Alan Dershowitz takes Dhimmi Carter apart in the Boston Globe:
YOU CAN ALWAYS tell when a public figure has written an indefensible book: when he refuses to debate it in the court of public opinion.
Or if they hold any position that they refuse to debate in the court of public opinion. Isn't that right, Omid? Carl? Ahmed? Akbar?
And you can always tell when he's a hypocrite to boot: when he says he wrote a book in order to stimulate a debate, and then he refuses to participate in any such debate. I'm talking about former president Jimmy Carter and his new book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid."Carter's book has been condemned as "moronic" (Slate), "anti-historical" (The Washington Post), "laughable" (San Francisco Chronicle), and riddled with errors and bias in reviews across the country. Many of the reviews have been written by non-Jewish as well as Jewish critics, and not by "representatives of Jewish organizations" as Carter has claimed. Carter has gone even beyond the errors of his book in interviews, in which he has said that the situation in Israel is worse than the crimes committed in Apartheid South Africa. When asked whether he believed that Israel's "persecution" of Palestinians was "[e]ven worse . . . than a place like Rwanda," Carter answered, "Yes. I think -- yes."
When Larry King referred to my review several times to challenge Carter, Carter first said I hadn't read the book and then blustered, "You know, I think it's a waste of my time and yours to quote professor Dershowitz. He's so obviously biased, Larry, and it's not worth my time to waste it on commenting on him." (He never did answer King's questions.)
The next week Carter wrote a series of op-eds bemoaning the reception his book had received. He wrote that his "most troubling experience" had been "the rejection of [his] offers to speak" at "university campuses with high Jewish enrollment." The fact is that Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz had invited Carter to come to Brandeis to debate me, and Carter refused. The reason Carter gave was this: "There is no need to for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."
As Carter knows, I've been to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, many times -- certainly more times than Carter has been there -- and I've written three books dealing with the subject of Middle Eastern history, politics, and the peace process. The real reason Carter won't debate me is that I would correct his factual errors. It's not that I know too little; it's that I know too much....
Jimmy Carter isn't brave for beating up on Israel. He's a bully. And like all school-yard bullies, underneath the tough talk and bravado, there's a nagging insecurity and a fear that one day he'll have to answer for himself in a fair fight.
Read it all.
HE is afraid he won't be able to give a good answer to the questions that are sure to come.
Better for people to think you are fool, than to have them know it.
dhimmi Cawtah drank the kool-aid many moons ago. How did we ever elect him as president? Or, has he just recently got religion? Religion of peace that is.
When Larry King referred to my review several times to challenge Carter, Carter first said I hadn't read the book and then blustered, "You know, I think it's a waste of my time and yours to quote professor Dershowitz. He's so obviously biased, Larry, and it's not worth my time to waste it on commenting on him." (He never did answer King's questions.)
That's RIGHT out of the CAIR playbook--refuse to answer question, instead accuse questioner of bias. They've trained him well.
When someone says that the palestinian situation is worse than Rwanda many things need to happen.
First, that person needs to be stripped of all credibility. Next, that person needs to be raked over the coals of public opinion. Finally, that person needs to have a brain scan to see if senility is the cause of such a ridiculous statement.
Peanut Brain Carter has managed to sound more stupid out of office than he ever sounded as president and that is quite a feat. The man is simply embarrassing and needs to fade away.
I think that our friend jimmy will soon be invited on a speaking tour in the Gulf at a $1,000,000 dollar a shot. That is what I call corruption, he must have been talking to his good friend Bill Clinton. Money corrupts, Arab money corrupts absolute.
The peanut man with a plan doesn't care what happens to Israel. I don't care if anyone here hates me, I just don't like him. Carter is a bully. Plus, I've also heard he has bad breath! And no wonder from all the lies he tells about Israel being an "aparthied state". Don't they have the right to exist JIMMY?
Boston, the best rock band of all time!
Yes, Carter is a bully... as is John Dugard, the UNs so-called rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, whose only responsibility is to report on alleged human rights abuses by Israel with no corresponding obligation to note the relentless violations of human rights and international law perpetrated by the Palestinian terrorists he represents.
Or Ronnie Kasrils, the South African Intelligence Minister, who consistently uses cheap and fallacious rhetoric like "apartheid" and "ethnic cleansing" to beat up on Israel while dismissing the endemic Jew hatred and incitement to violence drilled into the Palestinian Arabs by their leaders and media for the last 70 years.
Or Alan Rickman who was so moved by the death of terrorist-enabler Rachel Corrie that he produced a tributary play about her life rather than of the dozen Jewish Rachels, murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the intefada.
Bullies too, are the staff writers and editors for Reuters and the BBC and the NYT -- people like Dan Williams and Alan Johnston and Steve Erlanger who consistently write poignant and sympathetic human interest stories about Palestinian children who have been the unfortunate victims of decades of conflict due to the rejectionism of Yasser Arafat and Hamas while completely ignoring the suffering and trauma of Israeli families who have been torn apart by the same conflict.
It is all so easy for Carter and the rest to sit in their ivory tower offices -- insulated and protected from the barbarians by distance and Western armies -- to castigate, condemn and crucify the Jews of Israel for having the nerve to assert and protect their tiny nation-state.
One day, these propagandists too will be under threat, the freedom that they have abused subject to confiscation by those who they now stupidly glorify. It's a shame that in waging and winning the war against Islam, we will also be saving the asses of these useful idiots.
Radish,
I agree, Dhimmi C is good at the CAIR method of 'answering' questions: Deflect, obfuscate, and then make unrelated counter-acusations. Resort to ad-hominem attacks on the questioner if all else fails. For example: "I have a Nobel Peace Prize! I won't stoop so low as to debate some Zionist who has only written three books on the subject!"
What a jerk. Tear him apart Dershowitz!
What's more scary than this demented and contemptible fool is that there are many more like him in American politics who are selling out their nation!
It is unfortunately not only peanut Khadr, but also Bill Clinton & David Duke, who go on speaking tours to the petro-dollar-Arabs and tell them what they want to hear. Its already bad enough when GWB is seen kissing and hugging with Saudi princes, but this behavior and corruption can be found left and right. It is not restricted to one party and that is a nightmare.
BJ Clinton went on a speaking tour during the 'Koran- rage' affair and told the Arabs that the cartoons 'should have not been published'- so much for his understanding of the constitution. He also apologized for the crusades, either totally unaware or ignorant of history or just plain stupid? He has never been taken on over this, as he should have been.
The people of America have to raise the standards for their elected leaders. Thanks god for the internet, I still have hope that things can change as they must!
Check out Sheik yer'mami's brand new blog for songs and Mohammed cartoons:
http://sheikyermami.com/2006/12/19/my-allah-is-better/
Check out Sheik yer'mami's brand new blog for songs and Mohammed cartoons:
http://sheikyermami.com/2006/12/19/my-allah-is-better/
DebInMaine-
What's to hate about you? Jimmy Peanut Brain IS an idiot and a shill for Islamania. Facts are facts-nobody is hated here for presenting the facts. Unless they are a troll of course and then who the hell cares about it anyway?
You must admit it has been an interesting spectacle watching him devolve from the sh_t-eating grinning pretend "smartest president" (Cronkite) pretend "nuclear physicist" happy peanut farmer to the tortured-looking embittered sad-clown yet unapologetic obvious buffoon he's been revealed as. Avarice and an eternal unsatiated quest for relevance and unmerited greatness seem to have consumed him, haven't they?
ISLAMSFORLOSERS:
Watch who you're calling a troll. I call it as I see it. You got a problem with that?
"who the hell cares about it anyway?" I do troll. Noticed you're always the first troll on this site every morning.
"nuclear physicist"
If I remember correctly Carter caught some flack for pronouncing it "nucular".
I'm no huge fan of Dershowitz but I'd love to see him eviscerate Carter in a public forum. It won't happen because Carter has proven himself a coward (on the highest moral plain, of course) on many occasions.
My prediction is that Carter won't debate anyone and will soon stop appearing on talk shows. Sooner or later someone is going to hit him with "There you go again."
Ronnie lad where are ye now?
Jimmy Carter is at war with reality, for in reality he was the worst President ever in terms of harm done to our national mood and reputation and our ability to project strength in the ME.
It is too late for Carter to do anything about his presidentcy being a major boost to the Jihad and the will of places like Iran to pick a fight with America.
The only thing this sad old man can do is wall himself in a mental inversion where up is down and palestinians are victims, not the cause of, violence in Israel and its need to build a wall.
I believe it is only a matter of time before Roslyn and Amy don`t let him speak in public.
Nancy did not want us to see Reagan as his illness changed him. The Carters will hide Jimmy because his dementia is revealing exactly who he is and always was.
The "Case Against For Israel" is Dershowitz's best book and a comprehensive response to Carter's book. He takes apart Israel's most virulent critiques cogently and effectively. I don't agree with all of Isarel's policies (for instance its relationship with South Africa in the eighties which was despicable), but at the very least they are a democratic government that respects the rule of law. The Supreme Court consistently provides accountability and oversight. Dershowitz illustrates these points masterfully.
Boston? Try the Sex Pistols.
Peanut Khadr, worlds first to receive the official Sheik yer'mami
AZZHOLE OF THE MONTH -award!
http://sheikyermami.com/2006/12/22/azzhole-of-the-month/
He CAN'T debate it...it's so baseless, sowithout foundation that he'd be torn to pieces in a neutral setting of a level playing field, and he knows it. Besides, nobody here in the US pays much attention to him since we haven't forgotten how badly he operated when CinC.
This is so off topic that I apologize to purists but: "Boston? Try the Sex Pistols."?
Both of the above are dead issues, but the Stones go Rolling on.
Forget debate! Break out the holy water and wooden stakes!
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Terminator, King Arthur...anyone...please!!!!!!!! Save us from this nightmare.
Even Reagan could not end it becuase he came back to life!!!! From the grave!!!! Dammmmmmmmm Nation!
WILL JIMMY CARTER EVER JUST GO AWAY!!!!!
God help me if his spawn ever gets elected office becuase one is enough....we don't need two.
jcom972/
On October 1, 1979, President Carter announced before a television audience the existence of the Rapid Deployment Forces (RDF), a mobile fighting force capable of responding to worldwide trouble spots, without drawing on forces committed to NATO. The RDF was the forerunner of CENTCOM.
Was this a bad move as C-in-C?
President Carter initially departed from the long-held policy of containment toward the Soviet Union. In its place Carter promoted a foreign policy that placed human rights at the forefront. This was a break from the policies of several predecessors, in which human rights abuses were often overlooked if they were committed by a nation that was allied with the United States.
Was this, somehow, wrong?
A key foreign policy issue Carter worked laboriously on was the SALT II Treaty. SALT stood for the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks and were negotiations being conducted between the United States and the Soviet Union. The work of Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon brought about the SALT I treaty, but Carter wished to further the reduction of nuclear arms. It was his main goal, as was stated in his Inaugural Address, that nuclear weaponry be completely banished from the face of the Earth. Carter and Leonid Brezhnev, the leader of the Soviet Union, reached an agreement and held a signing ceremony. There was much opposition in Congress to ratifying the treaty, as many thought that it weakened US defenses. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan late in 1979, Carter withdrew the treaty from consideration by Congress and the treaty was never ratified. Even so, both sides honored their commitments laid out in the negotiations.
Perhaps this worked - don't you agree?
(The quotes (above), are drawn from Wikipedia. I acknowledge that Wikipedia is unreliable and will willingly accept corrections. I know that this process is now known as Wikifaultcorrect and I will accept such corrections backed up by the appropriate citations.)
Dominic.
If The Washington (Com)Post doesn't like it, it really, really must be bad.
Dominic, I am puzzled, are you praising Carter or criticizing him?
The RDF was a sham, and because of his change in support for our allies, we have a soon to be nuculer armed Iran.
Wikipedia will also quickly accept lies and distortions.
The people of America have to raise the standards for their elected leaders. Thanks god for the internet, I still have hope that things can change as they must!
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at December 22, 2006 07:58 PM
How shameful for a womanizer to be the president/commander-in-chief of USofA. As if that was not bad enough Americans elected an AWOL, rich, irresponsible, illegal nanny raised brat. No wonder all he does is to bow to the rich businesses, punish patriotic Americans and dance to his wahhabbi master's tunes. Like sheikh yer'mami says... 'The people of America have to raise the standards for their elected leaders.'
The people of America have to raise the standards for their elected leaders. Thanks god for the internet, I still have hope that things can change as they must!
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at December 22, 2006 07:58 PM
I don't think this will change. Back in 1979, we had the Iran hostage crisis. Carter's lack of leadership sent him down to one of the worst election defeats in history. Nowadays, things have changed, and for the worst. The sort of weakness displayed by Carter almost 28 years ago would no longer be electorally fatal, because people have changed since then. Thanks to our press, our media and all manner of leftist academics and apologists for terror atrocities, we have been conditioned into turning the other cheek by the corrosive drip drip effect of the political correctness spewed out over that period, and longer, and any leader who acquires a spine and takes on the terrorists and the states which support them flirts with electoral defeat. Same here in Britain. That is why we are paralysed and can't raise the bar for our leaders, and that is why we'll never see another Winston Churchill or Theodore Roosevelt get to the top again in our lifetimes. People these days want wimps, not strongmen in power.
Alan Dershowitz is not "the court of public opinion." He is the man who argued in the LA Times on July 26, 2006 that some civilian deaths are "more tragic than others." With that morally reprehensible argument he slid down the slippery slope of dehumanizing his enemies. I respectfully suggest this is why Jimmy Carter doesn't want to be in the same room with him, or as Carter himself put it, "to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz."
probably the reason Mr. Carter will not debate his bookbecause he did not have the brains to write itI am sure you have all heard a ghost writers that a lot of public figures have used them and could it be that Mr. Carter doesn't know what is his own book says because he used one?? We also need to look at where a lot of is one money for speaking comes from today,and I for onewould not be surprised one bit if checks read the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
When asked whether he believed that Israel's "persecution" of Palestinians was "[e]ven worse . . . than a place like Rwanda," Carter answered, "Yes. I think -- yes."
Oh, man... does he even know what happened in Rwanda? They killed approximately a million people in about three months (with machetes, no less). All the people who complain about Israel committing genocide don't seem to understand what genocide actually is, and consulting a dictionary seems out of the question.
YOU CAN ALWAYS tell when a public figure has written an indefensible book: when he refuses to debate it in the court of public opinion.
I loathe J Carter but he's 82 years old and no way is as fast on his feet as Alan Dershowitz. Jimmy Carter is perfectly capable of writing a vile book at his own pace and with the help of research assistants and editors. However, debate with Dershowitz is ill advised for this senile old fool and he knows it
Actually Jimmy Carter is not merely a senile old fool. He is far from innocent. He's a malicious anti Semite. He hates Israel and by default has chosen sides with the Islamic Jihad which threatens Western Civilization and this planet
Eatbees, We need to get rid of the idea that all human life is precious. I certainly think that my death would be more tragic than the death of, say, an Iraqi bomb maker. All lives not equal. Jihadists certainly do not value their lives, and neither should we. Someday (100 years?) a Christian church or a Synagogue will be built in Mecca. Before that happens, a lot of humans will die.
The worst president and ex-president in US history.
Look for Dhimmi Carter to team up with Baker-Bush team post 2008 ...
Obviously there are quite a few critics out there defining Carters Book. I am accepting that Mr.Carter certainly has a slant on Palestinian/Israeli that is in conflict with many experts in the field.
Maybe his age is a contribution to his book that appears to have way to many factual errors . When was the last time we saw Carter debate anybody on any issue? THe last real debate I ever saw him in was with candidate for president Ronald Reagan. Carter pretty much never knew what hit him when Reagan got through with him. Remember Reagan's famous "there he goes again" line when he would respond to Carter and his weak kneed approach to defending our country. I think Carter wants everyone to debate his book but himself.
A wise man once said, “it is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought of as a fool, then to open it and remove all doubt”.
I cant help but wonder if his next book will be about his secret membership in the KKK.
Why won't Carter debate his book?
Because he's full of crap.
In time, former USA President Jimmy Carter will have to answer to a much greater or higher power in the end, one who was glad to be born to a community that is the object of this condemmnation that this book has brought.
A Blessed Merry Christmas to all.
Yes, he is old; yes he is an anti-Semite; yes he is a utopian, turn the other cheek, holier than thou moralist; yes he was raised in a dim witted family in a southern backwater and therefore grew up overestimating his own intelligence; yes he was elected president in a fluke rejection of Watergate and a perhaps even dimmer witted Gerald Ford; but the big issue here is that he is a venal, hired hand of the Islamofascists.
From the down payments from BCCI in the 1970's to the current support from the binLaden family and Alaweed bin Talal Jimmy Carter is a sold out enemy agent. He should be investigated for prosecution as an undisclosed foreign agent.
To make things a little simpler, bear with me I have been busy getting ready for Christmas, the wrongful condemmnation of the nation of Isreal and by extention, the Jewish people that this book by Jimmy Carter is trying to do.
Merry Christmas once again.
"WILL JIMMY CARTER EVER JUST GO AWAY!!!!!
God help me if his spawn ever gets elected office becuase one is enough....we don't need two."
I believe his spawn may be Obama
eatbees,
"[Dershowitz] is the man who argued in the LA Times on July 26, 2006 that some civilian deaths are "more tragic than others." With that morally reprehensible argument he slid down the slippery slope of dehumanizing his enemies."
I read the article, and what Dershowitz is doing is not morally reprehensible at all: he is merely re-articulating a principle that has become lost in recent times through the fog of PC, as well as through Islamic propaganda. That simple principle is the moral difference, in wartime, between murder of civilians and accidental death of civilians. This principle is also widened to include the reckless and cruel endangerment of civilians -- as for example all the private homes of civilians used by the Hizbollah in order to purposefully entice attacks of those same homes. Then there are the civilians who more or less passively enabled the Hizbollah. As Dershowitz points out,
There is a vast difference — both moral and legal — between a 2-year-old who is killed by an enemy rocket and a 30-year-old civilian who has allowed his house to be used to store Katyusha rockets. Both are technically civilians, but the former is far more innocent than the latter.
This passive-active enablement occurs throughout the Muslim world where there are conflicts, particularly in Iraq, where the line between the Muslim civilians we are trying to protect and the Muslim jihadists has a wide grey zone where the two merge and blur together and can have concrete expression in giving our soldiers incorrect intel on purpose, or letting jihadists use a wing of a house for their planning, or tipping off jihadists of an impending attack, or being a courier for jihadists, etc. With such a grey zone existing, fueled by the ideological hatred rooted in Islam for the Other, the civilian deaths that occur at the hands of American soldiers are in fact less tragic than the murders that occur at the hands of the Muslim terrorists; and most tragic of all are the civilian deaths of non-Muslim non-military personnel and others at the hands of Muslim jihadists.
There is nothing morally reprehensible in Dershowitz's essay; he is merely trying to restore rational light on the difficult problems of morality in wartime, a light which shows the Muslims to be clearly the morally reprehensible ones. It is those in our time who fudge the difference between murder and accidental deaths in wartime who are the morally reprehensible ones -- even dangerous, for they are enabling the enemy with their sophistry.
http://www.standwithus.com/news_post.asp?NPI=913
Dhimmi Carter is so bad, that even God doesn't want his company, and since he seems to get only worse with age, he has a good chance of beating Methuselah... poor us.
Pelayo/
Neither. Just wondering if everything about the Carter administration is always black and white or if there isn't room for some shades of grey.
Perhaps I'm also attempting to remind the posters from the USA that things sometimes look a little different, but only a little, if you live elsewhere than in the USA.
I don't happen to think that President Carter is an anti-semite - I just think, perhaps wrongly, that he has failed to realise that he has put the Christian value of 'turn-the-other-cheek' far-too-far ahead of the exhortation to 'defend-the-faith'. I don't think that he is a bad man, nor an evil one; I think that he is just a Christian soul struggling to make sense of the attacks against us and getting it wrong - after all, many do. For me, his essential decency shines through to the same degree that his essential wrongness does. For me, and I must stress that this is a personal opinion, he is a good man but deeply, oh so very deeply, misguided by a corrupt reading of his faith.
Then again, I could be wrong.
Dominic.