Jimmy Carter: Israel must talk to everyone

[bemildred]

Former United States president Jimmy Carter, who arrived in Israel Sunday, rejects the criticism he's been subjected to over his planned meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal. According to Carter, peace cannot be achieved without talking to all the relevant people, and he will use the meeting to promote efforts to release Gilad Shalit and to uncover the fate of soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. Carter told Haaretz Sunday in an exclusive interview that he intends to check Meshal's willingness to accept the Arab League peace initiative. Carter says that acceptance of this plan by Hamas would be a very positive step.

Carter said ignoring a large segment of the Palestinian people would make it impossible to achieve peace.

Carter also said no one from the U.S. State Department had tried to dissuade him from holding the meetings, and that they were aware of his schedule. "Before I went to Nepal, I put in a call for Condoleeza Rice just to have a personal conversation with her about my plans," Carter said. "I went over the entire itinerary. She could not take my call because she was traveling in Europe, so she asked David Welch, who is the assistant secretary of state. We had a 20-minute conversation, which was very pleasant, never a single negative word and not a single request that I modify my itinerary."

Carter said he understood the pressures on the presidential candidates to release statements critical of his meetings with Hamas. "I forgive them all and I understand their motivations," he said.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/974464.html

[bemildred]

1. Ehud Olmert on the Damascus road

By way of contrast with what Mr. Carter had to say, an example of Neocon "thinking".

Nonetheless, a century of war is just what Israel shall have, whether it wants to or not, unless it decides to abandon the Third Jewish Commonwealth - and that option is on the table.

Whether Israel will attack Syria is beyond prediction; to do so would require an existential leap on the part of the body politic. Syria, to be sure, takes the threat seriously enough. Writing in Asia Times Online on April 10 (War and peace, Israeli style) Syrian analyst Sami Moubayed said:

The Israelis insist they are not seeking war with the Syrians, even as Israel began its biggest military maneuver in its history since 1948. This was on the border with Syria, which has been calm since the June war of 1967 ... President Shimon Peres insisted this was not a prelude to war with Syria, telling the Syrians not to worry. Israeli Radio, however, told citizens the scenario being practiced was for how things would look like on the fourth day of an "imaginary" war with Hezbollah on one front, and the Syrians on the other ... Adding spice to the show were the words of General Dan Harel, the deputy chief of staff of the IDF, who said, "Anyone who tries to harm Israel must remember that it is the strongest country in the region, and retaliation will be powerful - and painful." If all of the above is not a prelude for war, then what is?

No matter what Israel offers, the Palestinian Arabs as well as Israel's neighbors cannot accept a permanent Jewish state. Sadat was right: Egypt is the only state in the region, and it could make peace with Israel as a matter of state interest. How long the Egyptian state will last is another matter. But the secular nationalism that created the modern Egyptian state half a century ago is a dead letter. Islamic governments cannot accept the return of the Jews to Zion according to Biblical prophecy, for this would question the Koran's claim to be a final revelation to supplant the Judeo-Christian scriptures.

The Arabs are a failing people, I have argued in earlier studies (see Crisis of faith in the Muslim world Asia Times Online, October 31 and November 5, 2005). It is not only the triumph of globalized Western culture over traditional society that threatens them, but the ascendancy of Asia. Last week's food riots in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East bring the point home. Arabs are hungry because Chinese are rich enough to eat meat, and buy vast quantities of grain to feed to pigs and chickens. If the rise in Asian protein consumption portends a permanently higher plateau of food prices, the consequences are dire for populations living on state subsidies, from Morocco to Algeria to Cairo to Gaza. A people that have no hope also have nothing to lose.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JD15Ak02.html

[LeftishBrit]

3. Spengler is a SERIOUS nutcase...

fortunately, not really representative of mainstream thinking in Israel, America, or anywhere else. But his views are nasty and potentially dangerous.

[bemildred]

4. Yeah, I find him amusing to read.

And he is a good exemplar of neocon "thought", lot's of vast abstractions and stereotyping so as to reduce problems to a level that his mind can grasp and feel good about. And a fondness for war as a "solution" to political problems. Edit: and calling people with subtler minds than his names.

I had no intention to represent him as exemplary of anything except the sort of drivel one reads from neocon sources, Perle, Wolfowitz, Ledeen, Kristol, AEI, etc.

[msmcghee]

5. What in this article did you find particulary nasty or dangerous?

Or, is this similar to your distaste for Pipes - i.e. based on his being a conservative on domestic matters, even though his view on Islamism may be quite well thought out?

(I have no idea who Spengler is. As a first read this seemed like a sensible analysis. Not necessarily something around which I am ready to mold my own views of this conflict - but worth a second read and thinking about.)

[LeftishBrit]

6. First paragraph is enough...

'The only practical way to defeat irregular forces embedded in a civilian population is to destroy the states that back them. That is why America overthrew Saddam Hussein, and also why Israel is considering a pre-emptive war on Syria on the model of 1967'

I am not into 'destroying' states - on both moral and practical grounds. (Yes, I know; there are VERY rare exceptions such as Nazi Germany.)

I note that the author says later on that he supported the pre-emptive war in Iraq, but not the subsequent nation-building. I have been totally against the war from the beginning. I can excuse a person for initial support for the war IF they honestly believed that there were WMD; but not on other grounds.

And I see no evidence that Israel IS considering pre-emptive war on Syria, let alone that it would be justifiable. I am in general opposed to all pre-emptive war. To avoid misunderstanding, I consider 1967 to have been defensive, not pre-emptive, war on the part of Israel, as it was clearly IMMINENTLY (not possibly sometime in the future) about to be attacked.

Asia Times also includes a rather nutty anti-Israel article by a Syrian writer, so either they are very eclectic indeed in whom they quote, or someone there is in favour of stirring things up between the two countries.

I don't know Spengler's domestic political views, and perhaps prefer not to find out!

[msmcghee]

7. Just to follow this question a bit further . .

If this is what you find particlaury nasty and/or dangerous . .

'The only practical way to defeat irregular forces embedded in a civilian population is to destroy the states that back them. That is why America overthrew Saddam Hussein, and also why Israel is considering a pre-emptive war on Syria on the model of 1967'

. . in the context of the article I think by "destroying the states that back them" he was referring more to the regimes that sponsor the terrorism, not the people of the state who may or may not support that policy. While someone with military experience might argue that point with success, I fail to see why it is a particularly nasty or dangerous view. It could well be true. And if it were true on some level, then I would be surprised that any intelligent person would dismiss a view that conforms to reality - because they perceive it as nasty or dangerous. Very often, reality is both nasty and dangerous.

Besides, I am not arguing in support of his premise, only that it's an interesting view that deserves some consideration, not a blanket dismissal.

Just curious, but what do you (did you) think of Israel's destruction of Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirik in 1981?

[LeftishBrit]

11. Well, we know what forcible regime change generally does!

'what do you (did you) think of Israel's destruction of Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirik in 1981?'

Possibly justified - certainly a lot more justifiable than what Bush and Blair did in 2003 in supposed response to 'WMD'. There is a big difference between destroying a nuclear reactor and destroying a state! And outsiders pre-emptively 'destroying the regime' commonly results in destroying the people; and often in the emergence of a far worse regime and/or civil war. Whatever one thinks of the Saddam regime (and I think it was pretty awful!), what is happening in Iraq at the moment is far worse.

[msmcghee]

13. OK - I'll bite . . .

"Well, we know what forcible regime change generally does!"

In the case of Germany and Japan, it turned them from two of the worlds most violent and warlike societies into peaceful and prosperous democratic states. It turned their people into enlightened citizens of the world with personal rights and freedoms and an enviable position among the world's highest standards of living and per capita income.

[LeftishBrit]

16. I did mention Nazi Germany as an exception to the rule in an earlier post...

This is not what forcible regime change - or attempts at it - *generally* does, however. There are plenty of counter-examples in Latin America; and earlier in countries controlled by the British and other empires. And what about Vietnam and Cambodia?

[msmcghee]

19. Well, every geopolitical conflict is ultimately . .

. . a matter of regime change. Generalizations with major exceptions are not really generalizations . . generally. ;)

[LeftishBrit]

22. Well, all generalizations about human relations (personal or national) have major exceptions...

I suppose I might be called a 'pacifist with a few major exceptions'.

But there is one point here that, given other posts by you, I am a little surprised that you didn't bring up here. The war with Japan and Germany was *not* primarily for the purpose of regime change for these countries' own good! It was in fact self-defense, because these countries attacked first.

In other posts, you make a very sharp distinction between aggressive war, which you consider unjustified, and defensive war which you consider justified (I agree to quite an extent; though I have very strong views about certain acts being unjustified even in defense: e.g. use of WMD or the deliberate targeting of civilians; and about the desirability of avoiding war through negotiations in the first place, if this is possible.) Yet, what is being discussed in this article is not defensive war but pre-emptive war -surely *not* something that should be advocated?

Moreover, bringing in any parallels with WW2 has to be considered in the context that if we ever did have a world geopolitical conflict on the level of WW2, with the weapons that we have now -we wouldn't survive. Nobody would. I hope this obvious fact acts as a deterrent to EVERYONE who might consider instigating such a conflict; though my faith in the adaptability of the human race to modern conditions is sometimes severely tested.

I realize that this is getting rather off the topic of I/P.

[msmcghee]

25. I'll respond - last first.

"I realize that this is getting rather off the topic of I/P."

How could the topic of war, aggression, defense, targeting of civilians, etc. be off the I/P topic.

"Moreover, bringing in any parallels with WW2 has to be considered in the context that if we ever did have a world geopolitical conflict on the level of WW2, with the weapons that we have now -we wouldn't survive. Nobody would. I hope this obvious fact acts as a deterrent to EVERYONE who might consider instigating such a conflict; though my faith in the adaptability of the human race to modern conditions is sometimes severely tested."

We agree on that.

********************

"In other posts, you make a very sharp distinction between aggressive war, which you consider unjustified, and defensive war which you consider justified (I agree to quite an extent; though I have very strong views about certain acts being unjustified even in defense: e.g. use of WMD or the deliberate targeting of civilians; and about the desirability of avoiding war through negotiations in the first place, if this is possible.) Yet, what is being discussed in this article is not defensive war but pre-emptive war -surely *not* something that should be advocated?"

Defensive war, whether in response to an attack, or pre-emptive to prevent an attack - is still defensive war - and is justified under international rules. If Syria acts as a conduit for weapons into Lebanon and Gaza and provides training bases for insurgents - then Syria is committing an actual act of war according to those same international rules - against which Israel is entitled to defend itself. You may have your own ideas about whether such a defense on Israel's part is justified. However, since Israel is the one being attacked by those insurgents and weapons, Israel gets to decide how to respond. It is Israeli lives that are being threatened by Syria and Israeli lives that are being taken as the result of the rockets and other operations that are abetted by Syria. If Israel defends itself disproportionately to the threat then those same international rules are available to prosecute Israel in the World Court.

War and the killing of civilians is not a game where one plays around with these things. If Syria wants to engage in the killing of Israelis as a supplier, trainer and transport agent for its proxies on the ground in Gaza, the WB and Lebanon - then Syria should be prepared to suffer the military consequences. Consider me RW if you wish - but, based on history, I believe a good case can be made that being well prepared and willing to forcefully deter any act of aggression when necessary - could well result in fewer dead and maimed innocent civilians in international affairs. Like most things in the real world - no-one ever knows with certainty what would have happened if different options had been pursued - but educated guesses are possible.

(My approach includes doing everything possible to avoid conflict by peaceful means before resorting to military defensive options. But, once that terrible decision is made, a state defending itself should pursue it in proportion to the threat - but with as much competence and force as it has available to end the killing as soon as possible.)

************************

"But there is one point here that, given other posts by you, I am a little surprised that you didn't bring up here. The war with Japan and Germany was *not* primarily for the purpose of regime change for these countries' own good! It was in fact self-defense, because these countries attacked first."

I was speaking in a very general sense - as in, forcing a regime to change its policy is also a form of regime change. I don't think Israel cares which dictator or Islamic party runs Syria, the WB, Gaza or Lebanon - as long as they don't attack Israel or help those who do.

OTOH - If Hitler had been killed pre-emptively as a very permanent act of regime change, early on - then millions of lives probably would have been saved - including 6 million Jews.

[msmcghee]

31. Just for the benefit of the ideas being expressed here . .

. . I'd like to take another look at this sentence:

"In other posts, you make a very sharp distinction between aggressive war, which you consider unjustified, and defensive war which you consider justified (I agree to quite an extent; though I have very strong views about certain acts being unjustified even in defense: e.g. use of WMD or the deliberate targeting of civilians; and about the desirability of avoiding war through negotiations in the first place, if this is possible.)"

About using WMD's and/or targeting civilians in defense. Are you then saying that Britain was immoral to use nite-time fire-bombing of German cities in WWII? How about the American use of nuclear fission bombs in Japan that finally ended Japan's fight and probably saved the lives of tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of American soldiers - my father included.

I think my point is that it's easy enough to say that one is too moral to use certain weapons in defensive war, but that when facing an actual choice (as perceived at the time) of killing many thousands of enemy civilians vs. possibly losing the war and the killing of many thousands of your own civilians and military - I can't imagine any sane person or society choosing the latter. You may say, that as hypothetical commander-in-chief, you would choose to risk losing the war rather than kill large numbers of enemy civilians using WMD's (or any other weapons systems - I mean dead is dead). But, I would be surprised if you or anyone actually faced with that choice would chooses to abandon the lives of your own people to probable or even remotely possible death and/or enslavement to an enemy. If you did so willingly and knowingly, I would expect that "your people" would hang you before they were finally overrun and killed themselves.

On a practical level, I think most democracies would not elect anyone to high office who did not have a strong desire to kill any putative enemy in as large numbers as necessary (and perhaps then some) before offering the lives of its own people in some negotiation for peace if attacked by an aggressor military. You will notice that both HRC and Obama are very careful to express their unqualified support for a strong US (defensive) military posture in no uncertain terms - as is anyone expecting to achieve any high office in this country. From this side of the pond that sentiment seems just as healthy in Britain.

Wiki has an interesting article on this history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II

[azurnoir]

20. A "minor" detail about Germany and Japan

Perhaps this bit of history got past you, but after the end WW2 our Soviet ally became our archenemy, and our then former enemies became our friends, in the case of Germany it may have had a little to do with half of the country being claimed by the Soviet bloc and in the case of Japan there was some very unfriendly history between them and Russia.

In short the enemies of our enemies......

[bemildred]

8. Spengler on Obama and "bitterness", if you have the stomach for it:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JD15Aa01.html

He does occasionally comment on all sorts of things, and you can google up a lot of it. He is a regular on Asia Times, which seems to allow all sorts of points of view on non-Chinese politics, e.g. Tom Englehardt on the other side, it's like they just try to provide a random sample.

[msmcghee]

9. That's a very funny story. Thanks.

Why would anyone need a "stomach" to read it?

[bemildred]

10. You are welcome.

Edit: I know you don't know, but I don't think I can explain it to you.

[msmcghee]

15. I don't think you can either.

;)

[bemildred]

18. "A man has to know his limits" -- Dirty Harry

[LeftishBrit]

12. It may be because I'm a foreigner...

but I just don't see the relevance of this story to Obama. I usually 'get' these things, but I'm afraid I'm drawing a blank here.

[bemildred]

14. That's OK, I have that trouble with UK politics too.

Edit: and as a piece of political writing, it borders on incomprehensible anyway, but the analogy is that Obama is the guy that farted, so to speak, by asserting that small towners in Pennsylvania are "bitter" etc.

[LeftishBrit]

17. And so quite often do we!

ETA: thanks for the explanation. I find the whole 'Bittergate' controversy pretty incomprehensible anyway!

[Ellen Forradalom]

2. Carter always annoys people by making sense

:shrug:

[ProgressiveMuslim]

21. I can't believe the gall of those bastards

who refuse to allow Carter to meet with Marwan Barghouti in prison.

God forbid someone actually have the goal of achieving a just peace.

Fucking gall.

[Vegasaurus]

23. A 'Just peace" is in the eye of the beholder

Your idea and the Israelis' don't happen to mesh.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

24. Yes, because I support a viable peace, with security and dignity for all.

Unlike the gov't of Israel, I am clear that everyone involved in the situation is a human being, with the same god-given human rights.

Just peace is clearly not the goal of the gov't of Israel.

[Vegasaurus]

26. A "just peace"

will not include uprooting several hundred thousand people, including those who have lived in their homes for sixty years.

A just peace will not include right of return for four million Palestinians.

So it depends what a just peace means, because that kind of just peace might work out for you, but it won't work out for the Israelis, and unfortunately for you, they won't budge on those two issues.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

27. A just peace isn't decided by 2 middle aged broads on a message board.

It's decided in the negotiation process.

And here's a newsflash: I doubt that palestinians expected all refugees to be able to return, or to re-constitute the 400+ villages destroyed. But recognition and repentance are certainly in order. Surely you agree.

And how telling that you use quotation marks around "just peace."

[Vegasaurus]

28. Recognition and repentance are in order

without question.

What constitutes a "just peace" in your eyes? I use the quotation marks because there is no unifying concept of "just peace".

And just for the record, I am not "a middle aged broad".

[ProgressiveMuslim]

29. Sorry... Are you not middle aged or not a broad?

[number6]

30. they must, they must .....

Israel must talk to everyone

at least Hamas anyway .....