Immediately following the attack on French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, the scramble began to throw shade on the actual perpetrators and to spread the blame equally amongst the victims. The White House criticized the judgment of anyone daring to publish a potentially inflammatory cartoon. Ron Paul attributed the action to France’s foreign policy over the last decade or so.
And a day late and a dollar short, as per usual, former President Jimmy Carter has attempted to jump into the fray with an outlandish assertion of his own. Whether his intent was to distract from the idiocy of the previously mentioned excuses or he simply is that obtuse remains to be seen.
Well, one of the origins for it is the Palestinian problem. And this aggravates people who are affiliated in any way with the Arab people who live in the West Bank and Gaza, what they are doing now, what’s being done to them. So I think that’s part of it.
But the former President made no mention of what the “Palestinian problem” actually is – the fact that the United States and a few other nations still stand in the way of any Arab nation or terrorist group that attempts to physically wipe Israel off the map.
He also failed to offer suggestions regarding how a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue would bring about a solution to the other violent conflicts still ongoing between Islamists and non-Islamists from Egypt to Iran. And that’s assuming a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue is even possible. When compromises are offered – usually involving great concessions on the part of Israel – Palestine refuses to come to the table.
As PM Netanyahu has said on several occasions:
When Hamas/Palestine lay down their arms, there will be no more war. When Israel lays down her arms, there will be no more Israel.
The question, then, is what could Former President Carter possibly mean by this? Is he displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of Middle-Eastern politics and religion? Or does he actually believe that appeasing Islamists (a tactic that was tried by Jefferson in the early 19th century and again by Chamberlain in early World War II Britain) – even if it means allowing them the freedom to seek the total destruction of Israel – is a reasonable approach to American foreign policy?
Either way, there’s a reason President Carter served only a single term. Allowing him a national platform now, especially when it’s painfully obvious that he is one of only a few public figures more out of touch than either the Obamas or the “dead-broke” Clintons, is rather ridiculous.
