Bill Clinton Attacks Jimmy Carter for Jew Money

The following is from an email from the AJC:

President Clinton Thanks AJC for Efforts on New Carter Book

Former President Bill Clinton, in a handwritten letter to AJC Executive Director David Harris, voiced appreciation for his efforts to expose the inaccuracies in President Jimmy Carter’s book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Thanks so much for your articles about President Carter’s book. I don’t know where his information (or conclusions) came from …” said Clinton. “I’m grateful.”

Normally, one ex-President does not attack another, but apparently Bill and Hillary need money, and Jews have a lot of it. Bill is a smart guy, but he has the morals of a snake. His successor is stupid and has no morals at all. Poor America!

Jimmy Carter was intelligent and had morals. He would not negotiate for hostages. His undoing was that Ronald Reagan, unlike Carter, was willing to deal with Iran to get the hostages back and win the election. (Remember Iran-Contra?) Carter chose principle over being re-elected. And although he negotiated the Camp David accords, the Jews hate him because he is even-handed. Just like they hate Franklin Roosevelt, who liberated the surviving Jews from the concentration camps, because he was not willing to kill more Christians to save the Jews earlier. No one is likely to call Clinton or Bush even-handed in dealing with Israel and the Jews. Elliot Abrams, who was convicted of a felony for Iran-Contra, is one of Bush's senior national security advisers on the NSC.

Israel's Answer to Kristof

The Jerusalem Post has an op-ed replying to Nicholas Kristof's column on Israel. The bottom line is that Israel wants peace, but nobody else does. Sure, Israel wants peace if you call "peace" unconditional surrender by everybody else in the region. Israel wants peace about as much as Osama bin Laden does. Call a spade a spade! Israel hates all of its neighbors. It's not interested in peace.

Reagan's Courage Or Lack Thereof

Reading over VP Cheney's speech to AIPAC, I noticed that he mentioned the terrorist attack in Beirut in 1983 that killed 241 Marines. As he said, the US under Reagan withdrew from Beirut -- pulled out immediately; it did not "stay the course." That certainly qualifies as cowardice under today's definition by the Republicans of what Iraq withdrawal means. Yet, today Reagan is praised as a courageous leader who defeated Communism. Which is it? Is Reagan a courageous leader (in Europe) or a coward (in the Middle East)?

The Economist on AIPAC

The Economist magazine reports on the recent AIPAC meeting. AIPAC got every politician who counts to come kiss its feet. Cheney was particularly prominent in paying obeisance. Its violently right wing attitudes opposing Middle East peace on any basis expect complete surrender to Israel are its most identifiable characteristic, but The Economist points out that many American Jews are considerably less hawkish. And as I've mentioned earlier, many Israelis are less hawkish. Nevertheless, it says this is the best of times and the worst of times for AIPAC. Because of AIPAC's predominant position in Washington, it appears to be the spokesman for all American Jews. The article says that George Soros is considering starting up a liberal counterpoint organization to AIPAC, but so far he hasn't done so. He has written an excellent article in the Financial Times calling on the US and Israel to deal with Hamas. The Economist says:

The lobbyists had every reason to feel proud of their work. Congress has more Jewish members than ever before: 30 in the House and a remarkable 13 in the Senate. (There are now more Jews in Congress than Episcopalians.) Both parties are competing with each other to be the “soundest” on Israel. About two-thirds of Americans hold a favourable view of the place.

Yet they have reason to feel a bit nervous, too. The Iraq debacle has produced a fierce backlash against pro-war hawks, of which AIPAC was certainly one. It has also encouraged serious people to ask awkward questions about America's alliance with Israel. And a growing number of people want to push against AIPAC. One pressure group, the Council for the National Interest—run by two retired congressmen, Paul Findley, a Republican, and James Abourezk, a Democrat—even bills itself as the anti-AIPAC. The Leviathan may be mightier than ever, but there are more and more Captain Ahabs trying to get their harpoons in....

But the growing activism of liberal Jewish groups underlines a worrying fact for AIPAC: most Jews are fairly left-wing. Fully 77% of them think that the Iraq war was a mistake compared with 52% of all Americans. Eighty-seven per cent of Jews voted for the Democrats in 2006, and all but four of the Jews in Congress are Democrats.

An even bigger threat to AIPAC comes from the general climate of opinion. It is suddenly becoming possible for serious people—politicians and policymakers as well as academics—to ask hard questions about America's relationship with Israel. Is America pursuing its own interests in the Middle East, or Israel's? Should America tie itself so closely to the Israeli government's policies or should it forge other alliances?

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser, worries that America is seen in the Middle East as “acting increasingly on behalf of Israel”. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, has compared the situation in Palestine to segregation, and argued that there could “be no greater legacy for America than to help bring into being a Palestinian state”. Philip Zelikow, her former counsellor, argues, in diplomatic language, that the only way to create a viable coalition against terrorists that includes Europeans, moderate Arabs and Israelis, is a “sense that Arab-Israeli issues are being addressed”.