Thanks for calling our attention to Jeff's review.
And for reminding me, not that I had forgotten, about the other Southern Baptist President who symbolizes for me the absolute nexus between being pro-Israel and pro-negotiations.

Is Gore Baptist? I suppose he is. In my opinion, had he been sworn in on 1/20/01, the Israel-Palestinian peace agreement would have been signed, sealed and delivered.

Maybe Gore will get his chance yet? If not Gore, I'd recommend Biden and Obama as the two possible candidates who would have the will and the smarts to put this baby away once and for all.

I seldom disagree with mjr but since Biden plagiarized Neil Kinnock in 1988 I've been
unable to take him seriously.

I don't believe we should support Israel unconditionally (disclaimer: my family is Jewish, I consider myself atheist or agnostic).

Instead we should have a more balanced middle east policy. The Palestinians have a legitimate gripe. They were thrown off their own land and made to live as second class citizens with limited rights.

What a brilliant book review. The guy psychoanalyzes Carter (mindreading is the first trick of a hack), then starts in with the same old polemics, including this ripsnorter:

Carter does not recognize the fact that Israel, tired of the burdens of occupation, also dearly wants to give up the bulk of its West Bank settlements (the current prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was elected on exactly this platform) because to do so would fatally undermine the thesis of his book. Palestine Peace Not Apartheid is being marketed as a work of history, but an honest book would, when assessing the reasons why the conflict festers, blame not only the settlements but also take substantial note of the fact that the Arabs who surround Israel have launched numerous wars against it, all meant to snuff it out of existence.

Numerous wars? Even a generous accounting of who started which war has peaceful Israel, which is just dying to give back "most of the West Bank" (how generous!) starting a lot more wars than its bloodthirsty neighbors, but this review is, of course, about polemics, not facts. Yet clown A rushes in to applaud this "deconstruction" by clown B.

The people who are contributors here have taught me one big lesson: there is absolutely no difference between most of them and the average guy or gal who sits down to the computer and starts typing. It amazes me that some of these people get paid for blogging, or writing in general. You could go out and cut and paste propaganda from the internet under their pictures and there would be absolutely no difference between that and what they actually type. It's really no wonder we're in the shape we're in -- these people are supposed to be the brains of the country? Yikes.

If you believe that Ansal al-Islam was in league with Saddam, then you will be unlikley to accept debunking of Goldberg's claims.

However, you may want to consider the following from an analysis of Israeli intelligence on Saddam's missile and WMD's (chem & bio) supplied to US and the UK:

"The final question that needs to be asked is whether in Israel, as in the United States, the intelligence picture was slanted due to the pressure by the country's political leadership, which wanted to prepare the ground for war with the support of intelligence bodies. While there may have been political pressure in the US to distort intelligence findings, there is no indication of such pressure in Israel. The best proof of this was Israel's refusal to participate in the American administration's efforts to demonstrate a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda."
http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/sa/v6n3p3Bro.html

The author, Shlomo Brom is a retired Brigader General who spent 25 years in the IDF. Given that the Kurds and Israelis had very close ties and Israeli intelligence operated in the Kurdish north, the fact that Israel REFUSED to go along with the phony linkage should give you pause.

(The distorted intel caused some major controversies within Israel during and after the run-up to war. There were so many conflicting stories floating about threats from Saddam that the Israeli public pretty much threw up their hands, said the hell with the warnings and largely ignored civil defense instructions once the conflict began)

Yes.

But let's be clear what I'm substantiating. Which is whether his general reputation as a reliable source is rightly deserved.

I did not say he made false claims . In fact I'd be surprised if he were a liar.

As to whether he deserves a reputation for knowing what he's talking about...........the March 2002 article has an entire section devoted to detailing what Goldberg claimed showed a close connection between Osama and Saddam . Almost no one now believes that-including Gates during his hearing.

Goldberg was wrong.

Further the later article containing his interview with Doug Feith seems to me to portray a far more favorable image than appears in either Cobra II or Fiasco , never mind Tommy Franks' comment. Maybe they're wrong and Goldberg is right but it at least raises a question about his judgement.

Therefore  I think   Baer is on shaky ground in claiming  that Goldberg's reputation is rightly deserved .

I'm sorry MJR, but Biden? Under no circumstances. Hell I'd like him to be drummed out of the senate.

When he says things like his state was a slave state that couldn't find it's way to the South and does not recant and apologize for it he has completely blown anything of worth he ever had.

Claiming unity and nostalgia for armed rebels against the United States is not tolerated.

Can't forget the bankruptcy bill either, but man, that rebel thing...

I have just got to buy the book.

It seems to be scaring the Israel apologist community silly.

I wonder why?

Ron Byers

about copying maps:

if the maps are true, than the author of the first book did not create them but copied from actual documents, so copying a copy is not a plagiarism,

if the maps are Ross'es invention, he should say so.

As far as "dramatical distortion of history" is concerned, ANY interpretation saner than that of Alan Derschowitz is a "dramatic distortion". What Carter wrote was the "this is how Palestinians interpreted the Clinton proposals". He talked with the Palestinians so he may know, doesn't he? If Clinton denies that this was a correct interpretation, how does it change the fact about someone else's interpretation?

BTW, Did Carter talk about The Khartoum Resolution of 1967 in his book?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khartoum_Resolution
The resolution contains in paragraph 3 what became known as "the three nos" of Arab-Israel relations at that time.

No peace with Israel
No recognition of Israel
No negotiations with Israel

I doubt. It doesn't fit his narrative.

Baer: I read the review. Golly...a jewish writer doesn't like a book that calls Israel to task? Knock me over with a feather dude!

If you think that twisted and impressionistic review 'proves' anything, it just points to the blinders most Jewish journos wear regarding Israel.

The part where he says Carter 'contradicts' himself about whether Israel is an Apartheid state was truly laughable. OK, they've got a 50 foot wall built to separate people and they restrict all movement of Palestinians...hmmm.

The Jewish arguments are hyper- paternalistic. They expect the bad little boys to swallow their medicine. It was a great outrage of the Nazis to sieze property from Jews, but when the Israelis do it to Palestinians, it's just because they are a bunch of naughty children for whom you can't spare the rod.

To have some understanding of Camp David negotiations, one has to watch the movie of Akiro Kurosawa, Rashomon. There is no authorative account of what happened, instead we have a number of "unreliable narrators". The fact that Carter interpreted the evens differently that Ross is not a proof of "distortion".

By the way, to me the "Israeli interpretation" map, or "Clinton Parameters", looks rather awful.

thanks for putting up the official definition of "aparteid" for us.

the more I dig into things, the more I respect Carter.

I don't know why the author of this thread used the tired line that "most Americans support a special relationship with Israel" to imply that Americans have made a a moral choice.

Around 2003, George Bush was popular but, since then, as people learned the truth, his ratings have fallen into the low 30's.

If the MSM reported on Israel's actions towards the palestinians, the public would surely brand Israel a terrorist state or, at least, a country that is over the top with its violence and guilty of abusing power.

I love Judaism and I was part of a Messianic congregation for a short time because I felt "Christian churches didn't connect spiritually with the old testament!" but now, for the most part, I'm agnostic because I feel that life is about seeing through misrepresentation.

As I posted in another post, the palestinians have a GDP of about $2 billion whereas the Israelis have a GDP of about $160 billion so economic punishment is clearly occuring.

right, and we can see how many Americans like pissing on the Mexican immigrants too instead of helping them integrate into our society as a reward for their hard work.

The Mexico wall is a particularly demagogic and symbolic thing. You could stop the flow just by policing employers, but the wall made for cheap and tawdry right wing red meat before and election. It's isn't right, but neither is Israel's wall.

" Goldberg claimed showed a close connection between Osama and Saddam"

I'm sorry but I think you are unfair. That portion of the article was about Ansar al-Islam, a radical enclave in Kurdistan. It gave evidence of al Qaeda ties to Ansar (probably true) and Saddam's ties to Ansar (still questionable). Goldberg was in Kurdistan at the time and the article made it clear his informants were anti-Ansar and anti-Saddam and would benefit from a US invasion.

From his website: "Over the past seven years, Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting has taken him to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he lived for a month in a Taliban madrasa, as well as to Upper Egypt, Syria, the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and West Bank. He has interviewed leaders of Hezbullah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam and the Taliban."

Now that is one brave dude! Whether his writing accords with your particular view of history or not, you gotta agree that his authority on mideast issues is "rightly deserved."

Basically Goldberg is a reporter. He is not trying to make a case but to tell an interesting story, and lay out all of the information he can. For instance Feith comes off as a sweet guy who is a fool. In Goldberg's writing the most memorable line are words right from Feith's mouth, about the truculent welcome US troops got in Bagdad: the Iraqis "had flowers in their minds."

Because it is always unfortunate when a former President of the United States, even one who had a problem with Jews while President, both lies about the negotiation between the Isralis, the Palestinians and members of the Clinton Administration but who also gives comfort to those who want to Jews harm.

Enjoy your read.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

"There is no authorative account of what happened, instead we have a number of "unreliable narrators"".
Well, if prof. Carter wrote such disclamer in the book, it would be a different story, but he didn't. He didn't say,
" I have no clue what I'm taking abot, I haven't read books of Clinton or Ross who were there, I only use PLO official talking points as my sources and I'm just choosing
interpretation that fits my agenda".
Therefore we asume that he did research and talked to people who were there or read their books.
Therefore the only fair conclusion that prof. Carter
"misinforms the reader".

1. Mexico is a state unto itself. Building a wall would be stupid, but clearly not the equivalent of the Israel wall. The US was an official apartheid state during the slavery and Jim Crow eras however. The US might be more imperfect than Israel, yet it's not an excuse for either state to refuse to become more just.

2. The number of Palestinians who have perished as a result IDF actions is orders of magnitude greater than Israelis killed by suicide bombs. Does that make violence justified? No. Is it understandable that people would lash out against their oppressors? Arguably, yes.

3. The Isrealis have such a degree of control over Palestine, they can even refuse Palestinians their OWN tax revenue. But what do we always hear from Israel? "Oh we so desperately want peace and justice, but those darn Palestinians won't LET us."

Besides you and the reporter Goldberg, who says Carter "had a problem with Jews" during his presidency?

Only those who make a living spewing accusations of anti-Semitism.

Hey "Davai": "Give it up."

"Davai," BTW, is Russian for "Look out, here I come" or "Get out of my way," which is what Israel is saying to the people who have been living in the West Bank for centuries.

"larded with lies"
For example?

I prefer links to support argument, not substitute for it, but didn't think the meager offering of a list of links called for a low rating.

Why not make your argument? Or at least state the point.

OK, now the ADL has "jumped the shark" in terms of shrill criticism of Carter. Today in the NYTimes:

"A vocal pro-Palestinian viewpoint, he (Carter) said, is “nonexistent in this country to any detectable degree.”

Which is the claim that Mr. Foxman (head of the ADL) said he found most offensive. “The reason he gives for why he wrote this book is this shameless, shameful canard that the Jews control the debate in this country, especially when it comes to the media,” he said."

So which is it? Shameless or shameful? And here's the kicker, only a few paragraphs north of Abe's quote:

"This week the Anti-Defamation League began running ads criticizing Mr. Carter in major newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution."

See, that's why the peniless and oppressed Palestinians control the debate in the U.S. - they refuse to buy expensive ads in the NY Times. Damn that shrewd Palestinian anti demfamation league - they're so adept at controlling the debate about Israel's apartheid state they cleverly don't say anything at all. Thank the Israelis for relieving them of their liberty and property. Otherwise they could raise money for a NYTimes ad buy.

Also, arguing the Jews do not control the discussion here is not equivalent to arguing Palestinians do.

OTOH

Arguing that Jews do not control the discussion is not the same as refuting there  is  not a pro-Palestinian viewpoint that justiifies the 'supposed reason' for the offense when the evidence shows a clear pro-Israel discussion dominates the media.

In fact, it is the same obfuscaton of the facts that occurs when indiviuals are not supportive of American's foreign policy regarding Israel. Folks, are accused of being anti-semitic when that happens just as this Abe fella is claiming that Jews 'controlling the discussion' is an insult.

Wolf Blitzer, a  board member of AIPAC, interviwing Carter was shrill. Blitzer"s questions were just as biased as Chris Wallaces' on FOX when he interviewed Clinton.

I think that the primary meaning of davay/davai is "give", singular imprerative. It can have plenty of secondary meanings, including "yield" (give way), but also "give me five" etc.

Did you ever listen to NPR?

Just a little note on ratings... It's kind of hard to find ratings guidelines on this site right now -- if you don't spend a lot of time in the Cafe Management table, you might not realize that a number of the zeros given out on this thread aren't appropriate, and that the zeroed out comments are rendered invisible to some users.  This link provides a pretty good overview of how ratings are meant to be used here.