Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me (Discussion 2)

On May 14, 2015 I posted a commentary based on an exchange of letters to the Editor of the North Jersey newspaper, The Record. I urge you to re-read it. It appeared under the title "Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me!" On May 19, I posted comments which I had received from two of my readers. You can find those under the heading "Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me! (Discussion)." 

The first supported my view and did not call for a rebuttal but the second, from Albert Nekimken did. You may want to particularly re-read Nekimken observations.

Below you will find that rebuttal:

I  find my self at a loss as to how to respond to constantly unsourced and unsupported allegations. 

I particularly point to your holding onto the totally discredited and debunked claim that there are no Palestinians. We wave a magic wand, people disappear, and so there is no problem.

You write:

Worth noting, anyone who would who would honor a despicable terrorist in this way has disqualified himself from any further rational consideration.

I don’t know whether this is a quote and if so from whom and why it is set out here.

I don’t know what your views were (are) about all the Israeli terrorists who were instrumental in creating the State of Israel, and who eventually formed the Herut party, the predecessor of Likud. But I guess they were "good terrorists”, not to speak of the Irish Republican army, which so many Americans actively supported. But what is a little inconsistency between friends?

But before I truly launch into your “presentation”, I have to express my shock at your response earlier to my sending you an article from the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, entitled: "Thousands of Israeli Holocaust survivors still living in poverty.” It seems to me that nothing can be more damming to a Nation founded on the basis that Holocaust survivors need a refuge, if it can’t even take care of this dwindling group. Where is its moral compass?

Your response was:

The situation of poverty and neglect among Holocaust survivors is a simple scandal that must be remedied, and should have been remedied many years ago. Who exactly is to blame, I couldn't say.

But who is to blame, - is it not enough to agree that Israel or its government, which is the same thing, is to blame. You suggested "Netanyahu’s tenure as finance minister is to blame when he turned the Israeli economy toward the free market” or at least that the newspaper Haaretz makes that claim. But isn't it obvious that there is money for the settler movement; there is money for the Haredim; but there is no money for Holocaust survivors. What an indictment of the values of the people who govern Israel.

And there are many decent Israeli’s who would not agree with you or the policies of its government. Unfortunately, they appear to be in a minority.

I am responding further to your message by interlineating my comments into your text in red.

Worth noting, anyone who would who would honor a despicable terrorist in this way has disqualified himself from any further rational consideration.

 Earlier in the day, Carter, 90, visited Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and laid a wreath on the grave of former leader Yasser Arafat. 

 The writer asks: (This refers to the Letter to the Editor to which I responded)  "Has he [Carter] ever asked where the billions of dollars sent in aid to the governments in Gaza have gone?"

I am now quoting Nekimken with all my comments appearing in Red. 

You (this refers to me) wrote “Just about a month ago, on April 13, the Jerusalem Post had this headline: ‘International donors fail to deliver promised aid to Gaza.’ And besides, the Israeli blockade makes it all but impossible for building materials to be delivered.”

 Your reply ignores several cogent points, including:

Israel has intercepted bags of cash provided by Iran entering the Gaza Strip to pay Hamas employees Source please!, without which support for Hamas would likely collapse. and if Hamas collapsed, would Israel then re-occupy or would they turn it over to the hated P.L.O.?

2. Europe and the EU have supplied the PA with billions of dollars over recent decades. Source please! 

It is entirely the fault of Hamas (why? how?) that whatever is left of this money after the huge amounts siphoned off by corrupt Fatah officials Source please  has not been transferred to the Gaza Strip.

3. Israel has, in fact, permitted the import of some building materials, Source please but must attempt to prevent them  from being diverted How? (as they had been in the past) to building tunnels that Hamas used to attack Israel. I thought Israel was attacked with rockets! Israel’s blockade under International Law is the continuance of war. Why does it have to be asymmetrical?  Israel wages war - good war! Hamas fights back - bad terror!!! Has Israel tried to negotiate peace with Hamas. NO!!! It is terrorist organization. Resistance bad – terror! Weren’t resistance fighters against the Nazis terrorists? 

You (Emil Scheller) wrote:

Why should an oppressed people give recognition to their oppressors? The PLO has recognized Israel's right to exist and what has it gotten in return?

The answer:

"Because after multiple wars intended to obliterate Israel, the Palestinians have lost. Now it is time to reconcile and build for the future." Their "oppression" could have been ended long ago if not for the cynical manipulation of Palestinians by their own leaders and for their own enrichment. The PLO's "acceptance" of Israel is/was meaningless so long as the PA, which is the titular Palestinian government refuses to acknowledge Israel's status as a Jewish state

This is a new requirement intended to keep raising the bar.

or, more properly, a state for the Jewish people. To avoid doing so reflects their continuing desire to transform the Jewish state into an Arab Palestinian state, which exposes "acceptance" as a mere tactic for foreign consumption.

(It implies that if Palestinians should become a majority, they would be denied their rights as citizens, and at the least makes them less than citizens. This was never a requirement in all the years since the State of Israel was founded in 1948. Why now? What would be your reaction to a proposal that the US should be declared a Christian nation?

More to the point, so long as suicide bombers infiltrate from the West Bank (thwarted only by the security wall) and rockets fly from Gaza, "acceptance" remains a hollow joke. What did "acceptance" get the PLO? Nothing, because there was no real acceptance and  because the only thing they can hope to get is peace, which is the most precious element for people who love life.

Peace under occupation is not peace!!!! Did the French, the Dutch, the Poles, etc. have peace under the Nazis? Or even the people in the colonies of Britain or of the Dutch, etc. They demanded statehood and until they got it there could be no peace.

AS for Israel's democracy and a vote for Palestinians, Caroline Glick believes that, after Israel annexes the West Bank, all Arabs who wish to become full Israeli citizens should be offered a path to citizenship. She offers compelling evidence that the risk is worth taking for both sides. Unfortunately, this solution has not attracted much interest anywhere so far as I can tell. The alternative is a demilitarized Palestinian "state" with limited scope of action.

You and I and the whole world knows that this is still more of the creation of a Vichy style government.

Now, you will ask "Why does Israel (the oppressor) have the right to dictate terms to the Palestinians (as the oppressed)?" The answer is obvious: because Israel is determined to safeguard its people and its national existence based on residence in its own territory and, as noted previously, its "rights" have been paid for in blood through several wars-if not millennia.

I guess what you are saying that since Jews have suffered through millennia, they are not bound by any moral compass that might apply to others.

Mere residence in a territory does not automatically create a "right" to political sovereignty. (Ask the Kurds who have lived in place for a thousand years without independent sovereignty.)

Indeed, and I would, as I trust you would, support their aspirations for their independence. All the colonial peoples, from India to Algeria, to Indonesia, have won their sovereignty. Were you opposed to their aspirations? 

And, as noted in prior comments, because the population of Jordan is at least 60% Palestinian, it is the de facto Palestinian state, whether anyone wants to recognize it as such, or not.

As for whether or not Israel is a democracy, let the kettle not call the pot black. Every democracy in the world, including the U.S., is a work in progress. Israel has made admirable progress in a few short decades, even if there is more to be done.

 Unfortunately, Israel has not made progress, it is going backwards.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.