On Demand
Talking Personal Diplomacy
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Jimmy Carter's visit with Hamas is causing quite a stir. We get the latest news and analysis from Ethan Bronner, Jerusalem bureau chief for the New York Times.
Hear excerpts from Ethan Bronner’s Interview with Jimmy Carter at the NYT Website.
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Hamas is playing Carter and everyone else for fools. When they promise a "ten-year cease-fire," they are speaking in code to those who know Muslim history. Mohammed famously declared a ten-year hudna with a tribe that controlled Mecca; when sufficiently rearmed after two years, he declared a technical "violation" on the part of the other tribe and invaded and conquered them. A "ten-year cease-fire" is code for a temporary truce that will be broken when they are sufficiently armed (in this case, by Iran). Carter and others would do well to learn the history and culture of those with whom they presume to negotiate.
it is important to step back and not have visceral reactions, to anybody who does not fall inline with the status quo in reference to Israeli/ American policies. All previous policies failed to resolve this Mideast situation, Jimmy Carter has had much success in the past, the only to have any. His present work is a continuation of this. It is important to have an open mind, and not to be reactionary and be open to a different perspective.
do we believe the State Department? that might be a better question, Brian.
Way to go Brian...lets say its all BS, but give the man credit to try to reach an agreement...the current admin. will say it is bad/counterproductive....
even Reagan was smart enough to always talk to the Soviets
Carter is a tragic figure. A decent man, but hopelessly out of his depth.
I'm not prone to believe the state department, but read Ha'Aretz or the New York Times. I do believe Hamas's spokesmen when they say that they would accept a Palestinian state as a "transitional" one. (Not to mention, Jerusalem and the right of return.) And they still insist they would never recognize Israel.
Carter got absolutely taken for a ride.
The policy of the Bush administration has been the equivalent of the kindergarten kid putting fingers in his ears and saying "I can't hear you, nah,nah,nah,nah,nah,nah..."
It's time that juvenile nonsense policy is put to bed.
In foreign relations, you really only have two options that will bear any fruit. 1) You go to war with your enemies. And when you do this, you must do it swiftly, mercilessly, and as though your whole society needs to be focused on this war even if it doesn't. Fighting half a war, which is what has been going on between Israel and its enemies, does not produce results. It produces interminable war that will kill more people than a full-fledged war.
But if you are reluctant for total war, then you must talk with your enemies. You must abandon high-minded rhetoric and old grudges. In short, you must embraces negotiations with the same vigor that you approach war.
You cannot set pre-conditions whereby the opposing party has to give you everything up front before you're willing to discuss what scraps you will throw to them. This is the American way of diplomacy... it is the advantage awarded to a superpower, but as we're quickly learning, some are perfectly willing to thumb their noses at us.
Oh here’s a really good idea, lets do absolutely nothing and talk to absolutely nobody just like we have been doing and nothing will get done just like nothing has been getting done for a long time…. Maybe if we just close our eyes and ears hard enough, it will all just go away…..
Why the HELL does the US even bother? Let THEM sort this mess out.
Jimmy Carter does more good in 5 minutes than these neocons in nearly a decade of rule.
This is none of our business. Iran can't hit us.
All this Middle East Peace diplomacy is total B.S. Hamas is happy with the present situation and the Israelis can live with it. When both parties become unhappy enough, they will sit down and negotiate a settlement. Ignore it all.
Thank god for Carter. We can talk of Hamas all we want. The real problem is Israeli occupation and annexation and walls and checkpoints and settlements and further expansion. I just watched a Reuters cameraman, Fadel Shana, killed by Israel. He filmed his murder as you see the flash of a distant tank shell and a second later the film goes black. 2 boys on a bicycle a few yards away were killed.
Israel is not the victim being menaced by the evil Hamas. Israel is the aggressor, Israel inflicts massive violence upon the Palestinians. The world just watches and enables it all. The US pays for it.
How come no one in the US media - Including WNYC mention the fact that HAMAS is the legally, DEMOCRATICALLY Elected government of the Palestinian territories?
Fatah started a civil war and captured the West bank with the help of Israel and the US.
YES- Hamas is a radical organzation - But it was elected in large part due to the US and Israel's tactic of undermining Palestinian moderates in order to open room for more radicals so they can say - 'Look, they are all radicals. We don't have anyone to negotiate with'. This is what has happened for the past 8 years at great cost to innnocent people in terms of lives and standard of living
I still can't understand how do you make peace with out talking. Bush pats himself on the back when he makes pal's with sunni terrorist who kill our troops but he can't speak to hamas. it doesn't make any sense.
Here Here #11
Is Carter's reading of Hamas today like his reading of Khomeini just before the Islamic Revolution in Iran?
Why is the U.S. so determined to exhaust, disproportionate to other so-called American allies, so much of its resources and energy in support of Israel? Just curious.
From today's Jpost:
Hillary's cool with killing 70 million people.
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," said Democratic Presidential hopeful Senator Hilary Clinton Tuesday in an interview on ABC News.
"In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them," she added.
Doesn't anybody find it odd that Jimmy Carter is the only person that is actually trying to create "Legitimate" peace in this conflict?
The problems in Israel are caused mostly from here in the USA.
#15
You're making too much sense, Bored.....You just can't make sense and understand the Bush policies at the same time....just not humanly possible
#19
I know...she shows her true colors yet again...just an ignorant warhawk
Right Hector and people like Condiliar Rice warn him AGAINST it!
I am so sick of this issue. No offense but why is the US so obsessed with this country? Haitians are EATING MUD today and Israel needs a Starbucks.
#17
Are you actually blaming Carter for the Islamic revolution in Iran??????????
I voted for Jimmy and thought well of him. He is off his nut on this one. Hamas is like Mozambique, Angola and Cuba vis-a-vis South Africa. Look at what as happened in J'burg. Jimmy, you are looking for the destruction of the word's only Jewish state.
If Hamas is smart it wil make peace with Israel, grow, prosper, and do what ever it can to ensure financial, technical, and industrial success. This is any anti Palistinean's fear. It is in the interests of those that would seek to condemn the Palestinians to a marginal existence to continue the madness of a constant war that decimates the future of the Palestinians. Israel, despite all the hostility thrown at it, has survived and is stronger than ever. The present situation favors Israel at the expense of palestinian children's future. Yes, some will parade Palestinian anti Israeli propaganda to demonstrate that they are "not to be dealt with". This however, does not address the lost future of all those children.
I fail to understand why so many people are so against anyone speaking to the Palestinians. Anyone who values the dignity of humanity should be outraged that this conflict continues without any foreseeable end. Travel to the region and see how both the Israeli and the Palestinian people are forced to live (especially the Palestinians). Imagine living like that and consider if you would accept that type of life for yourself and your family. I have always found it shocking that the country that caused this mess (England) is never even mentioned. The World governments should force England to first issue an apology to Israelis and the Palestinians, and then work with them indefinitely to clean up the mess that they caused.
The thing is that the policy of disregarding the PLO helped in the rise of Hamas. When people feel like they're not being heard, they get frustrated and start clinging to things like fundamentalist Islam and AK-47s and start looking for people not like them to blame for their problems.
My point is that people will turn to the biggest SOB in the room if they think he's going to get something done: enter Hamas.
Israel has to make it abundantly clear that duplicity on the part of Hamas will be responded with the full force of Israel's military, but Israel has to start honoring its own agreements, international treaties, and lastly, stop letting their own religious fanatics influence domestic and foreign policy.
Hamas can't "play us all for fools" if we make it clear that we're not going to simply trust them to keep their part of the bargain.
I blame Carter for the years of Iranian and U.S. conflict. I think Carter feels that guilt as well . He is the only ex president that seems to want to redeem himself. He is aware of the horrible mistakes he made in the Middle East. Toasting the Shah of Iran can be compared to toasting Saddam, Sadam and the Shah both ran very cruel dictatorships, that the USA supported.
When the Iranian people stood up and in the madness of the hostage takeover at the embassy, Carter should have gone to meet with the Aiotola, met on the political and religious grounds that they share. and brought back the embassy staff.. Carter missed the chance to usher in a new era of US - Iranian relations, and he knows it. Khomeni would have relented, and we might have a totally different Iran today and avoided the republican nightmares we are treated to ever since Carter lost the election.
We seem to forget that Nixon went to China, not the other way round, to begin the process that integrated China into the capitalist world, and ended the military tensions on the Asian mainland
Thank you Albert.
You can add Iraq to the list of places England screwed up. And don’t forget to add India and Pakistan’s potentially catastrophic relationship to the list. Funny how the world loves to blame us for all the problems when not even 50 years ago Europe was busy carving up the world with its colonies that are reeking havoc in almost every continent in the modern world today….
Publiuse #26
Their should not be any state defined and constitute it's legitimacy based on it's religion, especially if it calls it's self a democracy!
Thank you for saying that Miguel!!! I agree 100%. Watch for the new Bill Maher religion movie out this summer. He loves him some Israel despite his hatred of mixing church and state.
Israel has become a despotic occupier without any regard for human civil rights. The State isn't any different from the other dictatorships that are around. They are constantly killing civilian palestinian like flies in the name of having the right to defend themselves.
If the Palestinians would have the kind of armaments the Israelis have I understand the statement.
Israel doesn't want a Palestinian State. If they wanted it, they wouldn't steal Palestinian land and build settlements in the land that is supposed to be part of the Palestinians State.
What excuse Israel would have to continue eliminating the Palestinian population by keeping them surrounded within enclosed borders, without the opportunity to survive by growing crops and made products to participate in a free trade with their neighbors and Israel.
Israel should be embarrassed and ashamed of what it has become.
Jimmy Carter will be remembered as correct in his approach and the foundation for the Middle East peace, in the future, and as a great American when all is done and said.
You are correct Jon P. # 31
Most people do not seem to understand that past colonial policies of European countries are mainly to blame for many of the problems in the World today. A glaring example is Robert Mugabe. That nut would not be in power today if not for the racist colonial policies of the British government. Sadly the popular media never seems to have the will to present the situation within a Cause and Effect context based on historical events.
The economic and military srangulation of the Gaza strip by the government of Israel has a sense of Deja Vu.........the Warsaw Ghetto.
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