[QUOTE=spoke-]
I mean guile concerning his motives. Watch and decide.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry to be dense, but I do not what you mean by “guile concerning his motives.” Please explain. “Guile” can mean slyness or cunning and generally implies a deceitfulness. How does that apply to his motives? Do you mean merely that his goals are noble? Well I believe that he believes they are anyway. And that noble goals justify some distortions.
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
FinnAgain, are you a Jew?
[/quote]
Yeepers.
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
I would think that only a Jew could defend Israel so passionately and effectively.
[/quote]
Well… it’s a good bit more complicated than that. My ancestors (great-great paternal grandfather and grandmother) were, IIRC, one of the first 16 familes to found Richon L’tzion. During the '48 war, my grandmother smuggled bullet molds under her skirts. My great-uncle, among other things, negotiated with the Mafia in order to ship weapons/equipment from the NY docks. I’d rather not say all that much more, as I value my anonymity, and just a tad more information would allow you to pinpoint my real name, pretty effectively actually.
I’ve been to the place a few times, including once as part of an annual group called Project Understanding which consists of six Reform Jews and six Catholics, a Rabbi and a Priest. The group visits sites holy to either/both faiths, as well as meeting and talking over meals, with everybody from settlers to Bedouins to Arabs. And we also got a night to go out dancing in Tel Aviv 
I found the trip to be truly enlightening, for a great number of reasons.
I am, also, passionately dedicated to the fight against ignorance (and many who have an ax to grind on this issue have willful ignorance as their stock in trade). In addition, of course, dishonesty and intellectual dishonesty are two of my major pet peeves, and again, those with axes to grind on this issue (see Carter), often end up doing so by twisting the facts. It is my honest belief that this conflict is one of the first in history to be fought as much, if not more, via an information-war than an actual shooting war. As such, I believe it is important that lies and deception not be allowed to gain any traction, at all. The campaigns of folks like Carter aim, at their heart, to distort reality enough to make a certain political positions seem palatable. In that direction lies great folly and suffering. If a course of action cannot survive on its merits, deception won’t make it any more efficacious.
Add to that, I’m honestly fascinated with the history and socio-political dynamics of the region, and I read a lot. I am, most certainly, a hardliner in some ways. I will accept absolutely no compromise on my basic demands: a two state solution with peace, security, religious freedoms and viable economic/agricultural/water rights for both nations.
So… to be honest, although my being Jewish has played into my ability to learn, both from religious projects and hearing first-hand stories from relatives who were there, I think I’m able to argue the point effectively and passionately because I care about the truth, and I make sure that I do my research before I get into a debate, and not after. If, for instance, my ancestors in the region had been Christians or Druze instead of part of the first wave of Aliyah, I don’t think my general knowledge base would’ve been much effected. But I could be wrong.
( Bet you’re sorry you asked, eh? 
)
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
Or are you Finnish? What does your username mean exactly?
[/QUOTE]
It’s from Finnegans Wake, and, as such, its symbolism is quite involved…
As for the specific passage it comes from, I point you to my sig.
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
Or are you Finnish?
[/QUOTE]
Are you kidding? Finn’s just getting started!
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
I would think that only a Jew could defend Israel so passionately and effectively.
[/QUOTE]
If only!
[QUOTE=DSeid]
Sorry to be dense, but I do not what you mean by “guile concerning his motives.”
[/QUOTE]
He has no hidden agenda.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
If only!
[/QUOTE]
One day, perhaps, I’ll be able to debate as adroitly as you.
For now, I can only dream.
[QUOTE=spoke-]
He has no hidden agenda.
[/QUOTE]
While I have stated above that his actions aren’t particularly hidden, I do think Carter depends on his reputation to shield him from criticism to some degree. After all, it takes quite a lot to convince someone that a former American president could in essence ditch his position as American PR ambassador to the world in favor of holding a similar position for the Palestinians.
The facts, though, indicate that he has indeed done so - and your opinion of the man frankly has jack to do with that.
If you agree that he has no hidden agenda then you must take him at his word that he seeks a peaceful two-state solution, and that one of his fondest wishes is to see peace for Israel in his lifetime.
[QUOTE=spoke-]
Israel’s UN Ambassador Calls Carter “a Bigot”:
[/QUOTE]
Israel’s UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman? The one who called Arabs “animals” in summer of 2006?
Alan Dershowitz’s take on Jimmy Carter (written before Carter’s trip to meet with Hamas):
*"Recent disclosures of Carter’s extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?
And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strapped Divinity School received from this source…The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up, a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son, hosted speakers who called Jews “the enemies of all nations,” attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States’ own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a “fable.” (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.
Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard’s decision, since it was highly publicized. Yet he kept the money. Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: “This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan.” Carter’s personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot…
The extent of Carter’s financial support from, and even dependence on, dirty money is still not fully known. What we do know is deeply troubling. Carter and his Center have accepted millions of dollars from suspect sources, beginning with the bail-out of the Carter family peanut business in the late 1970s by BCCI, a now-defunct and virulently anti-Israeli bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family… and among whose principal investors is Carter’s friend, Sheikh Zayed. Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the bank, gave Carter “$500,000 to help the former president establish his center…[and] more than $10 million to Mr. Carter’s different projects.”
Carter gladly accepted the money, though Abedi had called his bank, ostensibly the source of his funding, “the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists.” BCCI isn’t the only source: Saudi King Fahd contributed millions to the Carter Center “in 1993 alone…$7.6 million” as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family. Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000 environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. It’s worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government’s myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center’s Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis have apparently bought his silence for a steep price. The bought quality of the Center’s activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center’s human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea, or in Iran, Iraq, the Sudan, or Syria, but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center’s website.
The Carter Center’s mission statement claims that “The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities.” How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel’s far less serious ones?"*
Dershowitz makes Finn look like a moderate on this issue. I take anything he says with a grain of salt.
I’m guessing Carter doesn’t exhaustively research all of his contacts and donors to see whether they’ve ever said, or even more tenuously, ever been associated with someone who said, something anti-Semitic. Dershowitz, on the other hand, seems to have a lot of time on his hands.
The extent to which Dershowitz is going to smear Carter is betrayed by his reference to the bin Laden family. The bin Ladens are a huge family with extensive business interests, and widely divergent political views. Dershowitz must know this, but doesn’t tell his readers. He is content just to mention the name “bin Laden” as a marker for evil.
McCarthy would be proud.
[QUOTE=spoke-]
If you agree that he has no hidden agenda then you must take him at his word that he seeks a peaceful two-state solution, and that one of his fondest wishes is to see peace for Israel in his lifetime.
[/QUOTE]
Excluded middle.
Carter could have any number of reasons for his actions.
Carter could (for example) figure that his open associations with various anti-semitic organizations are sufficiently well-documented that he sees no reason to elaborate upon them.
I think the reasons behind Carter’s actions might be irrelevant, given that his recorded actions demonstrate a particular bias regardless of the reasons behind them. I think this thread would be more interesting if someone actually attempted to demonstrate legitimate defenses of his actions in terms of the accuracy of his statements or the results of his efforts, but since no one appears to be willing to tackle that challenge, arguing over whether he has his heart in the right place, despite his clearly negative behavior appears to ber the only thing left to wrangle over.
::: shrug :::
Yeah, well, who has the time or the energy to mud-wrestle with Finn over minutiae?
::shrug::
[QUOTE=spoke-]
Yeah, well, who has the time or the energy to mud-wrestle with Finn over minutiae?
::shrug::
[/QUOTE]
I find it interesting that you consider Carter’s actual actions and words “minutiae” while you are incensed that someone might call into question his honor when he actually engages in behavior that is openly hostile to one of the factions from which he claims he is trying to elicit peace.
Sorry for the tangent, but:
[QUOTE=Gala Matrix Fire]
Israel’s UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman? The one who called Arabs “animals” in summer of 2006?
[/QUOTE]
Got a cite for that?
He didn’t happen to, at the same time, suggest killing “all the Palestinians”, did he?
So far, all I can find to support that is a hitpiece by Juan Cole, whose credibility I’ve already pointed out.
And just as with Glutton’s piece, the reality seems to be a bit different.
You see, distortions of that sort are the stock in trade of various bigots, like Counterpunch, Cole, etc… (For a fun game, track down the lies in that Counterpunch piece, too.) See how many quotes they’ve taken out of context in order to lie about their meaning. Like, for instance,the lie that Begin called “the Palestinians”, “two-legged beasts”. Did he really?
Nope. He was talking about people who deliberately murder children.
In other words, as Glutton’s propaganda cite helps demonstrate, there is a nice little cottage industry dedicated to inventing and/or twisting quotes to serve a particular agenda. What’s more, they evidently fool a non-zero number of people, who then not only believe the claims, but go out and spread them.
I find it odd that after a bit of googling, I can’t find a link to any actual, direct quotes from Gillerman about “Arabs” being “animals”.
Can you?
[QUOTE=tomndebb]
I find it interesting that you consider Carter’s actual actions and words “minutiae” while you are incensed that someone might call into question his honor when he actually engages in behavior that is openly hostile to one of the factions from which he claims he is trying to elicit peace.
[/QUOTE]
Really? Cite for Carter’s openly hostile actions toward Israel?
Why, if only someone had been providing cite after cite as to how Carter lies in order to demonize Israel. Or how his political demands, without Hamas making any actual changes, would just lead to rockets falling on Tel Aviv. If only! If only someone had pointed out that despite Carter’s spokesman gig for Hamas, that Hamas itself was stating that they are still totally against peace, thus putting paid to his claims that if they were allowed within rocket range of Tel Aviv, that anything but war would result.
Damn, if only someone had done all that, and more. Then you wouldn’t have to ask for a cite now, because we know you would have been engaging with the facts and the conclusions that could be drawn from them.
On a side note, don’t you find it interesting that you handwave away all the facts that are provided and all their implications as “minutiae” and “character assasination”, but have no problem dreaming up a situation where another poster is “loyal” to a foreign power, come “hell or high water”? Isn’t that just the damndest thing? A known, proven liar whose lies support a false-to-facts worldview is above suspicion, and even questioning his PR lacks “decency” and is “McCarthyism”, but those who rely on facts which clash with your worldview are not to be trusted. And you still haven’t discussed why the label of “bigot” isn’t 100% accurate to describe Carter.
Isn’t that just fascinating?
Whoops. We’re not allowed to talk about posters’ motivations, so asking about your standards wrt comments on personal motivation of people who support or oppose your worldview are certainly in violation of tom’s injunction. As such, you have my apologies; this certainly isn’t the forum to get into an analysis of that point. And it’s really not worth it to start a whole new pit thread to discuss it.
Thing is spoke I believe that Stalin had the best of intentions - he believed what he was doing was best for his country and for the world. And I’m sure that Bush feels the same about many of the things that he’s done. The Inquistors in Spain believed they were saving immortal souls. Carter may very well, for whatever reason, believe that he is advocating for a noble end. Probably he does. And often people believe that noble ends justify questionable means. Now what he considers a noble cause may be quite different than what I do and is apparently more on the same page as what Hamas believes is noble since he considers them to be undertaking a “national liberation movement” and his assessment as to what means a particular noble cause justifies is also something that I have problems with.
So far this thread has incontrovertibly established that Carter has said multiple untruths regarding Israel and Israeli actions, all in ways that are negative to Israel. That he has embraced Hamas and been a bit of an apologist for them while demonizing Israel in the bargain. Anything bad about Israel is to be uncritically believed by him and anything good is discounted. If Hamas tells him something he repeats it as truth, no matter what other independent assessments conclude. All that you discount as “minutiae”.
Because what matters is that his actions should be viewed only positively because well he honestly believes he is doing something good.
[QUOTE=spoke-]
Really? Cite for Carter’s openly hostile actions toward Israel?
[/QUOTE]
I am curious how the many citations to Carter’s literally dozens of “errors” in describing the Middle East situation–all in ways that portray the Palestinians only as victims and the Israelis only as aggressors–in any number of venues where he is attempting to affect (and even effect) public opinion that have been posted in this thread could be characterized in any was as other than openly hostile to Israel.
Among examples (even ignoring editorial opinions that provide additional claims) we have
this collection (some of which I would characterize as niggling nitpicking, but several of which are flagrant departures from accuracy
this article which, again, has debatable points (regarding how close the wall adheres to the Green line while ignoring the places where Palestinians have, indeed, been cut off from their neighbors), but shows Carter making the preposterous claim that the entire wall was intended only to separate Palestinians from other Palestinians (which would require that the wall zig-zag back and forth across the West Bank while not even approaching the Green Line or border)
and Carter’s serious distortion of Judaism (That “korban” bit occurs so frequently in places like melvig.org (now, fortunately defunct) that I have become curious how much of that tripe is being taught in various Fundamentalist Christian schools.).