THE LYING JIMMY CARTER -- and his crosseyed hatred of Israel

Excerpt from a review of Carter's latest book

But it is when he gets to the 2003 Road Map that Carter is at his most egregious. Carter states the Palestinians "accepted the road map in its entirety" (page 159), that Palestinian leaders had "accepted all provisions of the Quartet's Roadmap for Peace" (page 173), that there was "no doubt" Abbas was "dedicated" to a "peace agreement in accordance with the Roadmap" (page 173), and that Abbas "has publicly endorsed [the Road Map] without equivocation" (page 187). He attributes the failure of the Road Map to Israeli "caveats." Surely Carter is aware that the Palestinians had, under Phase I of the Road Map, an immediate obligation-not contingent on any Israeli action-to begin

"sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure."

And surely Carter is aware that Abbas bragged to the Palestinian Legislative Council on September 6, 2003 that he had in fact refused to carry out that obligation, and had repeatedly ignored American and Israeli entreaties to meet the Palestinian obligation he had accepted "without reservation." Abbas' speech can easily be retrieved using Google, but it is nowhere mentioned in Carter's book.

And finally, Carter is obviously aware that in August 2005, notwithstanding the Palestinian failure, Israel exceeded its own Phase I obligations-which required only that Israel "dismantle settlement outposts erected since March 2001" and freeze settlement activity-by uprooting all 21 of its longstanding settlements in Gaza (and four more in the West Bank) in their entirety, in order to give the Palestinians a chance to demonstrate their readiness to "live side by side in peace and security" and resume the Road Map.

For this, Israel reaped more than 1,000 rockets from Gaza since August 2005, and tunnels and attacks across an international border, from an area in which no Jews remained. This, too, is ignored in Carter's book. He complains instead that Gaza has its own "separation barrier" that can be "penetrated only by Israeli-controlled checkpoints" (the same way that the international border of most other countries of the world can "only" be "penetrated").

Carter's discussion of the Israeli West Bank security barrier-built as a last resort against years of mass murder bombers targeting Israeli civilians, and in the face of a complete and continuous Palestinian refusal to meet its Phase I Road Map obligation-is never other than pejorative. He uses various terms-the "segregation wall," the "imprisonment wall," the "encircling barrier . . . imposing a system of . . . apartheid," the "huge dividing wall"-that are simply Palestinian talking points, not an attempt at serious discussion. He makes no effort to describe the conditions that produced the barrier, and does not even fairly state the Israeli position regarding it.

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ELSEWHERE

GWB's new Iraq adviser has a track record of failure: "As chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Soviet desk during the early 1980s, Gates shared the consensus academic view that the Soviet economy was strong and stable. A prosperous Russia, he reckoned, would respond rationally to management by carrot and stick. Fortunately for the United States, then-CIA director William Casey recruited outsiders such as journalist Herbert E Meyer, and listened to them rather than to Gates... Baker, Gates and their Iraq Study Group will report to President Bush next week. Judging from press leaks and the public record, they will propose a ghastly misevaluation of Iran, identical in character to their misevaluation of the Soviet Union a generation ago. As widely reported, they will propose to "engage Iran"; but for what object should Iran be engaged? .... In other words, the Bush administration's threats against Tehran are not a response to Iran's nuclear ambitions, but rather the cause of Iran's nuclear ambitions, according to the sages of the Carter and the Bush Sr administrations. It is a peculiarly self-referential argument, but not a new one, for that is just how the "realists" viewed the Soviet Union in 1981."

Big cars to be hit hard in London: "Drivers of gas-guzzling cars may have to pay 25 pounds a day to enter London's enlarged congestion charge zone, under plans by Ken Livingstone to tackle climate change. The Mayor of London is proposing an emissions-based congestion charge fee that will penalise drivers of the highest-polluting vehicles, including many 4x4s and luxury saloons. The new 25 pound rate would apply to cars rated in band G for vehicle excise duty, which covers those emitting more than 225g of carbon dioxide per kilometre..... Owners of fuel-inefficient cars in Richmond upon Thames, southwest London, are already facing a tripling in the cost of parking permits to œ300, under proposals put forward by the local council."

Futile attempt to make British bureaucrats work: "Being told to clear your desk used to be synonymous with dismissal. But civil servants have been asked to remove photographs, food and mobile phones in an attempt to improve efficiency. Under an edict sent to Revenue & Customs staff in tax offices, desks have to be tidy, clean and free from clutter to promote "efficient business processing". The so-called Lean programme, designed to improve productivity in government offices, has provoked a work-to-rule among 14,000 civil servants. An internal memo from a senior manager in North Wales outlining the process evoked claims from the Public and Commercial Services Union that the organisation was trying to "dehumanise" working conditions."

Arabs preserve Frenchness??? "Abdellah Fatih owns a corner shop in a Paris suburb where he says that he sells "everything from condoms to whisky, with a warm welcome for my customers". The ebullient Mr Fatih was born in Morocco and emigrated to France in the 1980s. He has come to represent a core ingredient of the French identity that President Chirac is striving to preserve - the small, local shopkeeper. Although Mr Chirac has performed many about-turns during a tortuous career, he has been steadfast in his determination to halt the decline of village stores and urban corner shops, announcing tax cuts yesterday for "micro-businesses". His campaign may at last be paying off, thanks largely to the immigrant families who are now the guardians of this particular aspect of Frenchness. After falling from 125,000 to 28,500 between 1970 and 2000, the number of grocers in France has stabilised and appears to be rising again as Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian families invest in what Mr Fatih describes as a "business with a future".

Getting tough on terrorism? "Immigrants arrested in the United States may be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism and may not challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, the Bush administration said Monday, opening a new legal front in the fight over the rights of detainees. In court documents filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the Justice Department said a new anti-terrorism law being used to hold detainees in Guantanamo Bay also applies to foreigners captured and held in the United States."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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