Friday, January 9, 2009

President Carter Calls Gaza "An Unnecessary War"

Compliments of the Washington Post

An Unnecessary War



By Jimmy Carter
Thursday, January 8, 2009


I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.

After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.

Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.

We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.

Palestinian leaders from Gaza were noncommittal on all issues, claiming that rockets were the only way to respond to their imprisonment and to dramatize their humanitarian plight. The top Hamas leaders in Damascus, however, agreed to consider a cease-fire in Gaza only, provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Palestinian citizens.


After extended discussions with those from Gaza, these Hamas leaders also agreed to accept any peace agreement that might be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads the PLO, provided it was approved by a majority vote of Palestinians in a referendum or by an elected unity government.

Since we were only observers, and not negotiators, we relayed this information to the Egyptians, and they pursued the cease-fire proposal. After about a month, the Egyptians and Hamas informed us that all military action by both sides and all rocket firing would stop on June 19, for a period of six months, and that humanitarian supplies would be restored to the normal level that had existed before Israel's withdrawal in 2005 (about 700 trucks daily).

We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel's unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.

On another visit to Syria in mid-December, I made an effort for the impending six-month deadline to be extended. It was clear that the preeminent issue was opening the crossings into Gaza. Representatives from the Carter Center visited Jerusalem, met with Israeli officials and asked if this was possible in exchange for a cessation of rocket fire. The Israeli government informally proposed that 15 percent of normal supplies might be possible if Hamas first stopped all rocket fire for 48 hours. This was unacceptable to Hamas, and hostilities erupted.

After 12 days of "combat," the Israeli Defense Forces reported that more than 1,000 targets were shelled or bombed. During that time, Israel rejected international efforts to obtain a cease-fire, with full support from Washington. Seventeen mosques, the American International School, many private homes and much of the basic infrastructure of the small but heavily populated area have been destroyed. This includes the systems that provide water, electricity and sanitation. Heavy civilian casualties are being reported by courageous medical volunteers from many nations, as the fortunate ones operate on the wounded by light from diesel-powered generators.

The hope is that when further hostilities are no longer productive, Israel, Hamas and the United States will accept another cease-fire, at which time the rockets will again stop and an adequate level of humanitarian supplies will be permitted to the surviving Palestinians, with the publicized agreement monitored by the international community. The next possible step: a permanent and comprehensive peace.

The writer was president from 1977 to 1981. He founded the Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization advancing peace and health worldwide, in 1982.

14 comments:

Thermblog said...

Jimmy Carter is an apologist for the so-called Palestinian perspective. One should know this just from the title of his last book that deliberately linked Israel with Apartheid. This tactic is used by the "One State Solution" folks and Jimmy deliberately handed them a trump card.

If that's not enough though, in the article he refers to tunnels between Gaza and Israel as, "defensive tunnels."

I find Carter truly slimy.

James Curran said...

The Nobel Peace Prize 2002 "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development"

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2002/

What a Slimy bugger alright. You're an ass.

Tattersoul said...

LOL - yeah, that Nobel peace prize is truly a marker of greatness.

Carter is a disgrace, and an apologist for Islamic terror. Not surprising that you would link to his vacuous statements and identify so strongly with him. Birds of a feather and all that.

Jennifer Smith said...

You have GOT to be kidding. I'd hate to ask what these guys think of Pearson. Or Gandhi.

Blues Clair said...

I don't know how you do it James. So many trolls, so little time.

penlan said...

*sigh* - Ignorance abounds. Not you James, some of the commenters. There's been a lot of that around here recently.

The Doctor said...

Wow Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat have received the Nobel Prize.

It must mean that everything they say (or have said) means it is beyond reproach.

Carter's analysis of the situation, as his most recent book, is filled with factual errors. No doubt, as he did with his book, he will be issueing "clarifications" and "corrections" in time.

penlan said...

Doc said:
"It must mean that everything they say (or have said) means it is beyond reproach."

Sure it is. Just like Harper. Everything he says is beyond reproach according to all Con trolls. Give it a break.

The Doctor said...

You won't find me defending Stephen Harper, ever!

Unknown said...

Carter Center Advisors Quit to Protest Book
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/us/12carter.html

“In its work in conflict resolution, the Carter Center has always played the useful and constructive role of honest broker and mediator between warring parties,” the letter says. “In your book, which portrays the conflict between Israel and her neighbors as a purely one-sided affair with Israel holding all of the responsibility for resolving the conflict, you have clearly abandoned your historic role of broker in favor of becoming an advocate for one side.”

Blues Clair said...

re: Carter Center Advisors Quit to Protest Book

"The 14 who resigned were members of the center’s board of councilors, a group of more than 200 local leaders"

Thermblog said...

Your response James, supports my contention that our left has a certain tribal characteristic, almost ovine in nature. There's this big club of like-minders and your arguments very often cite some supposedly great person. "Soandso said ...... so it must be true and I don't have to bother thinking."

E.g. Nelson Mandela is a man whom I admire greatly but he lost me when he suggested Bush and Blair were racist for going into Iraq. That was the equivalent of the Anti-Semite slur against which you rail. It doesn't mean what he did before was of no value, just that he had changed. (My bet is he was coerced by the Comrades because just after that South Africa began it's anti-Western, pro-Iran tilt.)

Carter gets masses of money for his foundation from Saudi Arabia. Maybe that's why he writes such guff about Israel.

Becoming Cynical said...

A question for Tattersoul - Is Ron Paul also an apologist for Islamic terror?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYasEsq3ROo

Tattersoul said...

Ron Paul is a lunatic. Plain and simple. Whether he is an apologist for islamic terror is uncleasr to me. That he is a nut case, however, is imminently plain for anyone to see.