Is Hezbollah Coming Back For More?

From The Corner

Round Two? [Michael Rubin]

An e-mail from a resident of Moshav Avivim in northern Israel:

It appears as though the Hezbollah is preparing for Round 2. Up our way, the entire border is now dotted with Hezbollah flags and moving figures. There is not a single Lebanese army flag in sight. In my opinion, this is NOT okay. A flag is not only a symbol that represents concepts and ideals, but also used to stake claims. Does this mean that the Hezbollah have reclaimed Southern Lebanon? While driving home form work one evening, will I encounter terrorists who have infiltrated through tunnels they have dug under the border-underneath the noses of the UN base that lies opposite my house?

For years these UN troops have been observers. They observed the way the Hezbollah prepared for the last war and armed themselves to the teeth, so why should anything be different now? And BTW, where IS the Lebanese army that was supposed to keep the border clean...? Oops, sorry. If I don't keep quiet we'll never have peace with Syria... Looks as though we can all stay tuned to the same channel and same program for a repeat broadcast of the last war, coming soon to a neighborhood near you...

Or Honig writes in The Middle East Quarterly about Nasrallah's Deadly Miscalculation

...So why did Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decide to cast aside a pattern of restraint and launch a disproportionate strike on Hezbollah and Lebanon? In part, Nasrallah miscalculated. Hezbollah's operation was a flagrant provocation since it took place in the western sector of the border, an area not in dispute, unlike the Shabaa Farms in the eastern sector, and since it included the shelling of Israeli civilian residences and farms. He forced Israeli policymakers to rethink their policy concepts.

Nasrallah underestimated the resilience of Israel's civilian leadership to fight a just war. He forced both Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz to respond. As civilian leaders rather than former military heroes like Rabin, Sharon, and Barak, both were more sensitive to any insinuation of weakness. Nasrallah also misjudged the timing. As a democracy, the Israeli government must be accountable to the populace. Because fighting occurred during the summer months when children were out of school and many families on vacation, Israeli political leaders could conduct war with fewer disruptions to civilian life than in the autumn or spring.

It is possible that Nasrallah timed the operation to take advantage of developments in the Gaza Strip. He may have calculated that Israeli operations in Gaza had distracted the political leaders who would hesitate before opening a second front. Also, when Al-Jazeera and other Arab media networks are full of incitement and coverage of Israeli actions against the Palestinians, it becomes easier to justify Hezbollah's own actions.Its first kidnapping operation in 2000, similarly, came a month after the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada.

Third, Nasrallah may have underestimated Israeli society. Years of terror and more than 2000 deaths from terrorist attacks since 1967 had immunized Israel to casualties. Knesset member Tsachi Hanegbi, chairman of the prestigious security and foreign affairs committee, observed that even the worst of Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket attacks had less devastating consequence than prominent Jerusalem terrorist attacks such as the bombings at Café Moment or the Sbarro pizza restaurant. Here, too, Israeli officials may have also misjudged their society by failing to understand the resolve of Israelis to absorb causalities. When the Israeli public is certain that the Jewish state is fighting for a just cause, their support resembles that of generations past.

But whatever mistakes Nasrallah is supposed to have made, at the end of the day he did not miscalculate the World's indifference and their lack of backbone in backing up their condemnations of Hezbollah's attacks with real action.

And Israel is not alone in paying the price.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Hezbollah.

Honor Killings: Ramle and London

From The Corner, Katherine Jean Lopez has 2 posts--one in Ramle

No Honor, All Shame

From Haaretz:

The discovery of the body of 19-year-old Hamda Abu-Ganem in her home in the Ramle neighborhood of Juarish didn't surprise Ramle Police Superintendent Yigal Ezra. Although many people, including Ezra, tried to help Abu-Ganem run from the fate that awaited her, she remained in her parents' house - and became the seventh woman in her family to be murdered in an "honor killing" in as many years. Three youths were arrested for the crime yesterday and are expected to face a remand hearing today.

"A few young criminals in Juarish set up a group that decides which of the women has violated the honor of the family," said Ezra. "For instance, if a woman spoke to someone on a cell phone, or laughed with a man, that is sometimes considered a violation of the family honor, from their perspective. They plan how the murder will take place, who will carry it out and even find an alibi for the murderer. From the moment someone is marked, there is no way out." ...

and the other in England

And From Londonistan

Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) — Samaira Nazir rejected Pakistani suitors chosen by her family and planned to elope with her Afghan boyfriend. The penalty for her defiance: death from 18 stab wounds inflicted by her brother and cousin at the family home in Southall, England.

More than a dozen women are killed for violating community standards each year in the U.K., according to police. While Nazir's killers were jailed for life, U.K. police ignore hundreds of ``honor crimes'' to avoid inflaming relations with Muslim enclaves as they work to head off homegrown terror plots, say lawmakers and women's rights advocates.

``There is a kid-gloves approach on the basis that you don't want to offend these communities,'' says Usha Sood, a lawyer and lecturer at Nottingham Trent University who specializes in forced marriage cases. ``If you take into account the whole range of honor offenses, the number runs into the thousands.''...

that have far too much in common with each other.

Technorati Tag: Islam.

Blogger's Rule #8

A blogger's computer is his castle



Until...

his 7 year old daughter--who has trouble memorizing how to spell Wednesday--memorizes the URL for the Groovy Girls website.

Is Bush's Surge Based on the Info Larry Franklin Passed to AIPAC?

The information Larry Franklin allegedly leaked to AIPAC may be the reason for President Bush's proposed Surge of troops into Iraq.

Vindicating Larry Franklin

By ELI LAKE
January 16, 2007

When President Bush announced the new Iraq strategy Wednesday evening, acknowledging that Iran was effectively at war with us in Iraq by supplying terrorists with advanced improvised explosives, my thoughts turned to Lawrence Franklin.

Nearly a year ago, Judge T.S. Ellis III, sentenced this Pentagon Iran analyst to almost 13 years in a federal prison after he pleaded guilty to discussing classified information with two former lobbyists from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The case, which is thus far the Bush administration's only successful anti-leaking prosecution, illustrates the strategic confusion of our national security bureaucracy in a time of war.

Franklin, it turns out, was trying — unconventionally — to influence a debate in the administration in 2003 over a national security policy directive regarding Iran. He provided Aipac's Iran specialists, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, with his own list of specific instances of how Iran was sending teams from its Quds Force to sow terror, kill American soldiers, and pose a threat to Israeli operatives in northern Iraq. He hoped his list could find its way to the National Security Council, through the two lobbyists, to counter the intelligence from other channels suggesting that Iran had an interest in stabilizing Iraq.

Franklin was not a typical bureaucrat. He was dogged in his view of the Iranian threat, and he was also not averse to taking risks that would earn him the enmity of powerful foes. He risked incurring the enmity of the CIA by meeting with sources of Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iran-Contra era figure, and, in December 2001, met with the man's sources in Rome. At the meeting, according to Franklin's friend Michael Ledeen, Franklin was told about hunter-killer teams operating against coalition forces in western Afghanistan. He delivered the intelligence personally to special forces command that month in Kabul, and, according to Mr. Ledeen, the intelligence was correct.

For his troubles, Franklin got caught up in the prosecution of two Aipac officials and has been libeled by some in the Web fringes as a spy for Israel. One of the commanders who worked closely with Franklin, General Mulholland, wrote a letter to the court last year, praising the former analyst's patriotism and diligence.

What's interesting is why Franklin took such desperate measures to make the president aware that the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world was sponsoring terrorists in a post-Saddam Iraq. Messrs. Weissman and Rosen were leading proponents in the 1990s of the view that Iran's sponsorship of international terrorism could be modified through diplomatic sticks and carrots — the inverse of Franklin's view that the Islamic Republic was genetically predisposed to use terrorism as statecraft.

One reason was that in 2002, the Bush administration, as part of its efforts to coordinate the Iraqi opposition, was resigned to working with Iran's proxies, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa party. This decision locked America into an impossible position. Mr. Bush was betting that Iran would have an interest in stabilizing Iraq because the groups closest to Iran would be brought into the government to replace Saddam Hussein. The kind of analysis Franklin was providing would scuttle a policy built around the presumption that Iran shared our interests in Iraq.

That presumption has cost the White House a good part of its strategic coherence. On the one hand, the president has at times acknowledged the malicious role the Iranians play in Iran, he has lent his voice at times to the struggle of Iranian democrats, and he has authorized paltry sums of cash for meetings about the Iranian opposition. On the other hand, Secretary Rice in 2005 ordered our envoy in Baghdad, Ambassador Khalilzad, to open a direct channel with his Iranian counterpart and placed hopes for modifying Iranian behavior in a United Nations Security Council resolution. America has pledged up to now to respond to the threat Iran poses in Baghdad by talking to bureaucrats in Geneva, Paris, and London. Then last month, we changed our strategy. Suddenly America is responding to the Iranian threat in Iraq by going after Iran's outposts and missions. It may be too late. As the National Security Council's power point summary of the new strategy says, Iran has been "burrowing" its agents deep inside the new Iraqi government. Iran has proven that it is not averse to working with the Sunni car bombers who kill Shiites and with the Shiite militias who kill Sunnis. Iran's Quds Force turns out to be playing both sides of the Iraqi civil war.

This news has been ignored and disbelieved by those lawmakers advocating a "diplomatic surge." But it would not likely come as a surprise to Franklin, a Persian speaker who now parks cars and works odd jobs, as he awaits final word on the jail sentence he earned for trying to get word of all this to a president who failed to grasp what Franklin was trying to tell him.

Technorati Tag: Larry Franklin and President Bush and Iran and AIPAC.

'Realists' Misunderstand History of US Involvement in the Middle East

Last month, Michael Oren traced the US interest in the reestablishment of the Jewish state starting in the 17th century.

Now, in a letter to the editor at the LA Times, Oren writes about US interest in Middle East in general, going back to John Adams. More importantly, he argues that 'Realists' misunderstand the history of American involvement in the Middle East.

Apple pie and the Middle East

The U.S. has long tried to steer the Mideast toward Western values.

THE STALLED U.S. mission in Iraq has prompted calls for a return to "realism" in American foreign policy. Instead of striving for freedom and national cohesion in the Middle East, realists argue that the U.S. should negotiate with Syria and Iran and abandon the dream of remaking the region on a democratic, federated model. Realists claim that replacing a faith-based policy with an agenda based solely on economic and strategic interests will return the United States to its traditional posture in the Middle East.

In fact, long before the rise of radical Islam and even the discovery of oil, Americans worked to bring liberty and human rights to the Middle East. For well over 200 years, U.S. citizens have sought to endow Middle Eastern peoples with the same inalienable liberties Americans enjoy at home.

The absence of basic freedoms in the Middle East was well known to the founding fathers. In contrast to the young republic, observed John Adams, the ancient dynasties of the Middle East were rife with "avarice and fear," ruled by despots who treated their subjects like "so many caterpillars upon an apple tree." Thomas Jefferson believed the U.S. could never rely on a peace treaty with any Middle Eastern state, whose word was only as good as the life of its ruler. The prevalence of tyranny in the region was noted by Jefferson's friend, John Ledyard, who in 1788 became the first American to explore the Middle East. "It is singular," he wrote, "the Arab language has no word for 'liberty.'"

But merely lamenting the lack of liberty in the Middle East was insufficient for some early Americans, who dedicated their lives to emancipating its inhabitants. Starting in the 1820s, New England missionaries began building schools throughout the region and introducing their pupils to American-style ideas of patriotism and civic virtues. The missionaries also established the area's first modern institutions of higher learning, the American University of Beirut (originally named the Syrian Protestant College) and Turkey's Roberts College, to further disseminate their views. "A man white, black or yellow, Christian, Jew, Mohammedan or heathen, may enter and enjoy all the advantages of this institution," declared AUB's first president, Daniel Bliss, in 1866. "[He may] go out believing in one God, or in many Gods, or in no God."

A similar open-mindedness was imparted by the Civil War veterans, Union as well as Confederate, who in the late 1860s joined in creating the first modern school system in Egypt.

By the end of the 19th century, the United States had become renowned as the defender of minority rights in the Middle East, protecting Bahais, Jews and Armenians from government oppression. Another group of Civil War veterans tried to lead the Syrians in a revolt against Ottoman rule. Yet the fullest expression of American support for the independence of Middle Eastern peoples came early in the 20th century with President Wilson's Fourteen Points, which promised self-determination and "undoubted security of life" to the former Turkish provinces. Although the U.S. failed to follow through on these pledges, it refrained from participating in Europe's carving up of the Middle East and, after World War II, led the effort to decolonize the region. In addition to supporting a two-state solution for the Israel/Palestine dispute, President Truman was instrumental in assuring the independence of several Middle Eastern states, including Syria and Iran.

Over the last 60 years, during which it became the dominant power in the area and grew increasingly dependent on oil, the United States has often acted selfishly in the Middle East, supporting cooperative dictators and undermining popular leaders who opposed American hegemony. And yet this period also witnessed repeated attempts to fulfill American ideals in the Middle East. The United States intervened to protect the democratically elected government of Lebanon in 1958 and 1983, liberated Kuwait in 1991 and launched numerous Arab-Israeli peace plans. Indeed, the story of Washington's postwar involvement in the Middle East has been one of a struggle to reconcile its great-power interests with its role as the champion of state and individual rights.

In rethinking its future course through a complex and turbulent Middle East, the United States should continue to pursue realistic goals, seeking viable ways to extract its troops from Iraq while maintaining American primacy in the region. At the same time, however, U.S. policymakers should remain cognizant of their country's long and benevolent record in safeguarding fundamental freedoms in the Middle East and promoting democracy.

The U.S. needs a multidimensional approach that advances its interests while upholding its laudable legacy.

MICHAEL OREN, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, is the author of "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, from 1776 to the Present." He has a website, Michaeloren.com

Technorati Tag: Israel and Michael Oren and Realists.

Jimmy Carter--Bought and Paid For

Hat Tip: The Belmont Club

According to Alan Dershowitz in his Ex-President for Sale, contrary to Carter's accusation about the Israel Lobby's influence,

Recent disclosures prove that it is Carter who has been bought and paid for by anti-Israel Arab and Islamic money.

Journalist Jacob Laksin has documented the tens of millions of dollars that the Carter Center has accepted from Saudi Arabian royalty and assorted other Middle Eastern sultans, who, in return, Carter dutifully praised as peaceful and tolerant (no matter how despotic the regime). And these are only the confirmed, public donations.

Carter has also accepted half a million dollars and an award from Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, saying in 2001: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." This is the same Zayed, the long-time ruler of the United Arab Emirates, whose $2.5 million gift to the Harvard Divinity School was returned in 2004 due to Zayed's rampant Jew-hatred. Zayed's personal foundation, the Zayed Center, claims that it was Zionists, rather than Nazis, who “were the people who killed the Jews in Europe” during the Holocaust. It has held lectures on the blood libel and conspiracy theories about Jews and America perpetrating Sept. 11.

Another journalist, Rachel Ehrenfeld, in a thorough and devastating article on "Carter’s Arab Financiers," meticulously catalogues Carter’s ties to Arab moneymen, from a Saudi bailout of his peanut farm in 1976, to funding for Carter’s presidential library, to continued support for all manner of Carter’s post-presidential activities. For instance, it was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), founded in Pakistan and fronted by a Saudi billionaire, Gaith Pharaon, that helped Carter start up his beloved Carter Center. According to Ehrenfeld:

“BCCI's origins were primarily ideological. [Agha Hasan] Abedi wanted the bank to reflect the supra-national Muslim credo and ‘the best bridge to help the world of Islam, and the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists.’

See also Carter’s Arab Funding May Color Israel Stance, which came out in April 2002.

I think that Dershowitz sums it up just about right:

It is particularly disturbing that a former president who has accepted dirty blood-money from dictators, anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and supporters of terrorism should try to deflect attention from his own conflicts of interest by raising the oldest canard in the sordid history of anti-Semitism: namely, that Jews have dual loyalty and use their money improperly to influence the country they live in, in favor of the country to which they owe their real allegiance.

As long as he raised the topic, just who does Carter owe his allegiance to?

Besides ex-presidents, the use of Arab money to buy influence on the campuses and the media is known as well.

Why are Mearsheimer and Walt, who associate with terrorist-associated CAIR, asleep at the wheel?

Technorati Tag: Jimmy Carter.

Abbas: Moderately Mediocre

Hat Tip: Larwyn

Little Green Footballs notes that the media is burying part of the news coming out of the Palestinian territories, when it neglects to report what the Jerusalem Post covers:

“When Fatah was established, it was accused of treason and we were chased in every place,” Abbas told the crowd. “But with the will and determination of its sons, Fatah has and will continue. We will not give up our principles and we have said that rifles should be directed against the occupation.”

Appealing to Palestinians to avoid civil war, Abbas said: “We are all one people regardless of differences of opinion. My top priority is to preserve national unity because Palestinian infighting and blood are a red line that must not be crossed.”

Defending his call to use weapons against Israel, he added: “We have a legitimate right to direct our guns against Israeli occupation. It is forbidden to use these guns against Palestinians. The occupation has perpetrated brutal attacks in Jenin, Bet Hanun and Ramallah.”

Why are Abbas' threats against Israel not being covered?

Is it because the facts do not fit the myth, created and nurtured by world leaders and the media, that Abbas is a moderate? If moderate is a synonym for mediocre, then Abbas is very moderate indeed. Israel has consistently been called upon to commit to confidence-gaining measures for Abbas, usually as a cost to Israel's security. Israel should not have to negotiate with a peace partner who is not only unable to deliver on his commitments and obligations, but also requires unilateral concessions from Israel that put her own security at risk while requiring nothing from the Palestinian Arabs.

Then again, compared to the more outspoken terrorists like Nasrallah and Haniyeh, the more subtle--if bumbling--Abbas who has done nothing to stop the attacks and has made a point of not openly calling for attacks on Israel (till now) is far more palatable to a media in need of a poster child.

Enter Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to, once again--according to Reuters--"bolster the moderate leader in his power struggle with Hamas and find a way to restart peace talks."

So now, despite the fact that the the Road Map's initial phase of stopping all terrorist attacks has not been fulfilled by the Palestinian Arabs, Reuters now reports that:

• Rice wants to accelerate the Road Map by looking into options such as the creation of a Palestinian state with temporary borders--skipping over Phase I and the cessation of terrorism--and jumping into the creation of a provisional Palestinian state.
  
  
• Concurrent with Abbas' unreported declaration of hostilities against Israel, the US plans to provide $86 million for training and equipping Abbas's presidential guard.
  
  
• Senior Abbas aid Saeb Erekat echoed Rice, talking about going directly to "the endgame" of the Road Map--without the Palestinains having been required to fulfill even the most basic obligation to stop killing Israelis. [This goes back to January 2nd, when Abbas raised this point, telling reporters after he met with Mubarak, “We have proposed the idea of back channel talks… and with the participation of members of the Quartet (U.S., Russia, United Nations and European Union)… with the aim of discussing the final phase.”]
  
  
• Israeli officials said Livni and Rice had been discussing the possibility of creating a Palestinian state with temporary borders following the line of a barrier Israel is building in and around the occupied West Bank.

Keep in mind that the excuse behind all this is the threat of Hamas to the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

But back in October 2005, Rice spoke at Princeton University:

For instance, in the Good Friday Agreement it was understood that when Sinn Fein came into politics and eventually the IRA would disarm and perhaps, hopefully, that process is now underway. We did not permit the Afghan warlords to keep their weapons and participate as candidates in politics. They had to make a choice. And so it is absolutely the case that you cannot have armed groups ultimately participating in politics with no expectation that they're going to disarm. But we are very clearheaded about Hamas.

HAMAS, Rice said, stands for a one-state solution to the conflict and for the destruction of Israel. “HAMAS is an organization that asks Palestinian mothers and fathers to give their children up to make themselves suicide bombers. And it is a real detriment and block to further peace in the Middle East, so we’re not at all confused by this. We do, I think, need to give the Palestinians some space to try and reconcile their national politics, but they’re going to eventually have to disarm these groups. They can’t have it both ways.” [emphasis added]

Arutz Sheva pointed out at the time that while Rice declared categorically that Hamas would eventually have to disarm, she never actually said that the terrorist group should not be allowed to run in the elections. The rest, as they say, is history.

Apparently the US was no more serious about dealing with Hamas at the time than it was about dealing with Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq. As a result, both are major hurdles to US objectives in the PA and Iraq, respectively--despite the financial blockade on Hamas. Could it be that at the end of the day the US support of Iraq against Sadr--even with the surge--will be no more than its support of Israel against Hamas and Fatah?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Abbas and Muqtada al-Sadr and Iraq and Condoleezza Rice

Soccer Dad Hosts Haveil Havalim #102

This week, Soccer Dad hosts the 102^nd edition of Haveil Havalim, featuring abundant links on

• Israel
• Judaism and the Jewish World
• Slice of Life
• Israel vs. ...
• Votes of Confidence
• Blogs vs. Media
• Art

You can always submit one or two of your best Israel or Judaism related posts to dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

If you'd like to host an upcoming edition you can e-mail Soccer Dad at the same address.

You can also submit entries to Haveil Havalim using either Conservative Cat's submission form or the submission form at BlogCarnival--where you can also find past posts and future hosts.

Listed at the Truth Laid Bear Ubercarnival.

Technorati Tags: Blog carnivals, haveil havalim, Israel, Judaism.

They Come In Three's

At work, there is someone who stubbornly responds the same way whenever there is an item in the news about the death of a famous person--she predicts that 2 more will die, because "they come in threes." Generally, it seems she is right, though I wonder why she applies this magical rule only to the US.

For no reason in particular, I thought of this now that it appears that there are going to be 3 Muslims taking on important positions in 2 Democratic non-Muslim, non-Arab countries:

• Keith Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress
• Zalmay Khalilzad is the first Muslim appointed to be the US Ambassador to the UN
• Raleb Majadele will be the first Muslim Arab Minister in the Israeli government

Majadele's appointment by Peretz is being viewed cynically by both Israelis and Arabs as a pure political move to improve Peretz's chances in the next Labor elections.

Khalilzad's appointment by Bush has been view positively by Jewish groups and as a sign that US support for Israel will continue and may possibly improve communication with member states in the UN. Some on the left though are suspicious, having seen him as another neo-con and having noted his background in the oil industry.

Ellison, being elected and not appointed is free from such cynicism--though his being named to the House Judiciary Committee, where the chairman has a bill singling out Muslims as targets of discrimination, has been noted.

On the other hand, being appointed, Majadele and Khalilzad have not had their motives questioned--not even Majadale: no one has claimed that he will represent Islamist interests or undermine the government. At least not yet they haven't.

Having run a political campaign, and having created political alliances and received favors, Ellison is another story. There are questions about his connection with CAIR. Questions have been raised by blogs about his membership in the Nation of Islam. There are questions about other associations as well.

While Majadele's position may turn out to me just window dressing, Khalilzad and Ellison have positions of real power and influence--and both will generate great expectations among some, and cynicism among others.

And it's only January.

Technorati Tag: Keith Ellison and Zalmay Khalilzad and Raleb Majadele.

14 More Resign From Carter Center

Middle East historian Kenneth Stein was the first to resign from the Carter Center in reaction to Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

Now he is joined by 14 more (hat tip: Instapundit)

Fourteen members of an advisory board at the Carter Center resigned today, concluding they could "no longer in good conscience continue to serve" following publication of former President Jimmy Carter's controversial book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."

"It seems that you have turned to a world of advocacy, including even malicious advocacy," the board members wrote in a letter, a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. "We can no longer endorse your strident and uncompromising position. This is not the Carter Center or Jimmy Carter we came to respect and support. Therefore it is with sadness and regret that we hereby tender our resignation from the Board of Councilors of the Carter Center effective immediately."

At one point Carter was described as America's Greatest Ex-President, based on the work he did around the world. Now, like his presidency, Carter's ex-presidency is sinking beyond mediocrity.

Update: Now you can view the entire letter here

Among the points made:

In the past you would inject yourself into this world to moderate between the two sides in the pursuit of peace and as a result you earned our admiration and support. Now you repeatedly make false claims. You wrote that UN Security Council Resolution 242 says that "Israel must withdraw from territories" (p. 38), but you know the word "must" in fact is not in the resolution. You said that since Mahmoud Abbas has been in office there have been no peace discussions. That is wrong. You wrote that Yassir Arafat told you in 1990 that, "The PLO has never advocated the annihilation of Israel" (p. 62). Given that their Charter, which explicitly calls for Israel's destruction, was not revised until the late 1990s, how could you even write such a claim as if it were credible?

You denied on Denver radio on December 12 that Palestinian Prime Minister Haniyah said he would never accept or negotiate with Israel. However the BBC monitoring service reported just the opposite. In fact Haniyah said: "We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihadist movement until Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are liberated. When presented with this fact you said, "No he didn't say that, no he did not do that, I did not hear that." These are not points of opinion, these are points of fact.

Technorati Tag: Jimmy Carter.