steven Brill.
Reg Murphy, who as editor of the Atlanta Constitution had kept a close eye on Carter’s rise in state politics, declared, “Jimmy Carter is one of the three or four phoniest men I ever met.”
Speechwriter Bob Shrum quit the Carter campaign after just a few weeks, disgusted with what he described as Carter’s penchant for fudging the truth. He also related that Carter, convinced the Jewish vote in the Democratic primaries would go to Senator Henry (“Scoop”) Jackson, had instructed his staff not to issue any more statements on the Middle East.
“Jackson has all the Jews anyway,” Shrum quoted Carter as saying. “We get the Christians.”
Relations between Carter and Israel were tense from the outset of the Carter presidency. Carter’s hostility was evident to Israeli foreign minister Moshe Dayan, who in his memoir Breakthrough described a July 1977 White House meeting between Carter and Israeli officials. “You are more stubborn than the Arabs, and you put obstacles on the path to peace,’’ an angry Carter scolded Dayan and his colleagues.
“Our talk,” Dayan wrote, “lasted more than an hour and was most unpleasant. President Carter ... launched charge after charge against Israel.”
On October 1, 1977, the U.S. and the Soviet Union unexpectedly issued a joint statement on the Middle East calling for an Arab-Israeli peace conference in Geneva, with the participation of Palestinian representatives. The communiqué marked the first time the U.S. officially employed the phrase “legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”
Reaction in the U.S. was immediate and furious. “[A] political firestorm erupted,” wrote historian Steven Spiegel. “After American officials had worked successfully for years to reduce Russian influence over the Mideast peace process and in the area as whole, critics could not understand why the administration had suddenly invited Moscow to return.”
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who five years earlier had expelled thousands of Soviet military advisers from Egypt, neither liked nor trusted the Russians, and decided to kill the U.S.-Soviet initiative in the womb. His decision to go to Jerusalem to address the Knesset electrified the world and caught the Carter administration completely off guard.
Eventually the U.S. would broker what became known as the Camp David Accords and oversee the signing of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. But Carter was far from a dispassionate third party. His disdain for Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and near hero-worship of Sadat were clearly reflected in his demeanor and has informed nearly everything he’s written on the Middle East since leaving office.
In The Unfinished Presidency, his book about Carter’s post-White House activities, the liberal historian Douglas Brinkley provides a detailed account of the former president’s obsession with helping Palestinian terror chief Yasir Arafat polish his image. Carter, according to Brinkley, regularly advised Arafat on how to shape his message for Western journalists and even wrote some speeches for him.
Carter was also a vocal critic of Israeli policies and “view[ed] the unarmed young Palestinians who stood up against thousands of Israel soldiers as ‘instant heroes,’ ” wrote Brinkley. “Buoyed by the intifada, Carter passed on to the Palestinians, through Arafat, his congratulations.”
Former New York mayor Ed Koch, in his 1984 bestseller Mayor, recounted a conversation he had shortly before the 1980 election with Cyrus Vance, who’d recently resigned as Carter’s secretary of state. Koch told Vance that many Jews would not be voting for Carter because they feared “that if he is reelected he will sell them out.”
“Vance,” recalled Koch, “nodded and said, ‘He will.’ ”
In Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship, Andrew and Leslie Cockburn revealed that during a March 1980 meeting with his senior political advisers, Carter, discussing his fading reelection prospects and his sinking approval rating in the Jewish community, snapped, “If I get back in, I’m going to [expletive] the Jews.”
Carter – such was the country’s good fortune – did not get back in. But as evidenced by his years of pro-Palestinian advocacy, reams of anti-Israel op-ed articles, and the release last week of his latest book/screed, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, he’s been trying to [expletive] the Jews ever since.
It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel
Jimmy Carter
Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, page 213Well, I don’t really consider, I wasn’t equating the Palestinian missiles with terrorism. But when the Palestinians commit terrorist acts, and I mean when a person blows himself up within a bus full of civilians, or when the target of the operation is women and children – such acts create a rejection of the Palestinians among those who care about them. It turns the world away from sympathy and support for the Palestinian people. That’s why I said that acts of terrorism like I just described are suicidal for the popularity and support for the Palestinian cause.
Jimmy Carter
Al-Jazeera, 1-14-07Cyrus Vance…confirmed to then-New York mayor Ed Koch that Carter, if reelected, would "sell out" the Jews
Jimmy Carter shortly before the 1980 election…at a March 1980 meeting with his senior political advisers, angrily snapped, "If I get back in, I`m going to f--- the Jews."
Jimmy Carter, March 1980…had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution
Jimmy Carter, 12-1-2003
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Sometimes 'piling on' is a good thing.
This is one of those times.
" I will curse them that curse thee."..........Jimmy's gonna get a huge wake-up call one morning from Upstairs.......
Honestly, that just doesn't surprise me.
If I remember rightly, Vance resigned because the attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran offended him (not that it was bungled, but that it was tried). I would hesitate to rely on him as a witness.
Dhimmi Carter bemoans that he is called anti Semite these days. I say "If the shoe fits, wear it"
I say he's been anti Semitic and dismissive of Israel for years. He cares only about the Arabs who fund his Carter Presidential Center
Carter stupidly or evilly (probably both) calls for Israel to give up the Golan Heights and all territories and this will give them peace with the Arabs. This translates into Carter being anti Jewish because destroying Israel is anti Jewish, anti Semitic if you will
Ever since his book came out, I'd say the reverse is true. That'll teach him a lesson, huh?
It's been there since about halfway through that idiot's term. And to think I bugged my Dad to vote for jimmah! He wouldn't do it though, and he was right!
This I've never been called an antisemite is a bunch of whining. It goes back to his first Presidential campaign. As the Brandeis paper notes, he's lying.
In '76, Brandeis pres told Jews not to dislike Carter
Over three decades ago, former President Jimmy Carter turned to Brandeis to gain favor with the American Jewish community.
As intense media attention focuses on Carter's recent visit, Prof. Robert Greenberg (PHIL) said it's important to remember Carter was not entirely truthful when he said last Tuesday he had never been accused of anti-Semitism.
In a letter to the editor of The New York Times last week, Greenberg wrote, "This is neither the first time Mr. Carter faced the charge of anti-Semitism nor the first time he turned to Brandeis to bail him out."
Greenberg wrote that Carter faced accusations of anti-Semitism during his 1976 campaign for President. To clear his name, he sought assistance from his friend, former University President Morris Abram, who served from 1968-1970.
Abram wrote an op-ed in The New York Times on June 5, 1976 defending Carter. He encouraged Jews not to view Carter as intolerant simply because of his Evangelical Baptist beliefs.
He was the best Georgia governor, Abram wrote, because he was the first one to recognize that he governed over all races.
Abram wrote that he was impressed with Carter's record as governor, particularly with his appointment of a Jewish friend to be chairman of the Georgia University system.
-Miranda Neubauer
There was a point when I would have donated time and effort to Habitat for Humanity. Now, I know better.
All the lefties up here in Canada love him. It is truly stomach churning to have to listen to them bleat on and on about this fool. Yet mention Reagan, who brought down the Soviets, and they react like you're the anti-Christ. Truly amazing.
>>Dec. 1, 2003 in Geneva............. Jimmy Carter: "Had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution."<<
Jinkies!
If I never disliked the man I sure do loath him now.
That give me chills.
You can sure tell that the Jews are the chosen people! How many bullets can one group dodge without help from above?
They are relatively harmless. Carter's reputation would be much better if he had not ventured forth from nail pounding for Habitat. Back then I viewed him as an ex-President rehabilitating himself. Now I know Dhimmi Carter as evil and stupid, same as during his Presidency
The night manager of the motel I stayed at in Carlsbad NM, told me her neighbor was quiet until they built some Habitat for Humanity homes behind her. Now the alley is full of trash and the police visit 3 or 4 times a week to stop fights. One house is now vacant as the people couldn't keep a job.
Jimmuh can go kiss the south end of a northbound mule.
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