Why Jimmy Carter is not an anti-Semite -Rabbi Shmuley BoteachI grew up in the US during the 1970s, the one decade universally acknowledged to have truly sucked. In 1970s America we danced to disco music, wore leisure suits and watched the Brady Bunch. But if that wasn't torture enough, we had Jimmy Carter as our president.
I can still recall how depressing it was to watch his taciturn face on TV announcing one catastrophe after another, from the...Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, to the capture of our hostages in Iran, to the tragically-botched rescue attempt to free them.
[W]ith the publication of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, his ignorant rant against Israel, many in the American Jewish community believe that Carter is not just a loser but an anti-Semite. I disagree.
Jimmy Carter is not so much anti-Semite as anti-intellectual, not so much a Jew-hater as a boor. The real explanation behind his limitless hostility to Israel is a total lack of any moral understanding.
He can't figure out what right is. He is, and always has been, a man of good intentions bereft of good judgment. He invariably finds himself defending tyrants and dictators...
Carter subscribes to what I call the Always Root for the Underdog school of morality. Rather than develop any real understanding of a conflict, immediately he sides with the [seemingly] weaker party, however wicked or immoral.
Before one runs around the world as a global do-gooder, one should first develop the ability to identify the good.
[Jerusalem Post]
2 comments:
While I am not sure that this is Carter's motivation, and as I have stated here before, I wondered if his ridiculous point of view was somehow borne out of frustration for seeing the peace he had longed for still not materialize. I thought maybe he was naturally picking on the stronger party for not "doing more". Nevertheless, the reasoning here is pretty sound, and may be right. Whatever it is, it is past the time for people to listen to Jimmy Carter on the middle east. He was as ineffectual, though good intentioned, there during his presidency, as with almost everything else he tried to do then. Since then, he has dine better building homes for the poor. Better he should stick to New Orleans and leave the middle east to others, but not of course, the the W. Bush administration, which, through its effectiveness, has done more damage to peace, stability and Israel then President Carter ever managed to, even with his nonsense rants in print today.
I enjoyed your line: "he should stick to New Orleans and leave the middle east to others..."
That exemplifies my "soundbite" notion. Well done Larry.
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