Jimmy Carter: 'the citizens of Palestine are treated more like animals than like human beings'
President Carter was in Gaza today, and met with Ismail Haniya in addition to visiting other sites. Here are some of his comments as reported by AFP in the article "Carter says Palestinians being treated 'like animals'":
"My primary feeling today is one of grief and despair and an element of anger when I see the destruction perpetrated against innocent people," Carter said as he toured the impoverished territory."Tragically, the international community too often ignores the cries for help and the citizens of Palestine are treated more like animals than like human beings," he said.
"The starving of 1.5 million human beings of the necessities of life -- never before in history has a large community like this been savaged by bombs and missiles and then denied the means to repair itself," Carter said at a UN school graduation ceremony in Gaza City.The United States and Europe "must try to do all that is necessary to convince Israel and Egypt to allow basic goods into Gaza," he said.
"At same time, there must be no more rockets" from Gaza into Israel, said Carter, who brokered the historic 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
"I have to hold back tears when I see the deliberate destruction that has been wracked against your people," he said at a destroyed American school, saying it was "deliberately destroyed by bombs from F16s made in my country."
Israel's offensive killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and left large swathes of the coastal strip sandwiched between Israel and Egypt in ruins. Thirteen Israelis also died in the conflict.
"I feel partially responsible for this as must all Americans and Israelis," Carter said.
Carter courageously uses his "outsider" status to say things closer to the truth than many in-office politicians would dare utter. Good for him. He's considered a pariah by Democrats, since his 1980 loss to now-iconic Ronald Reagan, and the GOP sees him only as a convenient, occasional figurative punching bag. However, as an ex-president, he must be quoted. Keep struggling, Jimmy.
June 16, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amen. History is going to treat him far kinder than his own generations have. Finally getting his Nobel was a vindication of sorts. He has my nomination for greatest ex-president since John Quincy Adams, if not of all time.
June 16, 2009 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hear! Hear!
Carter wasn't a great President, but he was a good one. This was primarily so because he had a genuine set of morals and values that he cleaved to as best he could. That same tenacity is what gives his statements about the predicament in Gaza and regarding Israel, etc... such power. No one has ever questioned Jimmy Carter's honesty or integrity.
June 17, 2009 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I assume Carter in saying 'treated like animals' was not referring to the late Leona Helmsley's Maltese breed dog for which she left a trust of $12 million. The Maltese is likely not the only pet with a better life than many residents of Gaza. link
June 16, 2009 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Carter's efforts in many areas have been enlightened and valuable, but I judge his characterization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an abomination - a word I rarely use and would never use lightly.
It is one thing to observe that Gazans have suffered; they have, although other populations have suffered far worse. Never mind, suffering is deplorable. What I find reprehensible in Carter's pronouncements is a perspective so distorted as to imply an almost pathological bigotry masquerading as fairness and compassion.
I believe Jimmy Carter has a good heart, but skewed vision on at least this one issue. If innocent Gazans are victims, who is the victimizer? The Israelis who "deliberately" bombed a school building (actually they didn't bomb it), or the Hamas leadership whose claim to the allegiance of Gazans resides in the desire to destroy the entire state of Israel by whatever means necessary?
If the answer is "both", I will agree. If the answer is "both in equal measure", I will judge that an attempt to achieve balance by giving equal weight to unequal evils. If the claim is "Israel", then the "despair" he asserts is matched by mine at the level of his inability to comprhend the reality of an Israel trying to survive and a Hamas trying to wipe it from the map.
Even so, even so - if Jimmy Carter's remark that Gaza militants should fire no more rockets into Israel is more than token obeisance to the principle of fairness, perhaps I will wait before my final despairing judgment on him. Let him now employ the moral leverage he has accumulated with at least the Palestinian side of this tragic conflict to convert the cessation of rocket firing from a suggestion into a permanent halt to the use of those weapons - weapons reflecting the desire of only one of the two sides to kill civilians deliberately. I deplore civilian deaths, deliberate or accidental, but there are degrees of evil - a principle most of us feel in our bones, but which may elude some, including ex-Presidents.
June 16, 2009 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is difficult to take seriously an opinion of Jimmy Carter so obviously motivated by the fact that on this point he does not agree with you. I dare say Jimmy Carter knows a tad more about what is going on and the degrees of evil in Israel and the occupied territories than you do. No one living has ever been a greater friend to or benefited Israel more than Jimmy Carter. That is why so many around the world respect his views of what is happening right now.
June 17, 2009 12:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I dare say Jimmy Carter knows a tad more about what is going on and the degrees of evil in Israel and the occupied territories than you do"
"The problem ain't what we don't know, it's what we know that ain't so". - attributed to Josh Billings.
Although you have no idea how much I know about what is going on, I expect you're right that there are many who know more about it than I do. The vast majority of these live there and know far more than Jimmy Carter as well, and although they respect his engagement on other issues, they can't take seriously his perspective on this one, but find it contemptible.
I reread what I wrote above, and find it an appropriate assessment of Carter. One word I used, however, was one I should not have - "bigotry". The word implies of mean-spirited mindset that I shouldn't attribute to Carter. The more appropriate term would have been "prejudice", which describes his viewpoint, buth without demonizing him as an individual.
June 17, 2009 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hardcore zionists, of the Jewish and ersatz "Christian" kind disapprove of Carter although they should take his recent "endorsement" of keeping the settlement of Gush Etzion intact into account.
Those he met with in Gush Etzion are happy to do so:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244371093499&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
June 17, 2009 1:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Carter has been living a life of service and he has traveled to many impoverished places etc. If he is saying this, I feel compelled to donate money to help the Palestinian people. I feel angry that this BS between Isreal and Palestine has been allowed to fester and rot for so long... The jewish people of all people must know and intimately understand that all peoples have a right to exist and all deserve a home. I know that simplistic etc. But the truth is that it just seems insane that forces want to keep perpetuing the same old same old. It's ignorant idiocy.
June 17, 2009 4:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
The ironic element of Carter's efforts is that they appear doomed to perpetuate the bitter and destructive conflict he aims to ameliorate. A statement above attributed criticims of him to "hard core Zionists", but in fact a much larger demographic judges him misguided, however sincere he may be.
The settlement issue illustrates the problem. Most Israelis are not hard-core Zionists, and would be willing to relinquish settlements in a genuine land-for-peace arrangement. They face strong internal opposition from exactly the "hard-core" minority of settlers who do in fact pose problems. Why does not the majority view prevail?
The settlers are determined, the majority who oppose them are ambivalent, and the predominant factor driving that ambivalence is the fear that if the settlers are dislodged - at the risk of considerable violence - the "peace" offered by the Palestinian side will be illusory. Instead, they fear, Hamas and others will ultimately resume their campaign to depict Israel itself as an illegitimate state that must be destroyed.
I am convinced that if the Israeli public ever comes genuinely to believe that a permanent peace is achievable, they will do what is necessary to achieve it. What that requires is unequivocal support to those Palestinians who are equally committed to peace for both peoples.
When Jimmy Carter speaks in ways that implicitly endorse the Hamas leadership or other would-be destroyers of Israel, he acts antithetically to the interests of the Israelis.
To an even greater extent, considering the suffering involved, his speech drives the conflict in a direction antithetical to the aspirations of the Palestinians - a direction that instead would condemn them to future decades of suffering, deprivation, and hopelessness.
June 17, 2009 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent comments. Thanks.
June 17, 2009 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Carter's visit and remarks are going to make things worse for the Palestinians? I don't think they can get much worse. If you mean remarks by a noted public figure telling the truth about the situation there, may offend many in Israel, already polarized, you're right. I don't know about all polls on relinquishing settlements but this one shows otherwise.
Most Israelis supported, even gleefully applauded, the bombing of an already imprisoned Gaza (one of the most densely packed civilian areas on earth) that Carter is decrying here. Most support the occupation and the collective punishment and the stranglehold on Gaza blockading necessities.
The IDF bombed UN schools and safe havens, hospitals and ambulances, homes and apartment buildings, and killed civilians in cold blood in some instances. They rained white phosphorus on families who were running from the buildings just bombed. 1500 civilians were killed in a few weeks. Was that all accidental?
June 17, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don - Yes, I do believe that Carter's clumsy interventions will make things worse for both Israelis and Palestinians, despite his stated intentions. If he had made them standing next to Abbas rather than Hanihya, the Hamas leader, they might have been less damaging, but the bottom line in my view is that unabated mutual accusations are counterproductive in achieving the only peace that in the real world has any chance of improving Palestinian life.
I contrast Carter's ineptitude with President Obama's brilliant performance at Cairo. Like Carter, Obama acknowledged Palestinian suffering, and Obama also reiterated the need to halt Israeli settlement expansion, but his speech was spectacularly non-accusatory. As a consequence, he earned increased respect in the Arab world without infuriating the Israeli public (although I wouldn't be surprised if Netanyahu was furious). The most recent result was an acknowledgment by Netanyahu of a need for a two state solution. No-one believes Netanyahu means it, but the fact that he was forced publicly to proclaim something everyone knows he doesn't believe actually weakens his hard line position and strenthens that of Israeli moderates who are sincere in reaching livable compromises with their Palestinian counterparts.
June 17, 2009 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fred, thanks for the response. I just got back in. It seems like the entire history of the I-P conflict has been “unabated mutual accusations.” But I must point out that the back and forth accusations are obstructive because some of the accusations are true and some are not, and the press rarely tries to distinguish the two.The US press does not even air both sides (don't you find that somewhat un-American).
Carter is about discerning the truth of the situation. HE is about doing good where he's needed. He's about helping people who cannot help themselves. Do you think he just chose to side with the Hamas “terrorists” because he wanted a fight and he just likes the underdog? Or was it because they fooled this erudite, intelligent and most informed man into backing them? I only hope I
m as "inept" as he awhen I reach his age. To those who have called him anti-semitic since he first wrote an fairly objective view of the conflict, I can only laugh (if Carter is the epitome of an anti-semite then that term is now rendered meaningless).
Haniya was Prime Minister in a unified Palestinian government until the failed US-Israeli backed coup attempt by Abbas and Fatah. He speaks for the Palestinians far more than the disgraced and disrespected Abbas. Even after that attempted Gaza takeover, Haniya made peace overtures. Israel’s response was imprisoning most of the Hamas members of government and the assassination of others; then the continued choke hold on Gaza including cutting power during the blistering summer heat and blockading most imports and exports (hence the Egyptian border tunnels),
Later attempts by Haniya at cease fires were dismissed by Olmert. Haniya balks at giving away bargaining points. He is smarter than they give him credit for (politically). Hamas is part of the Palestine people and will ultimately sit at the table if it ever gets to that.
At any rate, I applaud Obama’s efforts at promoting humanitarian aid for the Palestines. But let’s face it- he’s a sitting American President who cannot speak the truth about the I-P conflict. Carter is either in the position to tell the truth, regardless from pressure at home and abroad, or perhaps he just chooses to call it as he sees it and he sees it as well as anyone.
Let Obama call for another Roadmap, Camp David or Annapolis, etc. Hell, we can have one every year, it’ll do wonders for the sagging travel industry. But let’s not pretend any movement is expected from this facade of a program aimed at stalling changes. The SOP, since Sharon at least, has been maintain the status quo at all costs, continue consolidating Jerusalem and Israel proper, continue embedding the Palestinians into their little Bantustans all the while droning that there’s no one to talk with on the other side. Fine, but don’t try to smear the good people who are trying to find a real solution for real people who are suffering and dying.
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