First, President Carter has proved capable of distorting the truth about such meetings and consultations in public remarks following them. In particular, he mischaracterized the meeting he had with the executive committee of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Phoenix, saying he and they had positive interactions and prayed together, when in fact others present stated that the meeting was highly confrontational and that the prayer was merely a pro form a closing invocation. (See "Letters," The New York Times, Dec. 15, 2006, p. A32.) However modest my reputation may be, I will not jeopardize it by participating in a meeting that might subsequently be so starkly misconstrued.
Second, in television interviews I have seen over the past week, President Carter has revealed himself to be so rigid and inflexible in his views that he seems to me no longer capable of dialogue. In an interview with Soledad O'Brien of CNN he failed to address a single one of the criticisms she quoted from various experts in a very serious tone of voice, pointing out that she was not reading the worst of the criticisms; he began laughing inappropriately while she spoke, and when she asked him how he would respond to the criticisms he stated, "With laughter." In a number of interviews I have seen and heard him respond to highly specific questions merely by stating again and again in one form or another, "My book is completely accurate." This rigidity of thought and complete failure to engage criticisms from much greater experts than me about his numerous and serious errors of commission and omission make it clear to me that an attempt by me to advise him would be pointless and counterproductive. In addition, his repeated public insinuations that the Jews control the media and the Congress - well-worn anti-Semitic slurs that- especially coming from President Carter, present a clear and present danger to American Jews are offensive to me beyond what I can politely say.
Third, I am now carefully rereading parts of this very puzzling and problematic book, having read it through once quickly. I am not going to point out again here all the mistakes and misrepresentations pointed out by others ( to take just one example, his flat contradiction of the accounts by President Clinton and Dennis Ross of events at Camp David at which they were present and he was not) -- none of which he has answered- nor explain the grotesque distortion caused by his almost completely ignoring Jewish history between ancient times and 1947 (he devotes five lines on page 64 to that millennial tragic story and mentions the Holocaust twice; his "Historical Chronology" at the outset contains nothing nothing between 1939 and 1947). However, I will call your attention to a sentence on p. 213 that had not stood out for me the first time I read it: "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel."
As someone who has lived his life as a professional reader and writer, I cannot find any way to read this sentence that does not condone the murder of Jews until such time as Israel unilaterally follows President Carter's prescription for peace. This sentence, simply put, makes President Carter an apologist for terrorists and places my children, along with all Jews everywhere, in greater danger.
excerpt from a letter by:
Melvin Konner, M.D., Ph.D. ,Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor
Department of Anthropology and Program in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology, Emory University Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology ,
Emory School of Medicine
http://www.spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=1613
...and today Jimmah ran again. From Dersh and hard questions at Brandeis, as well - and the University refused to let an Oscar winning director film for a movie. What's he afraid of? That Jooos will beat him up? I know they don't make Jews like Jesus anymore, but c'mon now... Jimmy wants to beat up Israel and the Jews and doesn't want to have to defend his position. Strikes me that the peanut farmer is yellow (even as he pockets his Saudi and others' $$$).
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