JIMMY CARTER

Here are a couple of letters I've written to local
papers concerning Carter's controversial meeting
with a Hamas leader. To The Oregonian, I
wrote: "It's interesting to compare your 4/22/08
editorial denigrating Jimmy Carter and his latest
peace efforts, to the editorial on Carter in Haaretz
(4/14/08). Israel's leading paper (often critical of
its government's policies) is appreciative of Carter's
efforts, sees them as positive, and lauds him for
his wisdom, dedication to peace, and integrity, all
of which you call into question. Maybe they know
something we don't?"

To the Albany Democrat-Herald I wrote: "A car-
toon in the Democrat-Herald of 4/23/08 showed
Jimmy Carter handing Israel a bomb from Hamas.
This implied either 1) Carter is helping terrorists
attack Israel, or 2) He's too dumb to know what
he is doing. These are both opinions pushed by
the Israel lobby here in the U. S. and commonly
parroted by the mainstream press. In contrast,
Haaretz, the leading paper in Israel ran an edi-
torial (www.haaretz.com) on 4/14/08 thanking
Carter for his many efforts over the years in
behalf of peace, and for his long friendship with
Israel. It noted that he deservedly received the
Nobel Peace Prize for those efforts. It justly
lauded him for his wisdom, dedication, and
integrity as an honest broker. Who do you
suppose knows the situation better: our press
or theirs?

Carter is right, of course, in insisting that any
meaningful peace talks between Israel and the
Palestinians must include the legally elected
heads of the Palestinian government. Haaretz,
and in fact, most Israelis agree with that, but
not their government.

It should be noted that our (and Israel's) charge
that Hamas is led by terrorists falls on deaf ears
in the Muslim world. They are required by their
religion to resist by any available means the
illegal occupation of Muslim lands by non-Muslims.
Which right, of course, we reserve for ourselves.
We were struck on 9/11 and immediately struck
back in force. Does that make us terrorists?

If terrorism is defined as violence employed against
civilians to achieve political objectives, then Israel
has been using it longer and more savagely against
the Palestinians than vice verse. If you are interes-
ted in the history, see Edward W. Said's The
Question of Palestine (for the short version), or
Sami Hadawi's masterpiece, Bitter Harvest, for the
full treatment. Both writers are (or were) exiled
Palestinians and are now deceased. They were
scholars of international repute and impeccable
integrity. Said had a long, distinguished academic
career, and taught at both Harvard and Columbia.

"Terrorism" is a meaningless political label used to
refer to enemies. Israel delivers its U. S. made
bombs in U. S. made and supplied planes and
rockets, so we don't consider that "terrorism."
But of course it is, just the same. There is no
difference morally between bombs delivered by
air-mail, and those hand carried and delivered
in person. Carter condemns both equally, and
rightly so, and for that he is vilified. Yes, sports
fans, we are aiding and abetting Israeli terrorism
just as much as Iran aids and abets Hamas. We
need to get honest and get real if we want to
really solve anything.

Carter is reviled by the Israel lobby because he
called what Israel is doing in the West Bank
"apartheid." Bishop Tutu visited the West Bank,
and said, "this is apartheid." Tutu knows it when
he sees it. Israel has long been at work dividing
the West Bank into separate, disconnected Bantu-
stans. They are like the native reservations we
set aside for our own version of apartheid as
Europeans settled this continent and dispossessed
the natives. That's exactly what is happening, and
has been happening in Palestine since 1945, and
it has always been going on with our full knowledge
and complicity. That's what the Rev. Wright was
talking about! His language was wrong, but his
facts and values were straight. Straight from the
Old Testament.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net