WILL AMERICA REPENT AND ALLOW THE REBUILDING OF GAZA?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I HAVE CHOSEN TO REPRINT THIS REPRINT OF A STATEMENT BY FORMER PRESIDENT CARTER.  HE HAS ONCE AGAIN SHOWN BY HIS WORDS AND THE DEEDS HE ADVOCATES THAT HE, UNLIKE OBAMA, DESERVED A PEACE PRIZE, AT LEAST FOR SO MUCH OF HIS POST PRESIDENTIAL WORK.  

 

Published on Sunday, December 20, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Gaza Must Be Rebuilt Now

We can wait no longer to restart the peace process. The human suffering demands urgent relief

by Jimmy Carter

It is generally recognised that the Middle East peace process is in the doldrums, almost moribund. Israeli settlement expansion within Palestine continues, and PLO leaders refuse to join in renewed peace talks without a settlement freeze, knowing that no Arab or Islamic nation will accept any comprehensive agreement while Israel retains control of East Jerusalem.
US objections have impeded Egyptian efforts to resolve differences between Hamas and Fatah that could lead to 2010 elections. With this stalemate, PLO leaders have decided that President Mahmoud Abbas will continue in power until elections can be held - a decision condemned by many Palestinians.
Even though Syria and Israel under the Olmert government had almost reached an agreement with Turkey's help, the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejects Turkey as a mediator on the Golan Heights. No apparent alternative is in the offing.
The UN general assembly approved a report issued by its human rights council that called on Israel and the Palestinians to investigate charges of war crimes during the recent Gaza war, but positive responses seem unlikely.
In summary: UN resolutions, Geneva conventions, previous agreements between Israelis and Palestinians, the Arab peace initiative, and official policies of the US and other nations are all being ignored. In the meantime, the demolition of Arab houses, expansion of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Palestinian recalcitrance threaten any real prospect for peace.
Of more immediate concern, those under siege in Gaza face another winter of intense personal suffering. I visited Gaza after the devastating January war and observed homeless people huddling in makeshift tents, under plastic sheets, or in caves dug into the debris of their former homes. Despite offers by Palestinian leaders and international agencies to guarantee no use of imported materials for even defensive military purposes, cement, lumber, and panes of glass are not being permitted to pass entry points into Gaza. The US and other nations have accepted this abhorrent situation without forceful corrective action.
I have discussed ways to assist the citizens of Gaza with a number of Arab and European leaders and their common response is that the Israeli blockade makes any assistance impossible. Donors point out that they have provided enormous aid funds to build schools, hospitals and factories, only to see them destroyed in a few hours by precision bombs and missiles. Without international guarantees, why risk similar losses in the future?
It is time to face the fact that, for the past 30 years, no one nation has been able or willing to break the impasse and induce the disputing parties to comply with international law. We cannot wait any longer. Israel has long argued that it cannot negotiate with terrorists, yet has had an entire year without terrorism and still could not negotiate. President Obama has promised active involvement of the US government, but no formal peace talks have begun and no comprehensive framework for peace has been proposed. Individually and collectively, the world powers must act.
One recent glimmer of life has been the 8 December decision of EU foreign ministers to restate the long-standing basic requirements for peace commonly accepted within the international community, including that Israel's pre-1967 boundaries will prevail unless modified by a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians. A week later the new EU foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton, reiterated this statement in even stronger terms and called for the international Quartet to be "reinvigorated". This is a promising prospect.
President Obama was right to insist on a two-state solution and a complete settlement freeze as the basis for negotiations. Since Israel has rejected the freeze and the Palestinians won't negotiate without it, a logical step is for all Quartet members (the US, EU, Russia and UN) to support the Obama proposal by declaring any further expansion of settlements illegal and refusing to veto UN security council decisions to condemn such settlements. This might restrain Israel and also bring Palestinians to the negotiating table.
At the same time, the Quartet should join with Turkey and invite Syria and Israel to negotiate a solution to the Golan Heights dispute.
Without ascribing blame to any of the disputing parties, the Quartet also should begin rebuilding Gaza by organising relief efforts under the supervision of an active special envoy, overseeing a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and mediating an opening of the crossings. The cries of homeless and freezing people demand immediate relief.
This is a time for bold action, and the season for forgiveness, reconciliation and peace.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

JIMMY CARTER BREAKS THE SILENCE ABOUT WHITE SUPREMACY IN AMERICA

Well, I guess Jimmy Carter knows what he is talking about when he says that a lot of the so-called criticism of Obama policies is really more of a racist response by many otherwise polite Americans.


Of course this a violation of the oppressive rules that our culture lives by.  Racism should be mentioned, if at all, so few hear the words.  Jimmy is calling out the crackers in suits and disguised as patriots and all that, the racists who pose as something else.


Good for Jimmy and Rosalyn. 

This is tough for the Republicans because half of them are probably not very racist but they love the other half who are quite racist.  It is really a club of racists, a gang of racists where you are able to feel almost like a nonracist person by comparing yourself to your kkk-like fellow Republicans.

Yet it is tough if rank and file Republicans really have to deal with the fact that it is a racist group of people they are associated with and that the policies are often to benefit Whites or disadvantage people of color rather than to pursue other more democratic ends.

THE CARTERS PROVE THAT WHITE PROTESTANTS CAN BE PROGRESSIVE TOO!

Image via Wikipedia

The Carter's seem to be motivated by a liberation framework that includes some form of I believe Baptist or protestant theology, a commitment to the wider community including people different from white protestants and a profound respect for democratic elections and democratic processes.

More typically the white protestants are the backbone of superstition, ethnic bigotry, white supremacy, patriarchy and plain villainy. The Carters and many other protestants show this backward white protestant mold can be broken.

CARTER WAS RIGHT ABOUT A TRUCE WITH HAMAS

It is funny to see all the losers of the Democratic Party speaking the other day while Jimmy Carter quietly sat silent and more important than the whole lot put together. Why? Because they unabashedly and without thought embrace Zionism and imperialism. Democrats also have contempt for democracy. At least Carter has been able to foster some degree of democracy in other lands. He isn't really anti-imperialist, too bad about that.

He was sure right about some sort of violence reducing agreement between Israel and Hamas being possible. Rocket attacks on Israel are way down and attacks on Gaza too, I think.

Anyway it was supposedly impossible. Bullshit. Peaceful agreements are often possible and desirable.

Maybe the Carter Center Should Help the United States Set Up More Democratic Elections

Yeap

The title says it all. Look at Florida in the last two and the current Presidential elections. It is still a place for political manipulation of the voting count at both the primary and actual election levels.
Could the Carter Center help? I don't know what their policy is vis-a-vis the United States but I know their expertise is needed if we are to ever have credible elections in the United States, especially at the national level.

JIMMY DOES IT AGAIN AND SO DO THE IMPERIALIST OPINION WARDENS BUT MAINLY HIS VISIT WAS IGNORED

Now I don't want to go gah, gah about the Carters. Or maybe I do, but I won't really do it because they are only human and as a former U.S. President Mr. Carter has a lot of blood on his hands, as do all of us. He befriended and supported dictators like Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and, of course, the Shah of Iran. Don't you remember borrowing Imelda's shoes, not all of them of course. See, you too are a bud of dictators. More seriously we pay taxes and otherwise make the empire work in our daily lives, so none of us are morally untainted by the crimes of the empire.

Of coure Mr. Jimmy invented "The Carter Doctrine" ie. the idea that the United States would use nuclear weapons to make the Gulf safe for oil traffic and such, if necessary. Well, if that hasn't scared you away I can go gah, gah. I believe he did propose a national energy policy which was shot down by the fossil fuel industry and their willing tools, "your" elected representatives. The United States still has no national energy plan or policy to speak of.

Mr. Jimmy Carter talked to the Hamas folks of Gaza and they had some interesting things to say and when he came back to the United States to tell us of the meeting he was immediately set upon by narrow minded conservatives of all kinds and quite a few right-wing liberals as well.
[What's a right-wing liberal? How about a blue dog democrat like Representative Moore?]

At first I heard that Hamas would recognize Israel at the 1967 borders which is certainly diplomatic boilerplate for the region by now. Then it was reported that Hamas would not recognize Israel but that they would agree to a ten year cease fire. That sounds like a way to get peace for ten years. Peace is habit forming. It worked in Ireland. Get a little peace going and people love it.

Headlines emphasized the lack of recognition, not the opportunity for peace. Ten years of peace could be a practical way to permanent peace. After decades of war why not go for some peace in Israel/Palestine? Somehow the United States politicians didn't leap on the opportunity for peace. They seem to prefer endless war are willing to subsidize the Israeli military ad infinitum. Isn't that almost four billion dollars a year? For war, not peace. What if we spent two billion dollars a year to make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians work?

Yeah, two billions for peace, for the peace plan and not just a policy of screwing the Palestinians again, and again and again. That would be very helpful and do not send the money through Israel because that would constitute some sort of colonial control by Israel.

A billion could be diverted from Egyptian military aid or maybe two billion for the same purpose with the Gaza/Egyptian area. Billions for peace. Billions for greener energy and more cooperative energy and water policies.

Weapons and warfare tend to create as many problems as they solve. We can end this cycle of violence or be complicit in it. We need a just peace, all of us.

I don't recall Obama, Wright or McCain saying anything about embracing this opportunity for peace. Even Jimmy Carter had little success in making the Palestinians visible as the United States was subjected to corporate propaganda campaigns about other matters. The ghettoization of Gaza remains unreported and is a matter of little concern for American politicians or the American people.

Still, with a little work the comments of Jimmy Carter can be found and read if the citizen researcher is able to do that work. I have found one very interesting fact, given the fact that we still are being told here in the United States that to negotiate or talke to Hamas is unthinkable.
What is that fact? It is s simple one, one that the right-wing nuts of the United States don't want us to know. About two thirds of the Israelis, yes the Israelis, want Israel to negotiate with Hamas.

Two-thirds, a decisive majority of Israelis, want their own government to do what is supposedly unthinkable in the United States. It isn't the Israelis who are being so narrow minded, so unrealistic, so dedicated to continuing war and injustice. It is some of these Ameicans who don't want negotiations to they trash President Carter because he knows things like the fact that two-thirds of all Israelis want negotiations.

What is wrong with us here in the states that we don't want to negotiate? Part of the problem is that there is an effort to discredit anyone with any accurate information from Israel or Palestine, even if they are a former President of the empire and a Nobel Laureate. Jimmy Carter and Rosalyn Carter have a lot of guts and those criticizing them should be ashamed of themselves and take a little gut check themselves.

Carter's trip was all about talking to people, especially seeing to it that adversaries can communicate effectively. The current American obsession with military technology and military force is tragic. Peace does not come out of the barrel of a gun. Nope, dope!

Nobel laureate Carter and his wife have done more good in this world than anyone can imagine. Although I hope to imagine it one day, which will take a heck of a lot of research. They have played a crucial role in facilitating peaceful outcomes in difficult parts of the world.

Why doesn't the United States government want peace? I hope that the next President will choose to follow a path to justice rather than continuing a perpetual war which is now a principal injustice itself.

Of course the Palestinian right to return cannot be waived because it is a fundamental human right, the right to return to one's country.