Carter says US seeks to cause division
By Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press | June 20, 2007
DUBLIN — Former president Jimmy Carter accused the United States, Israel, and the European Union yesterday of seeking to divide the Palestinian people by reopening aid to President Mahmoud Abbas’s new government in the West Bank while denying the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Carter, a Nobel Peace laureate who was addressing a human rights conference in Ireland, also said the Bush administration’s refusal to accept Hamas’s 2006 election victory was “criminal.”
Please share widely!
the bush administration just figured that if hamas (and thus gaza) were isolated and shut out from any diplomatic or economic channels to the outside world, that that would result in . . . . uummmm . . . the weakening of hamas?
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INCOMPETENT BLUNDER! AGAIN!
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so what is supposed to happen to the millions of gazans whose miserable conditions suddenly got dramatically worse and whose tiny overcrowded jobless land has been turned into a veritable prison? . . . ummmmm . . . . hadn’t really thought about that so much.
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(is this starting to sound eerily familiar?)
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if we ignore it’ll maybe go away. well it didn’t. the lid finally blew off of the cauldron. and who could be really shocked? what did people really think was going to happen when gaza and a million and a half people were completely cut off from any economic or humanitarian hope? that they would then be chastened and straighten up and fly right?
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constructive diplomacy may not have been a panacea. but could it be worse than the denial politics of ‘ignore it and maybe it’ll go away.’
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whether palestinian pariahs in gaza or poor black pariahs in new orleans, we’ve seen an american policy that says that if you don’t serve our interests, you can starve, or sleep out in the cold, or gun each other down, or whatever. just go away. we don’t want to know.
You can empathize with the Palestinian plight, criticize the Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and even Israel proper, and advocate for a two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict without getting confused about just what Hamas is. Here is Hamas in the recent words of its leaders. I pulled these from the Palestinian Media Watch website.
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1. “Oh warrior brothers, who stay put and withstand the [patience] test on the land of beloved Palestine. Do you know these Zionists, why they kill the children, the women and the men? This is the policy of the Zionist entity, this is a planned and organized policy. Their false Talmud, their false Torah, and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion call for the murder of children, women and men, and they want to implement them [the books] on the land of Palestine and Lebanon of today.”
[Sheikh Ahmad Bahar, PA TV, August 4, 2006]
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2. “This is Islam, that was ahead of its time with regards to human rights in the treatment of prisoners, but our people was afflicted by the cancerous lump, that is the Jews, in the heart of the Arab nation? Be certain that America is on its way to disappear, America is wallowing [in blood] today in Iraq and Afghanistan, America is defeated and Israel is defeated, and was defeated in Lebanon and Palestine? Make us victorious over the infidel people? Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies, Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies? Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don?t leave even one.”
[Sheikh Ahmad Bahar, PA TV, April 20, 2007]
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3. “The representative of the Legislative Council, Dr. Yussuf Al-Sharafi, of the ‘Change and Reform’ faction [Hamas], emphasized the option of Jihad and resistance to banish the thieves of the occupation, who longed to drink the blood of our massacred people… because the Jewish faith does not wish for peace nor stability, since it is a faith that is based on murder: ‘I kill, therefore I am’? Israel is based only on blood and murder in order to exist, and it will disappear, with Allah?s will, through blood and Shahids [martyrs].”
[Al-Risalah, Apr. 12, 2007].
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One of the things that USians fail to understand about “democracy” in other areas is that sometimes the residents of those other areas will elect governments that are anathema to some people in the US. Hamas was elected democratically, largely because Fatah was recognized as being thoroughly corrupt, but it was democratically elected. As was Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (we’ll see how that plays out).
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I’ve pretty much stopped paying attention to the Israel/Gaza/WestBank issue, largely because it became clear to me several years ago that nobody there really wants to do what is necessary to achieve some semblance of peace. The Israelis aren’t going to withdraw their settlements and occupation forces from the West Bank–which is a primary source of irritation–any time soon, so, who cares? Bitch and moan all you want about Palestinians throwing rocks at the Israeli occupiers, but the Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank are throwing bullets.
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Raj, you forgot Qassam rockets aimed at city centers, and suicide bomb attacks! And remember, Hamas?s constitution or platform (the ?Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement? calls for rejection of ?peaceful solutions,? ?international conferences? or any solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict except ?jihad.? Nor has participation in democratic politics softened Hamas?s position. As Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said after Hamas?s election victory:
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I for one take him at his word.
The fact remains, however, that none of the parties want peace, for the reasons that I have described. My only interest in the matter is the fact that my tax money is going to subsidize one side of the multi-sided conflict.
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I’m not going to pursue this, but I’ll just remind you that this quagmire in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan is nothing more than a manifestation of continual meddling by the West (Europe and more recently the USofA in the region. I’ll let you know, though, that I’m tired of having my tax money being wasted in the region.
King David controlled that land over 3,000 years ago. The land is occupied, but by Palistinians. If the present administration in the United States had done anything right, it is the support it has given Israel in monies and weapons to defend the Jewish Homeland.
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However, the present troubles give the lie to the Bush idea of removing Israeli settlements.
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If anything, there should be more settlements to force the squatters off the land. There is plenty of room in Arab countries. The problem was solved sixty years ago when Israel was created. Now we are still waiting for the implementation to complete.
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…thanks for admitting it.
“Ethnic cleansing” is a term referring to moving a certain group of people out of an area by force and threats. Israel has never done this and I am sure never would.
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The phrase does not pertain to people that move due to social and economic situations. Certainly the movement of Arabs to Arab land would be voluntary and in the best social and economic interests of the Arab Palistinians.
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You probably don’t understand, but the United Nations created Israel as a Jewish State, not Hindu, Buddist, Christian or Muslim. As such it has the right to be a Jewish State, the only one in the world. Other counties exist under the rules of their own religions. Israel needs that right also.
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You should read a posting a few times before responding. It might help you understand what you read. There are many reference volumes that are available online.
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Best of luck.
Perhaps English is not your primary language.
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Englisch ist meine Muttersprache, obwohl offensichtlicht vielleicht nicht Ihre.
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Your contention that “Ethnic cleansing” is a term referring to moving a certain group of people out of an area by force and threats is not only far too limiting, but also horse manure. “Ethnic cleansing” includes also making living conditions in occupied territories so difficult as to induce people indigenous to those occupied territories to leave. Making way, of course, for the occupiers. It might take decades if not centuries for the occupiers to get rid of the indigenous population, but that doesn’t suggest that the tactics used by the occupiers to get the indigenous population to leave isn’t ethnic cleansing.
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Further, your contention that Israel has never done this and I am sure never would, well, obviously it has.
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You probably don’t understand, but the United Nations created Israel as a Jewish State
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In point of fact, I do understand that. I also understand that the creation of Israel, much like the creation of Lebanon from the French mandate, and much like the creation of Iraq, and much like the creation of Afghanistan a century earlier (remember the “Great Game”?), were nothing more than a continuation of Western (European and more recently American) colonialism in the near and middle east. You don’t seem to understand that, do you? Or you don’t want to. And now the American Bush malAdministration wants to extend that to Iran.
I started to tune out news about Israel/Palestine after he Barak government (at least in the media) seemed to want to improve the situation — and then attacks and counter attacks increased to the point where it was just serving the local warmongers on both sides at the expense of the populations.
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I think the point of Jimmy Carter’s article is that the Bush administration is actively encouraging strife. This makes the issue more than just an insolvable foreign problem but is emblematic of our hostile role in the world under Bush. Also, Hamas has never been given a fair chance to govern. If they had an interdependant commerce relationship with Israel as the elected Palestinian government maybe the would be less adversarial.
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Unfortunately I think you are right about the Israeli government’s recalcitrance on the West Bank settlements.
…Totally, completely off topic, but a heads-up.
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Given the interest in recent months here in the sub-prime/high-risk lending market, I’ll merely note that this morning Hilzoy over at Obsidian Wings has a lengthy post about the effect of the current unravelling of the sub-prime lending market on the derivatives market.
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I check the US$ vs. Euro rate on a regular basis, and the US$ is at an all-time low. Correlation?