Finn, you do know that the 1979 Peace treaty is a separate action from the 1978 Camp David accords, right?
Tom, you do know that the 1979 Peace Treaty was, in fact, based on the Camp David Accords and was most certainly not a separate action?
You do know that it did, in fact, specifically reference Camp David as the “framework” for the Peace Treaty?
You do know that the Peace Treaty was entirely designed “in order to implement the “Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty Between Egypt and Israel”;”, right?
You do know that both the 1979 treaty and Camp David were based on UNSC 242, which carter claims was violated, right?
Tom, you do know that if Camp David was the entire basis and framework of the 1979 treaty, and Camp David was defaulted on, then the 1979 treaty was defaulted on, right?
You do know that by Carter’s explicit logic, Israel defaulted on Camp David partially because “Menahem Begin also signed the Camp David Accords, which include specifically United Nations Resolution 242. And one of the phrases in there confirms the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force and also requires Israel to withdraw from occupied territories. Those commitments, freely made by Prime Minister Begin and approved by the Israel government at the time, have not been honored,”, right?
You do know that by the same exact logic, the 1979 treaty makes reference to the exact same resolution and thus, for the exact same reasons, would have been violated, right?
Come on.
Speaking of which, I take it that we now back to being allowed to critique how other posters are presenting their arguments?
Well, Carter’s had his meeting with Meshaal.
He then had another meeting with the king of Jordan, which generally supports the Palestinians but is not on good terms with Hamas.
Come on, yourself.
A Treaty that has a “framework” from an earlier agreement, even if it is “based on” that earlier agreement is not the same thing as the agreement (unless you are going to point to explicit language in the Camp David Accords that was repeated in the Egypty/Israel Peace Trety that Israel has now violated?).
You have been doing a pretty good job of demonstrating Carter’s odd views toward Israel, here, but unless you can show the explicit langauge in the Peace Treaty that Israel has violated, your specific point in the post to which I responded simply does not make your case that Carter contradicted himself in two interviews less than 24 hours apart.
In what way? I pointed out an error in your facts and logic; I don’t care how you present it.
If you are referring to elucidator’s cheap shot: he made no criticism; he simply made a lame and easily ignored attempt at a joke.
First, your earlier comment was not that it was the “same thing” (neither was that my contention), you claimed that they were “seperate actions”. And yet, the 1979 treaty specifically says it is not only not a seperate action, it is in fact designed in order to implement the CDA.
Now, let’s do away with generalities of “a treaty” and “earlier agreement”, and focus on specifics instead.
The Framework for Peace in the Middle East (the CDA) specifically states that "Taking these factors into account, the parties are determined to reach a just, comprehensive, and durable settlement of the Middle East conflict through the conclusion of peace treaties based on Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 in all their parts. "
Carter claims that Israel defaulted on that. We are agreed on that much?
The 1979 treaty, in turn, states that it is going to “implement the “Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty Between Egypt and Israel”;”
Carter cannot have his cake and eat it too. If the CDA were violated and not implemented, then the secondary treaty, whose explicit purpose was to implement the CDA, was also never fulfilled. You can’t adhere to something that’s already been violated, right?
Remember, as well, that Carter used the Preamble to UNSC 242 to inform his reading of it, and to justify why he claimed UNSC 242 and the CDA had been violated. Again, by the same logic, the Preamble of the 1979 treaty reaffirms “adherence to the “Framework for Peace in the Middle East Agreed at Camp David,” dated September 17, 1978;”
In short, again, by Carter’s own logic: if not going along with 242’s preamble violates that resolution, and violating 242 violates the CDA since it was listed in the preamble and as the Framework, then since the CDA is listed in the preamble and as the framework which the 1979 treaty is designed to implement, then the 1979 treaty was, likewise, not fully honored.
QED.
I will happily admit that the issue I addressed is probably a bit too occult for some to realize what the contradiction in Carter’s position is. Heck, you’re on the ball and even you thought that the CDA and 1979 were “separate action[s]”. I may’ve been relying on the peanut gallery having more knowledge about the issue…
So, fair enough. Here’s another example.
A few of Carter’s ‘errors’:
Claim: that the security barrier “fails to bring safety …”
Truth: Islamic Jihad’s own leader admits that the security barrier has made it much harder to attack Israel.
Claim: Israel has “official pre-1967 borders”
Truth: Israel does not have a border, official or otherwise, on the West Bank. The 1949 Armistice Agreement specifically stated that the armistice line was not to be considered a border, and was not to prejudice future negotiations as to the creation of actual, legal borders.
Claim: “Israel should withdraw from all Lebanese territory, including Shebaa Farms…”
Truth: In 2000, while Israel still held Shebaa, the UN certified that Israel had in fact left all Lebanese territory. While there were quibbles, it’d be pretty damn hard for the UN to have missed Shebaa. As Israel was still in Shebaa, Shebaa is obviously not part of Lebanon. UNSC 1583 confirmed that Israel had withdrawn from all Lebanese territory, while Israel still held Shebaa. Shebaa was, in fact, taken from Syria and not Lebanon.
Claim: “This stratagem precipitated the renewed violence that erupted in June when Palestinians dug a tunnel under the barrier that surrounds Gaza and assaulted some Israeli soldiers, killing two and capturing one. They offered to exchange the soldier for the release of 95 women and 313 children who are among almost 10,000 Arabs in Israeli prisons, but this time Israel rejected a swap and attacked Gaza in an attempt to free the soldier and stop rocket fire into Israel.”
Truth: There was never an offer of an exchange of the soldier for anybody. The offer was that they would "provide information about a kidnapped Israeli soldier ". Providing information is not providing the soldier.
Edit: yep, I wasn’t talking about your comments, but his. I had thought that personal commentary on other posters or their posting style was not allowed anymore in this thread. I wasn’t aware that what you describe as jokes were. Or, for that matter, that a content free post that attempted to hijack the debate from the issues to talk about the people participating in it would be allowed.
I’ll stop questioning… as obviously I don’t understand your mind on this issue and I have no wish to drag this to the pit. I’ll do my best to follow your injunctions, and if I fail, I guess I’ll get banned.
Damn… edit window closed.
Okay, to elaborate: by my logic, neither UNSC 242 was violated, nor were the CDA, and nor was the 1979 treaty. You might say something similar.
But Carter’s logic, if applied consistently, fairly and equally to UNSC 242, the CDA and the 1979 treaty, yields an inescapable conclusion that all three should be considered as “violated”. But on one day, he explicitly states his arguments for UNSC 242 and the CDA being violated, and then the very next day evidently applies a totally different standard to claim that “not one word” of the 1979 agreement was violated, even though several of those words were that they were going to implement the CDA… which Carter claimed was violated and never truly honored.
That’s my point about him telling “two stories” and that he couldn’t be trusted. He dreams up chains of logic that, coincidentally, vanish once he needs to tell a contrary story in order to prop up his message on a different day.
There’s a lot I like about Jimmy, and very little that I understand. One of the things I like about him is how lightly he seems to consider himself.
So, maybe he was lying. Maybe he thought the pursuit of peace might be better served if he lied. Diplomats do it all the time, we expect them to. When they are successful, the sophisticated falsehood can circumvent the savage honesty of war. War is grim reality, “truth” hardly more than a philosopher’s plaything.
If he flat out lied in pursuit of peace, I could not possibly condemn him. If, however, as has been suggested, it is all part of a plot to undermine the State of Israel, that would be quite different. As it happens, I don’t believe that. I think he is sincerely making an effort to help bring this unending tragedy to a close. If he has to lie to do it, I don’t see him hesitating for a second.
And may the Goddess nestle him in the bounty of Her bosom, all the days of his life, amen.
You’se a smart motherfucker. I’s kinda stupid by comparison.
Seriously, nice lay down on the factual tip.
In other words, well played.
Thanks much.
To be honest, I don’t think that I necessarily possess any great insight into the topic, I just make sure that I’m fully informed. Of course, for GD standards, I can find Israel on a map and I know the difference between Mugniyah and Musharef. That puts me way ahead of the curve for debates in this forum 
On a more serious note though, there are, I’m sure, literally hundreds of topics on which I’d look like a total goober if I got into a serious debate. As it happens, I’m fascinated by the Middle East and I read voraciously. Add to that the fact that, if you ever seen me laying down the gauntlet in a thread, it’s because I’ve already done my research, explored my position and made sure to recognize and be aware of how to rebut any counter arguments… all before I’ve submitted my first post. If I can’t do that, chances are, there won’t be any first post.
If you want to see someone who really knows his shit on this topic, I’d suggest that you look up Tamerlane’s posts.
Calling in a separate news crew, ahead of time and with a clear plan to trumpet his role in negotiating with Korea before anybody else had a chance to comment? To take credit before anybody else got their face on TV? This doesn’t exactly speak to humility.
What ‘maybe’ is there? Either he honestly doesn’t know the difference between what he wants to be true and what’s true, in which case he’s either senile or a moron, or he knows full well what’s true and what isn’t, but doesn’t care. Seeing as how he’s made ‘mistakes’ on topics that are elementary, obvious and easy as pie to research… and then he has resisted making any retractions, let alone correcting his methodology? It strains credulity way, way past the breaking point to see such a pattern as accidental.
I’ve never understood the concept of “lying for peace”, although I’ve noted it occurring more and more frequently in the wake of Bush’s presidency… in his opponents, more often than not. Evidently in the process of fighting monsters…
Once you (plural) allow deliberate dishonesty, you’ve admitted that the ends justify the means for you (plural) , and that your ideology trumps reality. That bears repeating: one would have decided that their ideology trumps reality. We have a word for people of that sort.
Once you’ve decided that your ideology is more important than reality, all bets are off, and you lose the right to criticize your political opponents for dishonesty. Anybody who supports lying for peace has no business taking Bush to task for shading the truth in the runup to the Iraq war. “It’s okay for me to lie and try to deceive people in order to enact my vision for improving the world, but when that guy does it, it’s totally evil!”
Well, you can believe whatever you want.
However, none of the evidence points to him being sincere in a belief for peace. His lies, almost without exception, are in the service of demonizing Israel and casting the Palestinians as 100% eager and ready for peace if it wasn’t for the duplicitous, warmongering rejectionist Israelis. What purpose, do you think, he intended to serve by lying and saying that Hamas hadn’t killed a single Israeli since 2004, or that they offered Gilad’s safe return, and Israel just decided to start bombing anyway?
He has done his best to remove Israel’s ability to stop suicide bombers with checkpoints and policing by calling it “apartheid”, has done his best to remove Israel’s ability to interdict Palestinan terror groups and stop them from getting more advanced weaponry by lying and claiming that groups like Hamas are no threat, has attempted to give power and influence to groups like Hamas and has attempted to force Israel into a ‘peace’ deal with an enemy that openly proclaims a desire for genocide and has stated that any truce will only be for long enough to rearm.
The result of his agenda, in a nutshell, would be groups like Hamas being able to build as many bomb making factories as they could, being free to move about wherever they wished, and having open borders through which Iran could ship truckloads of rockets. All that, while granting unpoliced territory for Hamas to use that would be well within rocket range of Tel Aviv.
Arguing that an agenda that has, as its direct consequence, the hamstringing of the IDF, the empowerment of Hamas, and the inevitable rain of rockets on Tel Aviv is in the service of peace is… to put it charitably, directly at odds with reality.
Again, something tells me that during all his time of cozying up to thugs like Arafat and genocidal freaks like Hamas, Carter isn’t actually unaware of their attitudes or their goals. Postulating such a thing would require more than even normal senility; my grandmother has advanced alzheimer’s, and when she sees Condaleza Rice on CNN, she still says “Oh, it’s that bitch.” That carter lacks the same discernment when dealing with groups like Hamas, again, not only stretches credulity past the breaking point, it burns it, stomps on it, and then scatters the ashes of credulity. Anybody who has toured a Palestinian camp and seen the posters glorifying ‘martyrs’, on walls all over the place, is certainly not ignorant as to the facts on the ground. And that’s assuming that Carter doesn’t read newspapers or the internet while he’s at home.
Of course, I have no idea what Carter’s driving emotional motivation is. I can’t read his mind. For all I know, he sees himself as some sort of righteous agent of justice, making sure that (as he warned Golda Meir), Israel will be punished for not accepting his Christian view of what Judaism should be.
What I do know is that calling rockets hitting Tel Aviv a peaceful goal is beyond Orwellian. And that lying in order to demonize one group and criminalize their self defense does not speak to either intellectual honesty or a true desire to achieve a just and equitable solution.
And that, quite frankly, there is absolutely no reason to take him at his word, especially when he’s shown what his word is worth. Once you’ve recognized that, it is an act of willful ignorance to say that even though he can’t be trusted and he uses deception to advance his agenda, his public claims about his goals should be taken at face value. Especially when the blindingly obvious consequences of his demands contradict those public claims and make his stated goals impossible.
Someone who tells you that he is “pro-responsible child care” and the put your child in a cage with a tiger should probably be looked at more critically than someone who says he is “pro-responsible child care” and puts your child in a preschool. Especially if the first guy, after having watched the tiger disembowel an antelope, is busy assuring you that tigers are vegetarians.
No way to tell if he’s right, of course, until there is a peace deal and it is submitted to a referendum.
I think FinnAgain is carrying things too far here, and not allowing for the different opinions that people of goodwill may have. Still, I think you are passing over a considerable amount of evidence that isn’t fitting into your worldview - a sin Carter himself suffers from in a big way.
I think this is a strawman. I don’t see that anyone has suggested this. I don’t think there is any way an honest person can argue that Carter hasn’t staked out a very pro-Palestinian position on this issue, based on his past writings and associations (not to mention his advocacy for Arafat) and that this interferes with his ability to act as a neutral broker on the issue. Certainly Israelis don’t trust him - and there is no reason to think that they should.
Well, as I said before, we have demonstrated that his desires aren’t entirely sincere - they are explicitly pro-Palestinian. The man isn’t agenda free on this issue. But if you want to believe your little fictions about the man, be my guest.
I don’t think he is malicious, but he has a side here, surely. Is it so vile to point that out?
Oh, I’ve got no problem with differing opinions, I just don’t find them particularly persuasive in the face of Carter’s antics. Shadoan at least provided something of a cohesive framework in which to view Carter, but that doesn’t explain how lies like “Hamas hasn’t killed a single Israeli since 2004” are intended to do anything other than cast Hamas as peaceful and Israel as warmongers and deceivers who invent enemies where none exist. In short, to put international pressure on Israel such that any defensive military action gets termed “aggression” and any attempt to stop factions like Hamas from stocking up on Iranian rockets becomes “apartheid”.
I’ve heard no rational explanation of how making it as hard as possible for Israel to defend itself, while arguing that Hamas should be able to get within rocket range of Israel and Israel shouldn’t interdict Hamas to stop them from getting more rockets… is actually in the service of peace. That is my point, that the obvious end result of Carter’s actions, if they were successful, would be rockets hitting Tel Aviv. I do not believe he’s unaware of this. I do believe that he views rockets in downtown Tel Aviv as a ‘small price to pay’ for what he views as justice.
In other words, I’m just fine with different opinions. But without being able to integrate, explain and reconcile Carter’s actions and his pattern of deception with a cohesive explanation of his agenda, I can’t credit those opinions as being anymore than just opinions.
As for spoke’s absurd strawman, it’s laughable. Especially since he’s demanding an answer to a question that I already answered.
Not only have I never alleged such a “malevolent campaign”, I specifically explained what I view Carter’s agenda as being. What’s more, spoke was participating in the thread both before, and after, I explicitly stated what I view Carter’s agenda as, in the very first line of one of my posts. I’m not sure how he missed it.
Of course, I don’t know Carter’s heart or his long term goals, I’m not sure if he sees his current path as a back door to a one-state “solution”. I’m certainly not accusing him of that, but nor would I discount the possibility. Part of my point, all along, is that since Carter habitually relies on dishonesty to prop up his arguments, that taking his stated goals at face value, in a vacuum, without looking at the narrative that his lies prop up… isn’t wise. I don’t know what Carter’s mind is, because I’ve seen enough evidence that almost all of his public statements contain an element designed to mislead and deceive.
Anyways, in specific, in post 83 I stated that I believe Carter’s agenda is: “to make it as difficult as possible for Israel to protect its citizens from murder while making it as easy as possible for groups like Hamas to act with complete freedom and increased global standing.”
Carter is such a raging partisan that he seems willing to support all Palestinian grievances, whatever their actual status under treaty or international law, or any other facts for that matter, and whatever their consequences for Israelis. And yes, I believe that to be a thoroughly vile agenda, especially as it is backed up by a smear-campaign based on deliberate falsehoods.
I don’t think that Carter is particularly concerned with the truth, and I do think that he’s willing to sacrifice quite a lot (or other people’s lives) to achieve what he views as justice. I think he’s also willing to deceive people so that they think that bloodshed wouldn’t be the result of his advised policies.
For instance, and along the same lines, Glutton is now apparently convinced that it’s best to be taking a ‘wait and see’ approach to Hamas’ new claims of being ready to negotiate. Largely because, of course, Jimmy Carter served as Hamas’ spokesman (interesting, of course, that Hamas didn’t make the announcement themselves, in English and Arabic. They do have their own spokesmen, after all…). But Carter selling that line makes it seem plausible, to some. And yet, as of just a few days ago, Hamas was raining down rockets and mortar shells on Israel as well as launching a deadly border raid designed to get their forces into Israel. One can only wonder at what their goals would be once they infiltrated forces. And that doesn’t even address their continued use of tools like Pioneers of Tomorrow, with its genocidal Jew-eating rabbit mascot, that is still teaching children to aspire to ethnically cleanse Israel and, if necessary, die in the process.
But Carter says so, and some will believe it, and will in turn think that the US and Israel are being rejectionists and warmongers by questioning the ‘good will’ of Hamas.
Speaking of which, at the same time as Carter was telling us Hamas would agree to a referendum if it was passed, Hamas’ own spokesman was saying:
And:
And:
Care to lay odds on whether or not Carter retracts his claims that Hamas is perfectly willing to accept such a referendum… or will he continue to cast Israel as warmongers for not treating Hamas as a faction ready for peace?
here we have an 84 year old private citizen, who is recognized as being off his rocker, conduction negotiations (on behalf of no one)0, with an avowed terrorist organization!
Does this mean anyone who wants to do so can play diplomat? Who is funding Carter’s ‘do-it-yourself’ diplomacy??
Interesting that you should ask that. The question of Carter’s funding has been a source of some debate and (justified) wariness over the last few years. I’m not sure if the funding for this trip comes from the Carter Center, but it’s probably a fairly good bet.
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More innuendo.
Have the courage at least to state forthrightly what you are slyly suggesting.
Tell us, Finn, why would an 83-year-old Carter go through the rigors of a trip to the Middle East? Just to ensure that Israel can’t protect itself? Really? To what end?
What is Carter’s long-term goal, in your view?
Connect your dots, and let’s see if they make a believeable picture.
Whatever might be said about Carter, he is not “recognized as being off his rocker.”
BTW, spoke-, someone reading this thread can’t help but notice that I have replied to several of your posts and have asked you some questions. You have not favored me with a reply, choosing instead to engage in this back-and-forth with FinnAgain and a couple of others.
I do hope you’re not avoiding answering me because you have no good replies to my points. 
Mr. Moto, I want to go straight to the heart of the matter. I want Carter’s critics to tell us their view of his ultimate goal.
I think he has.
While I’m not sure that Carter deserves this level of condemnation, Finn and others have presented evidence to support their arguments.
You on the other hand seem more interested in promoting the idea that vehement criticism of Carter must be part of some grand strategy to denounce any critics of Israel as anti-Semites. Which no one has done here or at any time on this board.
Why not stick to responding to arguments with facts of your own?