Posted on 04/28/2002 4:51:22 PM PDT by kattracks
Former president Jimmy Carter, who engineered the lasting peace in the Israel-Egypt quagmire, has recently emerged as a vocal proponent of getting tough with Israel by threatening its U.S. aid and demanding that U.S.-supplied weapons be used only defensively. However, Mr. Carter has a track record with the Arab world that lends the appearance of being short of neutral in the heated Middle East debate.It was the Carter Center and the National Democratic Institute that joined to put the seal of legitimacy on the first elections ever by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in January 1996. Voters, who turned out in droves, elected Yasser Arafat president, and he has been in power ever since.
In 1990 Carter ghostwrote a speech for Arafat, hoping to polish the Palestinian leader’s tarnished image as, at best, soft on terrorism. Arafat won the Nobel Peace prize for the Oslo Accords.
In 1989 President Carter interceded with Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin on behalf of activist Terry Boullata, a field worker for the Palestinian Human Rights Information Center. Boullata had been imprisoned in November 1987 for allegedly belonging to a terrorist organization called the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Boullata was allowed out in 1989 to come to the United States for treatment of hepatitis.
Financing the Carter Center
But it’s the financing behind Georgia’s Carter Center and the Jimmy Carter Library that moves the former president most off the mark as appearing to be a wholly neutral intermediary in the troubled region.
NewsMax has reviewed annual reports that indicate millions of charitable dollars have flowed into the center from His Majesty Sultan Qaboss bin Said Al Said of Oman, Jordan; the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; and the Government of the United Arab Emirates.
Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been donated to the center by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development. H.R.H. Prince Moulay Hicham Ben Abdallah of Morocco has contributed tens of thousands.
There are no corresponding contributions apparent from Israeli sources.
As the center’s literature describes, "The Carter Center and the Jimmy Carter Library were built in large measure thanks to the early leadership and financial support of the Carter Center founders.” Three of those generous founders:
Agha Hasan Abedi
On July 5 1991, banking regulators targeted Abedi’s Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), triggering a worldwide financial tidal wave. To date, accountants and lawyers have managed to recoup (discounting fees) $7 billion out of the $12 billion money pit that fueled the BCCI fraud.
Agha Hasan Abedi, a banker and self-styled mystic on first-name terms with Carter, created BCCI in 1972. Abedi had charmed seed money from Arab sheikhs, organizing camel races and hunting trips. The Bank of America bought into BCCI as a way of buying access to the Middle East, holding a 30 percent stake at one point before dumping its holdings in the late-1970s.
His Majesty King Fahd of Saudi Arabia
Last month Saudi Arabia transferred $15.4 million in advance aid to the Palestinian Authority. The transfer was made to a controversial Arab League fund, a product of the recent Arab summit in Beirut. According to Arab spokesmen, the amount was fronted due to the dire plight of the Palestinian people as a result of "vicious Israeli aggression.”
King Fahd, Crown Prince Abdullah and Defense Minister Prince Sultan jointly donated $4.8 million to launch the fund pot, while Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz sent an estimated $800, 000 to the families of "155 Palestinian martyrs” killed in the current Israeli offensive.
Hasib J. Sabbagh
Sabbagh is the chairman of Consolidated Contractors Co. of Oman, Jordan. He is also the Senior Fellow for the Middle East of the Council on Foreign Relations. Founded in 1921, the Council on Foreign Relations is a membership organization contributing ideas to U.S. foreign policy. The Council publishes Foreign Affairs, a leading journal on global issues.
Individual, foundation, and corporate donors, together with multilateral development assistance programs, support the Carter Center’s current annual operating budget of around $30 million. Among the center’s priorities: promoting democracy, global development, human rights and conflict resolution.
Carter said he has spent much time raising money, but he hopes that a campaign to raise a $150 million endowment will lighten the load. Phil Wise, the center’s executive director for operations, said an estimated $110 million has already been raised for the endowment.
Carter on the Record
Although Carter strongly condemned suicide bombings and criticized Arafat for not being more aggressive in ending the spate of violence against Israel, he roundly lambasted Ariel Sharon for actions and attitudes, past and present:
"His rejection of all peace agreements that included Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands, his invasion of Lebanon, his provocative visit to the Temple Mount, the destruction of villages and homes, the arrests of thousands of Palestinians and his open defiance of President George W. Bush’s demand that he comply with international law have all been orchestrated to accomplish his ultimate goals: to establish Israeli settlements as widely as possible throughout occupied territories and to deny Palestinians a cohesive political existence,” Carter said in a recent New York Times piece.
"It is time for the United States, as the sole recognized intermediary to consider more forceful actions for peace,” Carter added. "The rest of the world will welcome this leadership.”
U.S. Leverage Over Israel
Carter also said that U.S. aid of $10 million a day should give the U.S. some leverage over Israeli policy, noting that former president George H. Bush had threatened to cut off this assistance in 1992 to discourage the building of Israeli settlements between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
Carter cited another factor that could accelerate Israel’s acceptance of Arab normalization with Israel in return for its withdrawal from territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war:
"One is the legal requirement that American weapons are to be used by Israel only for defensive purposes, a premise certainly being violated in the recent destruction in Jenin and other towns of the West Bank,” he said, noting this requirement was imposed by Richard Nixon to impede Israel’s military advance into Egypt during the 1973 Middle East war and used to deter Israeli attacks on Lebanon in 1979.
"I understand the extreme political sensitivity in America of using persuasion on the Israelis, but it is important to remember that none of the actions toward peace would involve an encroachment on the sovereign territory of Israel,” Carter acknowledged.
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A great article.
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