<p>Arab Jews? Are you referring to Mizrahim?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CARTER_BOOK?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US[/url]”>http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CARTER_BOOK?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US</a></p>
<p>Interesting how for thousand’s of years Jews were always the cause of everything. Blame the Jews for everything was popular for Christians, who killed Jews because they were “Jesus-killer”, for the Europeans, who killed Jews because they did not die from the Black Plague like the Europeans did, for the Russians, who killed Jews because they controlled the world, for the Germans, who killed the Jews because they imposed the Treaty of Versailles and created economic ruin in Germany, for the Communits, who killed Jews because they were doctors and Zionist spies, nd even for the Eastern governments who blame the tsunami from a few years ago on the Jews.</p>
<p>So now it comes as no surprise that Israel is the fault of many problems. As if Muslims in Iraq would stop killing eachother, if the Jews did not exist. As if there would never have been a civil war in lebanon or never have been the Iranian Revolution, or never have been the many Syrian coups. You would thin if the Jews never existed the Ottoman Turks would never have killed other Muslims. So if you want to, al a James Baker, think that if you solve the Israeli-Palestinian Arab problem there will be no more problems in Iraq or in Iran, you are wrong. </p>
<p>As for the anti-semitic assertions that Israel should be moved or should have been created in Europe, that may be one of the more ridiculous things I have heard come from the mouth of Ahmidenijad. Jews have lived in what is now Israel for thousands of years, since the 2nd Temple was destroyed, concentrated in cities like Tsfat, Jaffo, Jerusalem, Hebron and even Haifa. Their numbers fluctuated, often becoming very minimal, but what do you expect when the Jews were constnalt ostracized and killed. There is a historical and religious connection to the Land of Israel, and it was in the Jews’ right to immigrate there, and by 1948 it was their right to have their own country, altough it would have been nice a 10 yrs earlier. But, it was also right to have an Arab state next to Israel. Unforutnately, the Arabs did not want one for some reason.</p>
<p>As for, Misterflyer, your assertion that Arab Jews would move back into their former countries- all I have to answer to that is “never again” will Jews march to their deaths like they did in Europe. And by the way a large percentage of Israelis do not have dual citizenship with America.</p>
<p>But since the oiginal topic of this thread was Jimmy Carter’s books, I want to refocus the discussion. Instead of attacking or praising Jimmy Carter, to judge his book, I would like to actually talk about the book, something no one, I believe, has actually done yet. </p>
<p>So first lets deal with the title: Carter, himself, admitted to calling Israel aparthied because he wants to sell books, and in fat he believes Israel isnt aparthied, but in the grand scheme of things, how important is the title really?</p>
<p>A good way to judge a historical or non-fiction book is to initially look for factual innacuracies because if an author mixes up his facts, how can we possibly trust the conclusions that he comes to from those very mixed facts?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Carter asserts that violence between Jews and Palestinians begain in 1938, when Jewish militants attacked some Arabs. However, real violence actually began in 1929, with the massacre of 69 sephardi Jews in Hebron. </p></li>
<li><p>Carter asserts that Israel attacked Jordan first, in the 6 Day War; however, it was actually Jordan that attacked Israel first. This is important because had Jordan never attacked Israel in 1967, there is a strong possiblity that the West Bank and East Jerusalem, would have still belonged to Jordan.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Those, I feel are two of the most egregious factual errors in Mr Carter’s book. And again I pose the question can a conclusion based on wrong facts really be trusted?</p>
<p>Facts are not the only ways to judge a non-fictional book, the next thing to look for is omissions. The same concet applies, how can a conclusion be trusted when it ignores basic facts. So lets see what omission Mr. Carter makes:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Carter writes, “Christian and Muslim Arabs had continued to live in this same land since Roman times”. Yet Mr. Carter, forget that Jews have also lived there since Roman times.</p></li>
<li><p>Carter asserts that the Arabs always supported a two-state solution. He ommits that the Arabs rejected the 1938 Peel Commission recommendation, the 1948 partition, and have furthermore rejected many reccomendations, such as Counte Bernadottes reccomendation for a one-state solution witha bi-camreal house.</p></li>
<li><p>Carter repeatedly mentions UN Resolution 242. Carter ommits that Israel has complied with the resolution by returning 82% of the terriroty won in the 6 Day War and that the Arabs rejected UN Resoluion 242 in Khartum with the infamous “3 No’s” - No peace, no recognition, and no negotations.</p></li>
<li><p>Carter attacks Israel for destroying Iraq’s nucear reactor. I, personally, do not need to go further to explain howridiculous that is.</p></li>
<li><p>Mr. Carter ommits man acts of terrorism, such as the Munich massacre. In fact, his book does not really examine the impact of terrorism on the peace process.
So with these glarring omissions can his conclusion be trusted?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Well his conclusion essentially is that Israel is soley to blame for the lack of peace in the ME and that every presidancy, except his own, has made the problem worse.</p>
<p>But, remember, the facts his conclusion is based on, are simply incorrect.</p>
<p>Finally, Mr. Carter’s greatest blunder in this book: Mr. Carter makes the assertion that Israel, and not the Arabs, is to blame for the failure of the 2000-2001 Camp David and Taba peace talks. Unfotunately, according to President Clinton, who presided over the negotiations, and Dennis Ross, one of the chief negotiators, the Israelis accepted the proposal to create an Arab state on 95% of the West Bank with a capital in Jerusalem, and Yasser Arafat rejected the proposal. Furthermore, Saudi Prince Bandar, labeled Arafats rejection “a crime” and that Arafat’s accounts were " not truthful".</p>
<p>So here lies the dilemna. As readers we are now confronted with alternative versions of one event. Keeping in mind Carter’s previous mistakes in the book, and a conclusion based on these faulty mistakes, we must decide who to believe: Jimmy Carter, President in the 70’s, and Yasser Arafat, career terrorist, or President Bill Clinton and Dennis Ross, present during the negotiations.</p>
<p>We can break this down even more. Jimmy Carter takes his information from Yasser Arafat’s assertions and weighs that more heavily that Clinton’s eye-witness accounts. So in other words who do we believe Yasser Arafat or Bill Clinton?</p>
<p>So, now that these issues have been brought to light in this thread, what do you folks think? Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill or are his conclusions faulty and to be taken with a grain of salt?</p>
<p>Excellent opinion piece on the topic: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/12/16/jimmy_carter_vs_jimmy_carter/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/12/16/jimmy_carter_vs_jimmy_carter/</a></p>
<p>Mauser, your rants and raves belong on masada2000.org Check it out. I bet you’ll love it. Just because you think you’re right, I’ll give a line by line refutation of all that you have mentioned.</p>
<p>P.1. and P.2. I never claimed that solving the I/P issue would fix all the other problems, it could help though. And I NEVER claimed that Communists or Nazis or tsunamis or w/e. So what a wonderful technique you have. You assume I say something, and then you argue against it that mythical saying. Wonderful. </p>
<p>P.3. It’s not anti-Semitic, its anti-Zionistic. I know Israel Apologists want to confuse the two, to stifle opposition, but as this is the last place where AIPAC isn’t controlling, it won’t work here. And yes, there were Jews living in what it is today known as “israel”, but I am speaking about the mass immigration of Eastern European and Russian Jews who’s ancestors haven’t been in Israel since god knows when. Sure, they may have had a historical connection , 2000 years ago, but that doesn’t mean they can displace the people who lived there. Can the Italians claim what was the Roman Empire? Can the Mongols reclaim Asia? What you say is ridiculous. The Jews having a right to a country? Maybe? Probably because of the Holocaust, but again, that’s the German Holocaust. So move it to Berlin, boy.</p>
<p>My last assertion about the Arabic jews. Remind me Europe, Holocaust, Arabic Jews. I am sorry, but every Jew in the world can’t complain about the Holocaust. Especially, not American or Arabic ones that weren’t even there. Could white people ask for reparations after 9-11 if they weren’t living in New York? Come on.
Even the link between the Holocaust and the creation of Zionist entity can be deemed a false connection. There have been many quotes from Ben-Gurion that he had a contempt for the Jews who stayed in Europe and could care less about them because they did not emigrate out of Europe. That is backed up by the fact that Begin and his group were negotiating with Nazis till 1939.</p>
<p>misterflyer1997,</p>
<p>Why is it the Jews’ fault that the Brits decided to have a guilty conscience? Well, them and the French.</p>
<p>Why should the Jews give up willingly what was pretty much given to them by the UN?</p>
<p>Please let us hear from people who have visited the occupied territories and spent time with Palestinians.</p>
<p>So what are the Conservative opinions/options?</p>
<h1>46. Examine your question and you hear the answer,
.</h1>
<p>In 1000words or less: Explain…
Who controlled the UN in the late 40’s?
Who opposed the formation of a “Homeland”
Who favored the “Homeland”
What do you currently believe the longterm situation will be. How realistic?</p>
<p>Well, to say that Jews displaced the Arabs is a very interesting claim. As such, it all depends on what the definition of displacement is. Lets cast aside the Jews that already lived in Palestine, and focus on those that escaped as refugees from Europe in the first Aliyah and then ultimately the following ones. Those Jews bought arid, marsh, swamp, unfarmable land for highly inflated prices from Syrian landlords. Then the Jews who rightfully purchased the land built cities such as Rishon Letzion, Petah Tikva, Tel Aviv, and employed Arab tenant farmers. Moreover, because of the Jewish precense in Western Palestine, the region flourished, economically, agriculturally, politically etc. Arabs began to emigrate from Eastern Palestine to Western Palestine because of the higher standard of living in that portion of the region. The Jews, in the face of opression, pogroms, and genocide, were even limited in their immigration to Palestine because of British limitations. In fact, the British put a cap on how much land Jews could legally purchase. Then it must be taken into account that Palestine, itself was so underdeveloped and desolete and barren, that when the Jews arrived, they were not taking over cities or razing Arab cities and building Jewish ones, but they were actually building a new country. Irrespective of that in 1937 the Peel Commission offered a two state solution. A non-contigious Israel and a contigious Arab state. The Arabs in Western Palestine, with no aspirations for independance, rather with an aspiration for the region to be Judenrien and a part of Syria, rejected the propsal. In 1947, the table were slightly turned. Chaim Weizmann, Israeli 1st President was known to say that this was not an issue of right or wrong but one between “the greated and the lesser injustice”. He was right. This time the Jews were offered a contigious state, based on UN census numbers which verified a Jewish majority in those parts. The Arabs were offered a non-contigious state where there was an Arab majority. The Jews accepted, the Arabs rejected. The Jews recieved their state. The Arabs did not recieve an addition Arab state. The subsequent 1948 war, started by the Arabs, led Israel to capture more land in a defensive war, land that is permissible to own under international law. Meanwhile, the land allocated for a seperate Arab state, was annexed by Jordan (West Bank), Egypt (Gaza), and Syria, (Golan). Land allocated for international control, Jerusalem, was annexed by the Jordanians. In those years, the Arabs living in those regions made little noise if any noise about independance. The issue of displacement is, as I earlier mentioned, very interesting, and so I would like to quote the first Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion. To preface, I would like to say, that unfortunately 650,000 Arabs did have to flee their homes. I would also like to say that the United Nations defintion of a refugee would never apply for a large portion of these; however, the UN made up a second definition of a refugee which ONLY applies for these Arabs. And Finally, I would like to say the 550,000-600,000 Jews were forced out of their homes in Arab countries during the Israeli War of Independance. Now to quote the Prime Minister “As for the return of the Arabs, not only that one should prevent their return…War is war…and those who declared war upon us will have to bear the consequences after they have been defeated” </p>
<p>Later Ben Gurion issued a more offical policy:
“When the Arab States are ready to conclude a peace treaty with Israel with question [of refugees] will come up for constructive solution as part of the general settlement, and with due regard to our counter-claims in respect to the destruction of Jewish life and property, the long-term interest of the Jewish and Arab populations, the stability of the State of Israel and the durability of the basis of peace between it and its neighbors, the actual position and fate of the Jewish communities in the Arab countries, the responsibilities of the Arab governments for their war of agression and their liability for reparation, will all be relevant in the question wherer, to what extent, and under what conditions, the former Arab residents of the territory of Israel should be allowed to return”</p>
<p>The argument is very logical and in accordance with law. Incidentally, 40,000 Arabs returned to their homes after the Israeli War of Independance.</p>
<p>This ofcourse was a precedented stance. The Greeks and Turks did the same thing in 1922-1923.</p>
<p>Itsoomcuh, The UN was not as it is now so much controlled by a large Arab and Muslim bloc, but by US, Britain, France, USSR, China. </p>
<p>But for Israel to be a country it had to pass a 2/3 vote in the UN General Assembly. There were 46 nations in the UN. 33 of them voted to create Israel. With the exception of Cuba and Greece all 13 were either Muslim or Asian countries.</p>
<p>But this thread is about Jimmy Carter’s book. In my previous post I made some points on his book. Does anyone want to still discuss them, or has the thread moved on beyond Jimmy Carter’s books?</p>
<p>itstoomuch,</p>
<p>I don’t get it. Are you implying that they should… or that they shouldn’t? And why not just call me by my name?</p>
<p>Ari ,I WILL reply to you by name, I am not sure of Pol. Sci kids aren’t supposed to take history classes, but you’ve definitely rewritten history. In post #46, you completely manipulate history. The U.N., through England and France, did not create Israel because of some sympathy and force the Jews upon the land. Ben-Gurion was trying to start a Zionist entity long before the Holocaust and British forces were combating the Ashkenazi terrorists. See King David bombing. And Plus, you kind of proved my point. Western countries did want to create a Jewish state IN Palestine so they could get rid of the “Jewish Problem” << Europe’s word’s not mine. Basically, putting the Jewish problem on another group of people.</p>
<p>In response to Post #50, you completely gloss over my points and just write what ever you’ve been told to believe by elders who should know better. Its clear what you’ve written has been copy and posted without a thought to intelligence. First of all, the Peel Commission was rejected by both sides. <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peel_Commision[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peel_Commision</a></p>
<p>Second, I could care less who cultivated what land. California’s economy is more prosperous than many midwestern states. Could Californians immigrate at a large scale to Montana and “make the desert bloom” and then annex the state as part of California. Of course not. You have not yet delivered a justification for why there should be a Zionist entity in Palestine. I see no point in discussing the cultivation of land or the Peel Commission. The discussion of this topics is from the premise that there should be a Jewish state there, and I see no reason there should have been or should still be.</p>
<p>Let’s just unload all of America, and send all of us folks back to our original countries too, shall we? The “United States entity” has been foisted on Native American land for too long. The only way for the Native Americans to get their land back, is to have the current American populace relocated elsewhere.</p>
<p>Get to work, MrFlyer. This is a big undertaking, and someone with your brains and nohow ought to have a great solution.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I disagree. I think that if you look at the progression of both what was said and when things were done, there seems to be a vein of guilt over inaction during the Holocaust and past treatment of Jews in the respective European nations otherwise.</p>
<p>I think that this, in part, is why Europeans are so much more emotional about Holocaust denial than Americans. They harbor much more deep feelings of guilt than Yanks do about the progression of Jewish treatment in the region.</p>
<p>
Can we just give them California? ;)</p>
<p>UCLAri: I really don’t have an opinion on this topic and nothing other importance has cropped up. The problem is complicated and often times the negotiations that this fractionus region depends on precise and exact wordings. Your verbage “prety much” leaves a lot open for discussion. </p>
<p>I do have an opinion how the current civilization as we know it will end. It will end essentially over “religion”.</p>
<p>“I do have an opinion how the current civilization as we know it will end. It will end essentially over “religion”.”</p>
<p>Yes, and/or global climate change.</p>
<p>^ We should live too long to see the dramatic global climate change.</p>
<p>Comparing the situation of US to Israel is a deceptive analogy.</p>
<p>The conquest of the America’s began half a century and not even a percent of the native population is even alive. </p>
<pre><code>The invasion and occupation of Palestine began about 55 years ago and the native population is still alive and suffering.
</code></pre>
<p>UclaAri, so let me get this straight. England, France, and Germany were upset that THEIR countries had rampant Anti-Semitism and that one of the THEIR European countries wiped off 4-6 million Jews so they gave away SOMEONE ELSE’s land to make up for it. Hmmm. Am I the only one that that doesn’t make sense to.</p>