Posted by David Bernstein:
Carter and the Jews:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_01_14-2007_01_20.shtml#1168914042
[1]Ha'aretz columnist Brad Burston:
What Carter reveals, in the end, is that he knows the organized
Jewish community of the United States in ways he will never know
the Jewish community - or for that matter, the Palestinian
community - in the Holy Land. He knows America's Jewish leadership
as do few American Jews. He was, after all, twice the nominee of
the Democratic Party.
These people elected him president. They applauded him at Camp
David. They sang his praises for forging the first peace treaty
between Israel and an Arab nation.
Carter knows these people, all right. He knows their
vulnerabilities, their gut fears, their feelings for Israel. He
knows what makes them tick. He knows what makes them squirm. He
knows what makes them livid with rage. And Carter plays them, all
of them, all at once, with the brio of a virtuoso on his farewell
concert tour.
The thesis that Carter is "out to get" the American Jewish leadership
is an interesting one. It's not exactly true that the Jewish
leadership was enthusiastic for Carter, except for a brief time
following the Camp David Accord (which in many ways came about
despite, rather than because of Carter, who preferred an international
peace conference including the Soviet Union!) Jewish leaders mostly
supported Scoop Jackson in the '76 primaries. Many implicitly or
explicitly supported Ted Kennedy in the 1980 primaries. And Carter got
less than half the Jewish vote in 1980, a remarkably bad performance
considering that Ronald Reagan's political predecessor, Barry
Goldwater, received about 10% of the Jewish vote in 1964, compared to
Reagan's 40% (Anderson's 15% rounded out the total). Of course, even
100% of the relatively small Jewish vote wouldn't have put Carter over
the top in 2000, but the hostility of a large part of the Jewish
community, which is a core constituency of the Democratic Party, made
his life a lot more difficult.
Of course, I can't read Carter's mind, but something has to explain
[2]obviously misleading statements like this: "My most troubling
experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free,
about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and
to answer questions from students and professor." This sounds a lot
like Carter claiming that the Jewish establishment has the will an
dpower to stop universities from hosting an ex-president who
volunteers to speak "for free." So here's a challenge to Mr. Carter:
name even ONE university where you were unable to speak "for
free"--and I mean really "for free", not a situation in which the
university has to [3]pay for a private plane to take you roundtrip
from Georgia, and pay additional thousands for your security.
Oh, he didn't really mean "for free," he just meant "without an
honorarium?" Perhaps he was just trying to "stimulate discussion"
about the Jewish establishment's influence, his equally lame excuse
for using the term "apartheid" to discuss the Israeli occupation of
the territories, even though you [4]acknowledge that this occupation
[which Israel offered to end in Camp David in 2000] has nothing to do
with "racism."
References
1. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/813159.html
2.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-carter8dec08,0,7999232.story?coll=la-home-commentary
3.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/12/26/brandeis_is_urged_to_bring_in_carter/
4. http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/AntiSemi/10087.htm
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