Jimmy Carter to U.S. Jews: Forgive me for stigmatizing Israel
By Haaretz Service
Tags: Israel news, Jimmy Carter

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has apologized to the American Jewish community for 'stigmatizing Israel' and asked for forgiveness for his actions, the JTA reported on Monday.

"We must recognize Israel's achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel," Carter wrote in a letter to the JTA.

"As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so," Carter wrote, referring to the prayer said on Yom Kippur in which Jews ask God for forgiveness for any sins.
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Carter has angered American Jews in the past by likening Israeli policy in the West Bank to apartheid South Africa in his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid".

According to the JTA, Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman, who in the past claimed Carter's comments bordered on anti-Semitism, welcomed the former president's statement.

"We welcome any statement from a significant individual such as a former president who asks for Al Het," Foxman said. "To what extent it is an epiphany, time will tell. There certainly is hurt which needs to be repaired.

Ok, first of all, I don't know the context of Sharon's remarks (isn't he dead now?), but there are European countries who are fairly hostile to Israel (France for example).

And regarding the spying. Let me preface my comments by saying that I think Israeli spies found spying in the U.S. should be arrested and thrown in prison. But they aren't doing it from any sort of paranoia. They are on the ragged edge, completely surrounded by countries and terrorist groups dedicated to their utter destruction. That creates a certain kind of psyche. I don't think that the Israelis think the U.S. is plotting to destroy them, but they may be very well afraid that the U.S. will withdrawal their support. If we do, than they may feel that they need to know about it as soon as possible, so that they can prepare.

So while I certainly don't condone it, I can certainly understand their reasoning behind it. Doesn't mean that I wouldn't turn one in for spying in the unlikely event I ran across one.

Israel wouldn't get so stigmatized if they stopped treating even their allies with a level of paranoia, suspicion, and disdain on a level that makes General Ripper look sane.

When was the last time someone was caught in the US spying for Britain, France, or Germany? Israeli spies are caught frequently.

I mean, Ariel Sharon once even stated to the press that the Mossad would not hesitate to assassinate US and European citizens on US/European soil if they felt it necessary to prevent terrorism.

Why should I afford any respect to someone who has publicly stated that my life has no value to them, the laws and customs of their supposed allies have no value to them, and that they assume every nation that appears "friendly" is in fact a clever facade to disguise the fact that they are plotting to destroy them in secret?

They're not assuming that. U.S. citizens could be plotting terrorism against Israel with no knowledge whatsoever of the U.S. government.

As for your life having value to them.. it's not supposed to, except insofar as you're a citizen of a friendly country. The job of the government of Israel isn't to avoid taking action against you if you're plotting against them just because you're living in some other country that's friendly to them. That's the job of your government to prevent, and even then they'll catch you and prosecute you.

If you think they're going to go around assassinating people at random you're just paranoid. Israel is a small country with limited assets. It's wasteful and foolish to go around assassinating people on thin evidence. The Mossad and other organizations like it are nothing of not efficient. They aren't going to give 2 shits about you if they don't have a real reason to; you're just not worth it.

Also, you don't have to be plotting anything to be a target. Imagine being a certain type of French nuclear engineer in late 70s/early 80s when France was building Iraq a nuclear reactor. Even if you had no connection to the program, there was a good chance they'd decide to kill you simply because you were French and because of what you knew.

Israel wouldn't get so stigmatized if they stopped treating even their allies with a level of paranoia, suspicion, and disdain on a level that makes General Ripper look sane.

Also, you don't have to be plotting anything to be a target. Imagine being a certain type of French nuclear engineer in late 70s/early 80s when France was building Iraq a nuclear reactor. Even if you had no connection to the program, there was a good chance they'd decide to kill you simply because you were French and because of what you knew.

Nah, I think this is just Jimmy Carter being Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter is one of those people who thinks everyone is as reasonable as he is. He therefore expects other parties to deal with each other reasonably, especially when he knows that one of those parties is essentially reasonable. When they don't, because reason doesn't work with their opponents, he gets more upset with them than he does the unreasonable party.

He's finally coming to the realization that reasonability has really not been an option for Israel in much of its troubles.

But this is exactly what I mean by a lack of trust. If they have strong evidence that a US citizen in the US is plotting terrorism against them, why not just turn them in to the US government? Resorting to assassination just tells the US that you don't trust them to handle such problems.

Also, you don't have to be plotting anything to be a target. Imagine being a certain type of French nuclear engineer in late 70s/early 80s when France was building Iraq a nuclear reactor. Even if you had no connection to the program, there was a good chance they'd decide to kill you simply because you were French and because of what you knew.

Osirak, also spelled Osiraq, (French: Osirak; Iraqi: Tammuz 1, اوسيراك), was a French-supplied 40 MW light-water nuclear materials testing reactor (MTR) in Iraq. It was constructed by the Iraqi government at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, 18 km (11 miles) south-east of Baghdad in 1977. It was damaged by an Iranian air strike in 1980 during the Iran–Iraq War, then crippled by Israeli aircraft in 1981 in a surprise attack code-named Operation Opera, which was intended to prevent the regime of Saddam Hussein from using the reactor for the creation of nuclear weapons. In September 1975, then-Vice President Hussein had declared publicly that the acquisition of the French reactor was the first step in the production of an Arab atomic weapon.[1]

The Israeli government was deeply concerned at this purchase. Despite Iraqi claims that the plant was for peaceful use, it was an unusual choice — an MTR design is useful for countries with established nuclear reactor construction programs, being used to test and analyse the effects of neutron flux upon metals used in reactor components. However, MTR is not particularly useful to countries which have no established reactor programs, unless they are interested in transmuting U238 to Pu239 to make a bomb, via the high neutron flux characteristic of an MTR.[6]

10 September 1975
Saddam Hussein travels to Paris to meet with French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac to negotiate the export of the two Tammuz research reactors to Iraq in a deal sweetened by cheap Iraqi oil. Prior to his trip to Paris, Hussein tells the Lebanese news magazine Al Usbu Al-Arabi that the agreement is "the first concrete step toward the production of the Arabic atomic weapon" and that Iraq should be helped to obtain nuclear weapons in order to balance the Israeli nuclear arsenal.
— "Iraq's Nuclear Weapons Program: From Aflaq to Tammuz," nuketesting.enviroweb.org/ hew/ Iraq/ IraqAtoZ.html; Khidhir Hamza with Jeff Stein, Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda (New York, NY: Scribner Press, 2000), p. 105

Israel is not without sin. Saying so is apparently a sin, though.

Why shouldn't we hold them to a higher standard? They have a more democratic, vibrant government, a significantly more advanced and powerful military, and the ability to choke the Palestinians out via what amounts to a siege (which they very much do). With great power comes great responsibility. If you are choking a people so badly in terms of humanitarian aid, medical aid, food, and basic necessities, then I think you shouldn't be surprised when they start fighting back.

I think that's the key here that is commonly overlooked - that Israel is very much killing the people of Palestine through what amounts to a protracted siege, all under the justification of self defense. Now, someone is going to go off half cocked and say I'm a terrorist sympathizer, but opposing isreal's policies is not the same thing as supporting Hamas' methods.