Lauren wishes that the "powerful pro Israel lobby" would do something about the Sudan. In fact, Jewish organizations are very involved in trying to prevent genocide in the Sudan. As am I. The problem is that some of the same governments that support the Palestinian cause against Israel also support the Sudanese government in its genocide. Moreover, the hard left is so busy demonstrating against Israel, that they seem to have little time, resources or energy to focus on real human rights abuses such as those in the Sudan.

Peter makes the common mistake of describing the Palestinians as "the people who fled after the creation of the state of Israel." No, they fled after all the Arab states invaded Israel, killed one percent of the Israeli population and tried to complete Hitler's genocide. The Palestinian leadership joined in this effort to destroy Israel and this caused the flight of the Palestinians.

The post by One Voice is a good example of the anti-Semitism that has accompanied the Carter book. They claim that I "sit on a board that legalizes and defends ethnic cleansing in Israel," and that I receive "big fat checks" from some unnamed group, probably the "Elders of Zion." I'm an independent person who takes orders from no one and sits on no such boards. By the way, what is one voice, and who's voice is it?

I am still waiting for anyone to document another country that, faced with comparable threats, has a better record of human rights and compliance with rule of law than Israel. The silence is noteworthy.

Let me respond to Brian's criticism of my use of the word Islamofascist. I stand by it and will continue to use it. It says nothing about Islam in general. What it says is that some within Islam, for example Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian leadership, and the Saudi royal family, misuse Islam to promote a fascist ideology that denies individuals the right to dissent. There are Jewish fascists as well, and I would not hesitate to use a comparable term to describe them. There are, however, many more Islamofascists than Jewish fascists, both in absolute and relative numbers, and they are far more influential . Do you disagree? If so, provide evidence.

I want to respond particularly to Paul who asks me to point the readers toward any material that would dispute claims that Israel has a poor record on human rights. Let me first state categorically as someone who has been involved in human rights for half a century, that no country, faced with comparable threats to its security, has ever had a higher standard of human rights and compliance with the rule of law. Unfortunately, this includes our own country as well as France, England and other European nations. Indeed, I challenge anyone to find (and document) any country that has dealt with such threats in a way more compliant with standards of human rights and the rule of law. Be specific. This comparative assessment does not suggest that Israel cannot do much better. It can. Israel gets a B minus, in my opinion, whereas most other western democracies have gotten Cs, and France, a D minus. It is the lack of comparative assessment—this double standard for judging Israel—that exposes Finkelstein and his ilk as the bigots that they are. The best documentation is in two volumes entitled "Fighting Terrorism Within the Law." This publication includes the decision of the Israeli Supreme Court, which is among the best in the world and certainly the most activist when it comes to controlling governmental abuses. I wish our Supreme Court were as activist.

Antonia claims that I "accuse Jimmy carter of starting the intifada!." Please read what I said carefully. I am simply asking Carter a direct question: did you, when you advised Yasser Arafat about how to improve the image of the P.L.O., give him any advice with regard to Camp David or Taba? If so, what was the substance of that advice? Did you say to him then, what you have said since, namely that any Palestinian leader who accepted the Clinton-Barak proposals could not survive? If the answer to that last question is yes, then carter shares some responsibility with Arafat for the subsequent intifada which killed more than four thousand people. It is an important question, a fair question, and one that only Carter is in a position to answer. The question also has a strong basis in fact and I am shocked that no one has asked him that question in the dozens of media sessions he has had. Maybe now someone will ask him that question and press him on his answer.


Paul is right that Carter massages his message to fit particular audiences. In front of the Brandeis audience, he spent considerable time claiming that some of his best friends are Jews and apologizing for some of his mistakes. You hear none of that on Al Jazeera.


I share Craig's distress about the ADA, which I strongly support and have used in litigation on behalf of disabled Americans.

One commentator makes the common mistake of asserting that Palestinians "were forcefully removed from their own land so that Israeli's could form a Jewish state." Nothing could be further from the truth. Jews have lived in what is now Israel for three thousand years. Jews settled Tel Aviv on sand dunes bought from absentee landlords in Damascus. When Israel was established in 1948, there were a majority of Jews and not a single inch of land had been taken by force or any Palestinian forcibly removed. The force began when all the Arab states and the Palestinians opposed the existence of any Israeli state, even one the size of a postage stamp, by massively invading Israel and killing one percent of its population including many civilians.
But you won't hear that on Democracy Now, as another commentator suggests. That incredibly biased show presents only the hard left, anti American, anti Israeli position. When I wrote my book "The case for Peace," they refused to have me on. My writing presents a much more balanced and two sided approach than anything you will hear on Democracy Now.
One commentator says that "any psychologist will tell you that there is no such thing as an accident" and that therefore Israel is as morally culpable for accidentally killing Palestinian civilians as Palestinian terrorists are for specifically targeting children and bus passengers. That is absurd. Every moral military accidentally kills civilians in the process of attacking combatants. Moreover I know no decent psychologist who would say that 'there is no such thing as an accident." Even Freud would not attribute lightning striking a pedestrian to anyone's subconscious.
Finally, to the two people whose eloquence permits them nothing more than four letter words, I would hope that Jimmy Carter would not be happy to have you as his allies.

I want to focus this response on the statement that accuses Jimmy Carter of describing the Holocaust as the "so called Holocaust." When I read the post, I was quite shocked and immediately accessed the blog on which Carter is accused of saying these words. I listened and he did use the words "so called Holocaust," but he said them in a context that in no way suggests that "he is a closet Holocaust denier." In response to a child's question he talked about the second World War and criticized the West for not acting earlier to counter the threat from Nazi Germany (a point relevant to a current debate about a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities). But then he went on to say that the Nazis committed the worst crime against humanity, namely the "so called Holocaust." It was an unfortunate choice of words because it plays into the rhetoric of Holocaust denial, but in context it is clear that Carter did not mean to diminish the horror of the Nazi Holocaust. Former President Carter has made enough negative comments about Jews and Israel to warrant criticism, but let's not blame him for something he clearly did not say in a context that is in any way worthy of criticism.

I am pleased that I was able to stimulate a healthy debate about Jimmy Carter's book. Many of the points I had planned to make in response have already been made by other members of the Gather community and that's how it should be.

Let me add a few points. Several of the commentators have complained that anyone who criticizes Israel is labeled an anti-Semite. That is simply a bogus charge and I can prove it. Several years ago I offered a substantial monetary reward to anyone who could find and actually quote a prominent leader equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. No one has claimed the reward because no Jewish leader has ever equated criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. It is a made up story. Indeed, I have criticized many Israeli policies beginning in the early 1970's. I have been a strident critic of religious settlements on portions of the West Bank, as I have been of some of Israel's other actions. Nobody has ever called me an anti-Semite. Nor have they called the many Israeli critics of Israeli policies anti-Semitic. So let's put this canard to rest.

One commentator accuses Israel of having racial laws akin to Nazi Germany. That is anti-Semitic. To compare a democracy that gives full citizenship and rights to its one million Arab citizens to the genocidal murder of six million Jews is out and out anti-Semitism. In my book, Case for Peace, I set out numerous criteria for distinguishing legitimate criticism of Israel from illegitimate anti-Semitism.

I was asked my views on the Jonathan Pollard case. I believe that Pollard's sentence to life imprisonment violated his plea bargain. He was promised, in exchange for his guilty plea, that the government would recommend a sentence of less than life. Then Caspar Weinberger submitted an affidavit seeking life. This violated the plea bargain. I would take the same position if Pollard had been a non-Jew who had spied for Syria.

One commentator has accused me of trying to silence the Palestinians and stifle the debate. I do nothing of the sort. It is not I but Carter who does not want to debate. I am pleased to announce here, for the first time, that Brandeis University has officially invited me, on behalf of a student group, to offer a rebuttal of Carter's speech on January 23. It will not be as educational an experience as a direct debate, but a sequential dialogue will at least give the students both sides.

Some commentators have suggested that I stop criticizing and exposing Carter's financial sources and instead debate him on the merits and demerits of his views. I welcome such a debate. Indeed Carter said he wrote the book to stimulate such a debate.

But when Brandeis University invited him to debate me, he refused. In fact, he refused to debate anyone. He will be speaking at Brandeis on January 23 from 4:30-6:00PM. Several groups of students have invited me to offer a rebuttal to Carter's talk at 6:00PM. The model they propose is the Democratic response to President Bush's speeches. I have accepted. I hope this sequential debate will go forward with the cooperation of Brandeis University.

I agree with several of the commentators that the burden of proof has shifted to Carter. Let him now make full disclosure of all the funding to the Carter Center so that the public can judge, by his own standards, whether his objectivity has been compromised. Let him explain why after receiving funds from the Saudi government why the Carter Center has never investigated and reported on human rights abuses within Saudi Arabia despite that country's numerous known human rights violations.

One of the commentators mentioned that in my Gather articles I have
not pointed to specific errors in Carter's book. That is because elsewhere
I wrote one of the first reviews on Carter's book in the New York Sun. In
that review, I pointed out twelve or so errors. Here's the link.

Another commentator says that I do not discuss the plight of the
Palestinian people. I am a strong advocate of Palestinian rights. I
consider myself pro-Palestine and pro-Israel. The reality of the
Palestinian situation is largely self-inflicted. The Palestinians could
have had their own state in 1938, 1948, 1967, 1992, 1993, and 2001. Each
time they preferred for there to be no Jewish state than there to be a
Palestinian state. When the Palestinians want their own state more than
they want to see the end of the Jewish state, only then will we see the two
state solution. When Palestinian terrorists stop targeting innocent Israeli
civilians, Israel will stop attacking Palestinian terrorists, will end
security checkpoint and the security barrier. Terrorism is the root cause
of the suffering of the Palestinian people.

The fact that others may have also taken money from questionable
sources does not excuse Carter's heavy reliance on questionable funding.
Moreover, remember what Carter's central thesis is: that because
politicians and the media receive such heavy funding by Jews that it is
impossible for them to remain objective on the Middle East. Why does he not
impose the same caveat?

He has received so much Arab money, that under his own standards, his
objectivity must be questioned. That is why there is a movement afoot to
sever all ties between Emory University and the Carter Center. Universities
should not be affiliated with an advocacy group. The Carter Center has now
lost all claim of being an objective human rights organization and has
become a lobbying group for Arab interests.

I want to respond to the canard, expressed by several commentators, that every criticism of Israel is regarded as anti-Semitic.

Several years ago I issued a public challenge issuing a reward to anyone who could find a single prominent Jewish leader who has ever equated mere criticism of Israel or Israeli policies with anti-Semitism. No one ever came to claim the reward because the allegation is a bold-faced lie. The fact is that I am quite critical of many Israeli policies, and I have certainly never been called an anti-Semite. The Israeli press, as even Carter acknowledges, is extremely critical of Israeli policies, yet no one would ever call Haaretz anti-Semitic. (And one need not be a non-Jewish person to be accused of anti-Semitism: in my book The Case for Peace, I document several Jews who cross the line into anti-Semitic stereotyping.) In a prior article, I set out several criteria for distinguishing between legitimate criticism of Israel, which should be encouraged, and illegitimate anti-Semitism, which should be condemned. (See this article.) I have said that Carter's book is not anti-Semitic, but I have wondered whether Carter has gone over the line in some of his recent interviews where he invokes the stereotype of Jewish controlled media and the buying and selling of politicians by Jewish money.* I urge the commentators to read that article.

Please continue to be instructively critical of Israel and Israeli policies, as you should be with all countries and all policies. But do not cross the line into bigotry or anti-Semitism.


*See his op-ed in the Journal-Constitution: "It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians….What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.…Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel.")

I'm glad to see a healthy debate. A few comments:

Scott argues that the situation of the Palestinians is well covered around the world, but not in the American media —and he is flat wrong. I issue to him the following challenge: take any relevant period of time, and check any nationwide media, and compare the coverage received by the Palestinians with that received by the Kurds (who have a far stronger claim to statehood), the Tibetans (who also have a stronger case), the Armenians, and any other comparable group. Palestinians receive at least ten times more coverage than all three of those groups combined. The reason they are given such extensive coverage—disproportionate both to their number and to the legitimacy of their cause—is threefold: Number one, they have used terrorism for the explicit purpose of receiving attention. They are the first to acknowledge that, and they are the first to brag that it has worked. Number two, oil is on their side, and number three, their perceived enemy is the Jewish state of Israel. It simply cannot be stated with credibility that their situation is not widely covered by the American media. This is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of demonstrable and easily provable fact. I suggest that Scott do some research instead of simply parroting repeating Carter's falsehoods.

Adrien complains that the Palestinians have less land than they have previously had. That is true, but they are to blame for that. Had the Palestinians accepted the offer they received from the Peale Commission in 1938, they would have the vast majority of what is now Israel. But they wanted their own state less than they wanted there not to be any Jewish state, so they rejected the proposal while the Jews accepted it. Had the Palestinians accepted the UN partition plan in 19048, they would have had more than half the arable land in the area, but again, the Israelis accepted and they rejected the partition plan. Had they accepted Camp David, they would have had 100% off the Gaza and 97% of the West Bank, but they rejected that as well, and now they will get less. As Abba Eban once said, "The Palestinian leadership never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity." The fault is clear. History proves that.

Lauren claims that the issue is a religious one. This is half right. For Islamic extremists, it is a religious issue. They simply do not believe that the Jewish state has the right to exist, even on a piece of land the size of a postage stamp. They believe Tel Aviv is theirs, even though it was founded and developed entirely by Israeli Jews. For secular Israelis (and Israel is a more secular country than the United States , with eighty-five percent of the population considering itself secular or non-religious), the issue is not at all religious—they simply seek to live in peace without terrorism. A majority of Israelis are willing to give up virtually all the occupied territories for real peace. But they are not willing to give land for terrorism.

Finally, I am attacked for going on television and defending my clients. Most of my cases are pro bono, and I only go on television to defend my clients when prosecutors go on television to attack them. But let's stick to the issue, and reserve my criminal law practice for another day and another blog. I'll be happy to make the case for a zealous defense of persons accused of crime, but here is not the time or place.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments.

In response to Rory's comments, many people believe that President Carter has claimed far too much credit for the Camp David accords. In fact, peace between Egypt and Israel was accomplished primarily through the boldness and bravery of Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin. Moreover, Carter's role, whatever it may have been, does not justify his complete rewriting of history, his distortion of facts, and his parroting the anti-Israel line fed to him by his paymasters. I am surely not alone in criticizing Carter; several of his former colleagues have resigned from the Carter Center in protest and many of his former supporters—non-Jewish as well as Jewish—have been appalled at Carter's "blame the Jews" approach. (For example, Kenneth Stein, a fellow at the Carter Center and Schatten Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History at Emory University,
resigned his post at the Carter Center over factual inaccuracies in 'Peace not Apartheid.')

In a democracy, lobbying is perfectly appropriate, and both Israel and the Arabs have extensive lobbying operations in the United States. Carter is part of the Arab lobbying operation. He is being paid by Arab sources to lobby for Arab interests. I am paid absolutely nothing and take my positions entirely based on what I believe is right.

Rory criticizes Carter's critics for not dealing with the merits of Carter's position. I have done so extensively elsewhere (see my article in the Jerusalem Post.). Moreover, I have written three books dealing with the merits of the Middle East conflict. I urge any readers who are interested in reading my views in greater detail to do so in these sources.

I read with interest the thoughtful comments on my Carter article. I would like to now respond to some of them.

I consider myself pro-Palestinian as well as pro-Israel. In my book, The Case for Peace, I support a two-state process based on the end of the occupation and a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem. That is why President Bill Clinton endorsed my book, along with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Israeli Peace activist Amos Oz. But the evidence is clear that the situation of the Palestinians is self-inflicted. Had the Palestinians accepted the Clinton peace parameters, they would today be celebrating the fifth anniversary of Palestinian statehood, with no occupation, a thirty billion dollar head-start, and an end to violence. There is an excellent analysis of the Clinton peace proposal, which was rejected by Yasser Arafat, in today's New York Times by Dennis Ross, who was one of the engineers of the Clinton proposal. (I am linking it here and I urge you all to read it.) The election of Hamas has exacerbated the plight of the Palestinians because Hamas, being a terrorist organization, is ineligible for international aid. I completely agree with the response that said that if the Palestinians had adopted the passive-resistance tactics of Gandhi (or may I add, perhaps Martin Luther King), they would have forced Israel into recognizing their legitimate interests more quickly. It is difficult to get a country to end an occupation when to do so merely gives terrorists more territory from which to fire their rockets and organize their terrorist attacks. When Israel left Gaza it was hoping to exchange land for peace. Instead it got land for terrorism, rockets, and kidnappings. The same is true of southern Lebanon.

Now for some of the personal comments. I can assure everyone that I am the furthest thing in the world from a neo-con. I am a liberal Democrat who supported Bill Clinton and John Kerry (I also support the right of everyone charged with crime to have a zealous defense). I oppose much of the neo-con agenda and I assure you that I have never been paid one nickel by the neo-cons or any other right-wing organization. I would be happy to disclose all of my finances if Jimmy Carter would be prepared to disclose his. I have even contributed to Jimmy Carter over the years, as have many Jews, who have supported the Carter Center financially. The power of Arab money and the Arab lobby—a subject that Carter fails to address—is far greater than the power of any pro-Israel lobby, certainly with Jimmy Carter.

Keep the comments coming—I will have more to say about this in the days to come.