Posted on 12/07/2006 10:25:52 AM PST by Sabramerican
What's the Matter With Jimmy? Coming to grips with the 39th president's malevolent obsession with Israel
Only a few weeks ago, American Jews proved once again that they are, next to African-Americans, the most loyal constituency that the Democratic party can claim.
As the last few elections have illustrated, despite the efforts of Republicans to highlight their support of Israel, as well as their foes' shortcomings, the huge majorities Jews give the Democrats are only marginally effected by such advocacy.
But the GOP never gives up, in part because they know that within their living memory, there was one national election in which such appeals actually did succeed.
The year was 1980, and in that pivotal contest Ronald Reagan achieved nearly 40 percent of the Jewish vote. Like a sacred home-run record, the number teases the Republicans engendering hopes that are dashed every time they try to equal it.
But after all this time, during which the predicted swing to the Republicans never happened, maybe we have been posing the wrong question about Reagan's record. Instead of asking what prevents a repeat of 1980 for the Republicans, we should instead be pondering what extraordinary catastrophe afflicted Democrats in that one year?
Magic Formula The answer can be summed up in just two words: Jimmy Carter.
Despite presiding over a ceremony celebrating Israel's first peace treaty with a neighboring Arab country, it was antipathy to the sage of Plains, Ga., more than any passing affection for Reagan that determined the Jewish vote in 1980. And there is little doubt that the widespread perception of his hostility toward Israel was decisive in creating a Jewish swing vote that has never been replicated in a national election. The Democrats' magic formula for success since then is simple: Keep Carter off the ballot!
Rejected in his bid for re-election, Carter has been forced to settle for the unofficial title of the most self-righteous man in America. Through good deeds, such as his championing of causes like Habitat for Humanity, and his relentless and often shameless pursuit of publicity on human rights and democracy controversies around the globe, Carter won a Nobel Peace Prize. This gives him a permanent platform from which to pontificate on any and all subjects in his typically sanctimonious manner.
Yet though his interests may span the globe, there is one to which he has returned over and over again: the Middle East and Israel's conflict with the Arabs. And what he has been increasingly preaching lately is a scathing indictment of Israel as an oppressive "apartheid" state.
The latest reminder of this pre-eminent theme of Carter's post-presidential career is a new book titled Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, in which he sets forth his thesis of Israeli perfidy.
While the titles of some books are misleading, Carter's is not. He actually attempts to make a case that a democratic Israel, whose Jewish majority has never been given a moment's peace from the day of its birth 58 years ago, is analogous to the oppressive white minority that ruled South Africa.
It is a charge so preposterous, and so lacking in reason or sense, that were this the work of any ordinary American it would not likely be given a hearing outside of the fever swamps of the far right or left, where anti-Zionist minorities dwell.
Instead, the book is being promoted on a national tour during which the ex-president has been interviewed on virtually every major national news program, and given a treatment that can only be described as presidential. Indeed, on NBC's "Meet the Press" where the normally fair-minded Tim Russert usually manages to put the leaders of both parties on the defensive, Carter's slander of Jewish and non-Jewish Americans who love Israel as an all-powerful "lobby" determined to squelch all dissent went unchallenged.
As for the content of the book, it's part memoir and part half-baked history. As many reviewers have already noted (most notably, Alan Dershowitz in the Forward), it is a compendium of distortions, errata and falsehoods that would fill a small volume itself.
They add up to an account that disregards Jewish rights to the land, dismisses consistent Jewish acceptance of compromises, ignores a century of Palestinian terrorism and mischaracterizes the persistent Arab rejection of Jewish statehood. The conflict for him is one long account of Israeli violence and Palestinian suffering. For him, the Jews can do virtually no right and the Palestinians no wrong. Since Arab terror doesn't register in Carter's brain, Israeli self-defense can be put down as "oppression."
This Orwellian compendium of slander aimed at Israel is punctuated by accounts of Carter's own involvement in diplomacy and visits to the area.
Loving Assad/Hating Begin The book is revealing in one respect. For all of his supposed love for humanity, it appears the Israelis are the one exception to his famous religious goodwill. Though Carter praises the murderous Syrian dictator Hafez Assad and Palestinian archterrorist (and fellow Nobel winner) Yasser Arafat, he simply loathes almost every Israeli he meets. And he isn't shy about noting instances in which they have committed the gravest of sins: ignoring his advice.
For instance, he describes in detail a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin after Carter had left office. Forced by protocol to receive the ex-president, Carter admits that he then subjected the Israeli (whom he obviously despised) to a lecture about his shortcomings. Carter expected Begin, who had been the victim of previous such lectures during the Georgian's presidency, to debate him as he had in the past. Instead, the wily Israeli simply listened politely, and then made it clear that the meeting was over. Decades later, Begin's courteous dismissal of Carter's ill-informed tirade apparently still stings.
A perplexed Dershowitz wonders what would lead "a decent man" to write such a manifestly false book? While I'm not as convinced of Carter's decency as Dershowitz, it's a good question that deserves more scrutiny than the book itself.
I don't know the complete answer, but it is clear from his book that the former president bitterly resents the Israelis lack of acceptance of his ideas. Their stubborn refusal to sell their own survival short has bred in him an anger that seems to grow with every passing year.
And perhaps he also harbors a grudge against American friends of Israel whose votes helped sink his presidency. Indeed, Republicans still use Carter as a symbol of Democratic perfidy, even though most mainstream Democrats have disavowed his crusade against Israel. He remains a symbol of what may happen should their party ever truly betray its Jewish supporters.
But what Israel's friends in both parties cannot afford to do is to give him a pass for this latest outrage. No past good deeds or the intrinsic respect we all hold anyone who has served as president should prevent us from labeling him as the liar and hater that he has become.
Not in 1977.
He was the worst president in my lifetime and THAT is saying a lot.
It's all about the candidates. Republicans have never put up candidates that appeal to Jews.
If Reagan's VP had been Jack Kemp, for one example, he would have gotten a huge percentage of Jewish votes in 1988. And probably reelected in 1992. May have changed the entire Jewish voting pattern. And no Clinton. Maybe reagan's biggest mistake.
Those Jews that voted for Bush I, as a residue from Reagan, were very disappointed. Dole, laughable? Bush II may sour Jews on Republicans even further.
Jimmy is a lamebrained bigot who holds grudges. A hugh embarrassment to the US.
You would have to define Leftist.
Conservatives and Republicans until recent decades were not Jewish friendly.
Jews, like most, have a tendency to gravitate to where they feel comfortable. And for a long time that was the Democrat party.
NY, the most Jewish of States, had long term Republican Senators and Governors, because those individuals earned the trust of the Jewish community.
That Tikkun Olam crap is a very recent explanation. Jews moved Left because that is where they found emancipation from ingrained anti Semitism.
Jewish tradition- as can be seen by those who keep Jewish tradition, the Orthodox- is very Conservative.
Yes, but how do you really feel about Jimma?
I define leftism as socialist, or those philosophies derived from or based on it.
I certainly agree that Jews moved left as a reaction to antisemitism. I think this happened in Europe, well before the great immigration here of c. 100 years ago. I also think that "conservative" antisemitism has been responsible for keeping American Jews on the left up through WWII. Perhaps the current persistent leftist antisemitism and leftist anti Israel attitude will change this. Not so much the Orthodox Jews, I think.
As far as I know, not being much of a scholar, or very religious, you are right that traditional Jewish teaching, in the sense to which you have referred, has nothing to do with leftism, as it far predates it. I hadn't meant to say that leftism was part of Judaism, merely that European and American (and probably European?) Jews of the last 120 or so years have more often than not adopted leftist political beliefs.
When one becomes a part of the Radical Left, having genocidal fantasies about the extermination of Israel simply goes with the territory. Jimuh is quite predictable in this regard.
Meaning that they have not been so leftist.
You define Leftist as Socialism, others define it an being pro choice or having a sympathy for certain gun laws or other issues.
Define Socialist.
If Left is labor unions and such, it's true, and was from necessity, not any sort of Jewish tradition. It is how Jews raised themselves into the mainstream. The environs of the Right were closed to Jews.
But Jews, the People who invented the concept of Freedom escaping from bondage in Egypt, may be the least intrinsically economic socialists and greatest entrepreneurs.
He's got cranial rectus disease. In other words, he's a liberal.
Many I know are still stuck in the 1930 - 1975 meme that equates (wrongly) the Democrat Party with Civil Rights ergo, they are felt to be some sort of guaranty against Nazism. They have fallen hook line and sinker for the smear of GOPers as being "fascists." There is a sad aspect of American culture, that is a result of the Great Depression. That aspect is a permanent far left group, who are very antagonistic toward big business and toward traditional society. We can thank FDR for that.
Nah, most of the whiners (see Woody Allen) are nothing more than self-loathing dumb-fukks. They have listened to the lies of pre-eminent thinkers like Stalin, Hitler and Arafat for so long that they actually BELIEVE that the Jewish people are responsible for all the ills of the 20th century. In an attempt to "cleanse" themselves of their monstrous and largely unfounded guilt, they vote for any and all politicians who promise to take your money and give it to those that THEY deem to be more worthy than you.
"Hey Peanut Boy, you're next!"
Carter is a wicked, treacherous, and dangerous man with a large ego buttressed by false piety. He is a ghoulish Haman who deserves nothing but universal condemnation.
Socialism, as defined by me (though I think my understanding is fairly sound) is basically the political and economic philosophy that maintains that all members of a society are working toward a common good that is to be selected democratically. Following from this premise is that since everyone is working toward the same goal, then everyone is to be equal by sharing in the same goal, the common goal. Also following is that since the political and economic goals have been selected democratically, then the people and the community, the people and the government, are the same. Therefore, the common goals toward which all society is working, as selected by the people, are equally selected by the state. The emphasis is on the group, rather than the individual. The details that manifest, things like affirmative action, wage and price fixing (unions), government control of means of production, etc., all these things follow from the basic premise of a common goal.
I agreed already that Jews moved leftward as a reaction to right wing antisemitism, which permeated both the private and the public sides of European and American life. In my view, it is the emphasis on equality that was the attraction, since societies traditionally have relegated Jews to a less than equal place, although I'm sure the other aspects of socialism were also attractive to those who could be idealists, as they continue to be the world over to many peoples. I personally think that moving to traditional liberalism would have made more sense, though. In fact, I believe that the remnants of tradtional liberalism that still cling to modern liberalism are an attractant for Jews.
Yes, I think it's a great paradox that a left leaning segment of the population is also one of the most capitalist segments. Of course, I understand that Jews became capitalists because landowning, and many of the professions, were traditionally prohibited to them.
I forgot to mention, Carter is a complete jerk.
In conclusion there is no "...Jewish tradition of cherishing leftism".
"What's the Matter With Jimmy?"
He's down to his last truckload of Billy Beer and he's gettin' antsy.
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