Defending The Indefensible

As most of you, especially faithful Zlog readers, are aware, former President Jimmy Carter has recently released a new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." The title alone should give an indication of what disgusting thesis Carter is propounding. The book's name, in and of itself, is absurd. South Africa's apartheid was meant to restrict the rights of a country's citizens. Israel's separation from "Palestine" is meant solely to preserve Israeli citizens' most basic right, that of life.

In the past few weeks, Carter and his book have come under attack from people defending Israel's right to exist. The attacks have not been coming just from Republicans and conservatives. Some of those who have taken Carter to task are Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Stein, the latter of whom is an Emory University professor who recently resigned as director of the Carter Center because, in Stein's own words, "[b]eing president doesn't give one the prerogative to bend the facts to reach a prescribed reality."

Well, Carter has decided to defend himself in today's Los Angeles Times. Carter argues that he is coming under attack because of the "the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices." I guess he has never heard of operations like CAIR. Carter uses words like "oppression" and "persecution" to describe the "Palestinian" lifestyle. He does manage to condemn terrorism but it of course comes in the mealy mouth moral equivalence that we hear from anti-Israel dignitaries right after condemning self-defense measures by the only democracy in the Middle East.

If you think you can stomach it, you can read Carter's pathetic defense here.