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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Dec. 15, 2006 / 24 Kislev, 5767

Brave Jimmy Carter?

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Having scolded the Western world for its "inordinate fear of communism," Jimmy Carter is now, 30 years later, attempting to legitimize the shameful Zionism Equals Racism resolution passed and later repealed by the United Nations. The man has a seemingly unerring instinct for error. "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" is touted (by Carter himself) as an evenhanded analysis of the Israeli/Arab conflict — but one need go no further than the title to suspect otherwise.


Carter, like all Israel bashers, proclaims his courage. Please. It takes courage to criticize Israel? The world is teeming with Israel-haters. No other nation in the world — not Russia, not Saudi Arabia, not Cuba — is the subject of so much concentrated calumny. In Europe, as Melanie Phillips recounts in her dazzling book "Londonistan," Israel is cursed not just among the rabble but at elegant dinner parties and embassy soirees. And while it's true that in the United States, Israel enjoys high levels of support, it is also routinely castigated (and nearly always by people who imagine they are defying some powerful cabal). What is amazing is that even a former president of the United States confuses freedom of speech with freedom from criticism for the content of that speech.


Here's a precis of the book: Israel is the problem. In fact, it's all summed up in the final paragraph: "Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens — and honor its own previous commitments — by accepting its legal borders." By the way, that kind of awkward phrasing is found throughout this slapdash work.


Sixty years of withheld recognition by its neighbors, ceaseless terror against Israeli civilians, countless agreements defaulted upon — none of this disturbs President Carter's certitudes.


The book is so foolish that you can pretty much close your eyes and point to any page to find something simplistic, naive or tendentious. On page 97, for example, Carter asserts that "The militant group Hezbollah . . . was formed in Lebanon in 1982 to resist the Israeli occupation." Not quite. Hezbollah's founding document calls for Islamic rule in Lebanon, an end to Western imperialism and the destruction of the state of Israel. An arm of the Iranian Islamic revolution, Hezbollah's operatives have been found in France, Spain, Cyprus, Singapore, the "triborder" region of South America and the Philippines, reports Foreign Affairs magazine.

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Carter tells the history of the Six-Day War in 1967 this way: "On June 5, Israel launched preemptive strikes, moving first against Egypt and Syria, then against Jordan." That's false. Israel did strike first at Egypt and Syria (waiting to be attacked would have meant national suicide), but specifically called upon Jordan to stay out of the fighting. Jordan's King Hussein, putting faith in Gamal Abdel Nasser's claim that Egypt was defeating Israel, chose to shell Jerusalem. Israel then turned its full might on Jordan, driving them out of Jerusalem and the West Bank.


Carter claims that "The Israelis have never granted any appreciable autonomy to the Palestinians." What? In December 2000, pursuant to the Oslo Accords, Israel (unwisely) gave nearly complete autonomy to the Palestinians in the disputed territories and even gave the Palestinian security forces weapons. In return, the Palestinians were supposed to prevent terror attacks against Israel. Not only did the PA fail to prevent terror attacks, it organized and carried them out.


Explicating last summer's Israel/Hezbollah war, Mr. Carter offers a distorted history. He claims that Hezbollah "attacked two Israeli vehicles, killing three soldiers and capturing two others." Hezbollah did this, Carter explains, in order to exchange them for captives in Israel. Very understandable. But then Israel just went wild, attacking Lebanon without mercy. In fact, Hezbollah's attack on the Israel Defense Forces was accompanied by rocket attacks on several Israeli towns, which wounded several civilians and displaced many others. It was also timed to hit Israel when she was already under attack by Hamas from Gaza.


These are not careless errors, they flow from Carter's pointed animus toward Israel and corresponding softness toward the Arabs (read his elegy to Saudi Arabia if you want to gag). How else to account for the fact that he takes Yassir Arafat's peaceful declarations at face value? Or that he lets slip nasty anti-Semitic asides like this: "It was especially interesting to visit with some of the few surviving Samaritans, who complained to us that their holy sites and culture were not being respected by Israeli authorities — the same complaint heard by Jesus and his disciples almost two thousand years earlier." Those Jews never change, do they? What complaints exactly did Jesus receive about holy sites and culture? We could ask President Carter, but we should know better than to expect an honest answer.

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© 2006, Creators Syndicate

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