<p>
</p>
<p>Oh really? How come Japanese maps put the Dokdo Islands in Japanese territory, while Korean maps put it in Korean territory?</p>
<p>How about the Kashmir?</p>
<p>I don’t think that the Northern Irish would agree with you completely on this either.</p>
<p>Anyone who goes on Iranian National TV and toasts the Shah for his commitment to human rights, while funding torture equipment and training torturers in his home state is not someone I would likely consider to be trustworthy.</p>
<p>Citygirlsmom, the maps in question were specifically commissioned by Dennis Ross for his 2004 book on the Middle East peace process to illustrate proposals that were made by President Clinton to Israel and the Palestinians in order to define the borders of a proposed Palestinian state. These maps did not exist in any other context. Go to your local Borders bookstore, put Carter’s and Ross’ books side by side and you will see that Carter essentially copied Ross’ maps without attributing them to their source. This would be plagiarism. </p>
<p>But the issue of plagiarism is not the point! Carter’s more egregious offense is that he knowingly misrepresented what the maps depict, thereby distorting the truth in a significant way. He falsely labeled Ross’ map of the actual Camp David proposal as Israel’s “interpretation” of the Clinton proposal, making it appear that the Palestinians were not actually offered a proposal that was as good as it was, and that any claim to the contrary is only Israel’s interpretation. This blatant dishonesty impeaches Carter’s credibility.</p>
<p>You seem to be questioning why we should believe Ross’ version of what Arafat was offered and rejected over Carter’s version. Well, Ross was Clinton’s lead negotiator and a principal in constructing the proposal. When Clinton met with Arafat in the White House on January 2, 2001 to receive Arafat’s response to his final proposal for a peace settlement that would have led to the creation of a Palestinian state, Ross and Clinton were in the room. Carter was not. Both Ross and Clinton have described the proposal in the terms that I indicated in my earlier post. Arafat, to justify his rejection of the proposal, claimed that he was offered less than what Clinton and Ross say he was actually offered. Carter has chosen to echo Arafat’s version, rather than the documented truth. Whom do you believe, President Clinton and Dennis Ross who made the proposal, or Carter who chooses instead to parrot Arafat’s propaganda? What agenda do you think Ross has other than to set the record straight?</p>
<p>Well, Ross now works for Fox and for a Pro-Israe/Sharon think tank…you tell me</p>
<p>Look up the think tank he works for and gee Fox News…now neither is neutral nor are the without agendas…</p>
<p>I think that’s a stretch, CGM. What about Mr. Stein and the other academics? <a href=“Error 404 | Emory University | Atlanta GA”>Error 404 | Emory University | Atlanta GA;
<p>I still don’t get the fixation with Fox, I really don’t. As was posted above, this whole situation is just darn sad, mostly for Mr. Carter.</p>
<p>citygirlsmom…</p>
<p>From The Washington Post’s Book World/washingtonpost.com
Jimmy Carter tells a strange and revealing story near the beginning of his latest book, the sensationally titled Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. It is a story that suggests that the former president’s hostility to Israel is, to borrow a term, faith-based.
On his first visit to the Jewish state in the early 1970s, Carter, who was then still the governor of Georgia, met with Prime Minister Golda Meir, who asked Carter to share his observations about his visit. Such a mistake she never made.</p>
<p>“With some hesitation,” Carter writes, “I said that I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures and that a common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of God. I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of her Labor government.” </p>
<p>I’m going to repeat this part. This is my favorite part.</p>
<p>Carter writes, "I said that I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures and that a common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of God. I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of her Labor </p>
<p>I’m sure you agree with what Carter said.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal is reporting today (subscription only) that 14 members of the Carter Center board have resigned in connection with the new book. Do they all work for Fox and have an agenda?</p>
<p>I have tons of respect for Dennis Ross. I don’t believe Ross has any “Fox News” agenda, but I do believe he has an agenda to present the 2000 proposal Clinton put on the table (on which Ross labored mightily) as a viable, good-faith solution. I agree with him on that, by the way. It is also, unfortunately, the case that the Israelis have been guilty in the past of not living up to the spirit of agreements they have made – less guilty, probably, than the Palestinians, but guilty nonetheless – and that it is not a foregone conclusion that what Clinton, or even Rabin, intended was what a Sharon or a Netanyahu would implement.</p>
<p>As I understand it, though (not from citable sources), the story of the 2000 negotiations is even more tragic than Ross’ piece suggests. A plugged-in friend whose family is Israeli described the identical plan to me in 1996, in some detail. He was explaining (against my pessimism) how hopeful he was for the future, and how “everyone” (meaning Israeli and Palestinian insiders) knew what the final outcome of the negotiations would be (essentially, what we now call the Clinton proposal). The only question was how to get there politically, a problem for both the Israeli and Palestinian governments, not with each other but with their respective constituencies. At the time, he thought that great progress was being made, and that both peoples would be prepared to embrace the agreed-upon solution within a few years. Unfortunately, that never fully happened, and when Clinton (Ross) put “his” plan on the table in the waning days of his Presidency, it was something of a Hail Mary pass. He hoped that both sides would publicly embrace the solution they had been working towards privately for years, even though it was still politically premature. It didn’t work, then, but even today it probably remains the best hope for some kind of agreement. I don’t blame Dennis Ross at all for defending it, trying to keep it alive as a model.</p>
<p>I haven’t read Carter’s book, so I don’t know whether the map labelling (i.e., the suggestion that the Palestinians had legitimate concerns that the proposal would not create a state with enough contiguous territory) reflects what Carter wrote and his overall position, or whether it’s just a question of unfortunate map labelling.</p>
<p>I DO know that Carter is being demonized right and left for saying things publicly that lots of people believe privately but don’t have the guts to say.</p>
<p>That thing about questioning Golda Meir about secularism is weird, though, and an interesting reminder about what a faith-based guy Carter was at the time. One of the really unstable elements in the whole stew of things now is the Israelis’ embrace (and dare I say exploitation) of support from American Christian fundamentalists, even though some of the premises of that support are at odds with the very secular nature of the Israeli government.</p>
<p>We all know that the evangelicals want Israel only for their rapture. They cozy up to Israel for this reason only. The fact that Israel cozies back is pretty bizarre. I’d say that each group is exploiting the other.</p>
<p>“Do you know Ashkanazi Holocaust survivors…or Middle Eastern Jews forced out of their home countries (which were just as much home to them as Israel was to the Palestinians) who went to Israel? How many came because there was literally nowhere else to go?”</p>
<p>Unfortunately (and horribly), highly questionable:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.commoncouragepress.com/index.cfm?action=book&bookid=278[/url]”>http://www.commoncouragepress.com/index.cfm?action=book&bookid=278</a></p>
<p>Especially, read the interview link.</p>
<p>JHS, as Prime Minister in the late 90’s, Netanyahu fulfilled Israel’s commitments under Oslo, most notably the withdrawal from Hebron, even though he personally disagreed with them, found them painful, and was criticized by the right wing of his party. If Arafat had accepted the Clinton proposal rather than reverting to violence and terrorism, there would be an economically thriving Palestinian state today with East Jerusalem as its capital, and Sharon would never have been elected Prime Minister. Even after the Palestinians chose to renege on the Oslo Declaration of Principles and return to violence, Sharon as Prime Minister, set into motion Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, which the Palestinians have squandered by choosing to continue launching rockets, importing weapons, and planning suicide attacks rather than focusing on developing their own economic prosperity and civil society.</p>
<p>In your narrative of how the Clinton proposal failed, you are correct in stating that it was a Hail Mary pass at the end of Clinton’s term, but you are incorrect when you suggest that it failed because both sides could not get their constituencies on board. In fact, Israel’s Prime Minister Barak agreed to the proposal on December 27, 2000, the deadline set by Clinton, and the only reason that it failed was that even when Arafat was called to the White House on January 2, 2001 for a Bubba face-to-face, he was unwilling to close the deal. With apologies to citygirlsmom, Dennis Ross, who was in the room (with no Jimmy Carter in sight) describes it this way (The Missing Peace, pg. 13):</p>
<p>“If there had been any hope of an agreement, it was gone now… Arafat was not going to say yes under any circumstances. Seeing the President had made no difference… President Clinton had put unprecedented ideas on the table. Arafat had the best deal he could ever get. He could not get more and he had hit the proverbial wall. He could not wring out one more concession or gain one more tactical advantage. We had left the realm of tactics and we now had to face a strategic reality: Arafat could not do a deal that ended the conflict. Partial deals were possible because they did not require him to adopt any irrevocable positions. But a comprehensive deal was not possible with Arafat. Too much redefinition was required. He was not up to it. He could live with a process, but not with a conclusion.”</p>
<p>President Clinton, who is not a Fox commentator, corroborates Ross’ account of what was offered to both parties, who rejected it, and what the tragic consequences have been. The international community, including western Europe, the majority in Israel, and much of the Arab world, was shocked and bitterly disappointed by Arafat’s unwillingness to close the deal. Carter is not being demonized for saying things publicly that people believe privately but don’t have the guts to say, he is being criticized for saying things that factually are not true.</p>
<p>CGM, perhaps you are not sure who Dennis Ross is? For a second let us ignore his alledged links to Fox News and his work for a think thank that happens to be conservative. Lets focus on who Dennis Ross is and what Dennis Ross did.</p>
<p>Dennis Ross was the chief US negotiator during the Camp David talks. In other words, his job was to get a peace plan accepted by the Israelis and the Palestinians. To fulfill this job he and other government workers drew up a plan, this included documents and maps, and they proposed this plan to both Israelis and Palestinians. </p>
<p>Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, was the US president in the 1970’s. During the Camp David peace talks in 2000 President Carter could have been anywhere. He might have been at home in Georgia or on vacation in Tahiti, but where he wasnt, and we can be certain of this, is Camp David.</p>
<p>So Dennis Ross, Chief US negotiator, writes a book about why the peace talks failed. In the book he includes maps that he wrote and handed out to the Israeli and Palestinian sides. In the book he includes “scenes” that he experienced first hand. To put it in other words, Dennis Ross’s only adgenda was to put forth what happened. Had he not, Bill Clinton, who as far as we know does not work for Fox News or a conservative think-tank, might have spoken up against Ross. Bill Clinton never did. So it seems that we have to take the impartial word of someone who was at Camp David and not part of the Israeli or Palestinian Delegation.</p>
<p>Jimmy Carter also wrote a book. In President Carter’s book he used maps that Dennis Ross drew, labeled, and presented to the Israeli and Palestinian delegations. For reasons unknown to me, you, or anyone else, but perhaps Carter himself, Carter changed the labels on the map and presented them to his reader’s differently than Dennis Ross presented to the Israeli-Palestinian delegations.</p>
<p>Therein lies the problem. Jimmy Carter seems to have made something up.</p>
<p>A previous poster wrote this to start discussion about the actual book:</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>Bump…</p>