Jimmy Carter: I Ignore Darfur And Obsess About Israel Because Darfur’s Not A Genocide
by Omri Ceren
So then there was the time that Jimmy Carter - when asked about a genocidal conflict - got all bashful and precise:
“There is a legal definition of genocide and Darfur does not meet that legal standard. The atrocities were horrible but I don’t think it qualifies to be called genocide,” he said. Washington is almost alone in branding the 4 1/2 years of violence in Darfur genocide…That’s one reason why using the textbook definition is offensive. There’s another reason, too: namely, that Carter hasn’t always been such a stickler for precision when applying that vaunted moral yardstick of his. If it’s so desperately “unhelpful” to go throwing around the concept of genocide even when it arguably applies,
The link goes to Allahpundit and not the original story because we want you to read his analysis of why settling on one definition rather than another is a choice motivated by purpose. It’s a part with the genuinely bewildering question regarding liberal sophisticates who insist on finding imagined nuance in international relations: even if that was true - and it’s not - what is it about you that would make you care about something like that?
But more to the point for Israpundit’s demo: can anyone think of an example where Jimmy Carter is not so careful about adhering to strict definitions when throwing around breathless accusations? Maybe a country that he accuses of being an anti-Arab apartheid regime, when in fact that country has Arab parliament members elected by Arab citizens. Full political rights, of course, being the classic definition of an apartheid regime. Apparently Jimmy Carter can be cool and calculating when it comes to explaining why we shouldn’t be too quick to judge the genocidal regime in Khartoum. But Israeli crimes are so overwhelming that they literally make him “nauseous,” apparently overcoming his circumspection and forcing him to viciously slander Israel. Jimmy Carter’s moral calculus: Sudan’s government deserves the benefit of a doubt, but the Jewish State’s is beyond the pale of justification.
[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]
Tags: anti-semitism, carter, Israel, sophistication, sudan
October 10th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
What’s “offensive” is Carter’s raking in lots of money by giving the Muslims a free pass on killing anyone and everyone anywhere…
Perhaps Carter the moral exhibitionist is a black-hater (as in Arabs killing blacks in Darfur) as well as a Jew-hater (as in Arabs killing Jews in the Middle East. I mean he is from the South after all…
October 10th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Is there anyone who really cares about what this miserable Carter thinks?
October 10th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Jimmy Carter is a perfectionist. He’s simply pointing out that legally, it’s not genocide.
Lucky for him, he found a textbook example of Apartheid for his book.
Jimmy Carter makes moderate Democrats look bad. Moderate Democrats: Speak up!
October 11th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Boker tov Keelie,
Bernard Baruch was from South Carolina. His dad was a Medical Officer in the Confederate Army.
President Carter was elected with substantial support from Hymietown’s population.
I remember when the New York Jewish leadership (Please don’t laugh.) sent their emissaries down South to ask the Southern Jews “Who is this Jimmy Carter?”
Of course all this is not geographic. Governor Carter was endorsed and praised by the Southern Jewish leaders.
Fortunately after 4 circles around the sun, the Carter administration was over.
October 11th, 2007 at 2:08 am
I happened to see Wolfe Blitzer’s interview of Jimmy Carter today. He more or less called President Bush a liar and compared B’Tselem in Israel with similar groups in Pakistan, inferring that there are similarities between Israel and Pakistan. He should keep his mouth shut.
October 11th, 2007 at 7:27 am
When the courts determined whether Syrbia committed “genocide” I decided to investigate what it meant and wrote “Is war “genocide”? I get into the changing definition of genocide.
Carter says “There is a legal definition of genocide and Darfur does not meet that legal standard.” he doesn’t quote the standard or explain why it fails to meet the test.
I think he is wrong applying the test laid down in the Serbian trial.
October 11th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Jimmy Carter could not even successfully deploy a few helicopters to fly a mission to rescue Iranian hostages – they crashed along with his Presidency.
Ever since that time, he has been suffering a Stockholm syndrome and his mental state is that of a hostage trying to get on the good side of his beloved captors and he has formed emotional attachments with his terrorist hostage takers. He identifies with their causes and, of course, their number one cause is to destroy Israel and Jews. Carter embraces their beliefs and defends their causes.
We must feel sorry for Carter for he has a sick and confused mind. When he excoriates Israel for defending itself and goes out of his way to damn his own people and then support those who are trying to terrorize the world, he is really crying out for help: in Carter’s mind the terrorists hold the key to his mental prison and they must be made to feel welcome and in control or else Carter will be punished as they did to him in Iran when the terrorists showed the world what a weak and powerless little man he really was.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:53 am
He did go to an all-white church, and he said something about “ethnic purity.” Maybe Peanut Brain thinks those Negroes are getting what they deserve from his fellow Caucasians, even if said Caucasians are Islamofascists.
October 11th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Ah the scent of Arab petrodollars in the morning! Let’s not forget that the Saudis have been a most generous benefactor to Carter for his library and other vestiges of his [puke] legacy. And these are only the gifts we know about.
Carter is also a classic antisemite, along the lines of Walt and Mearsheimer.
There is however, another principle at work here. Wretchard over at Belmont Club is espousing essentially the same thesis I have proposed to explain the behavior of those like Carter who systematically attack Israel while giving a pass to the Sudanese, Chinese, and Arab governments. These politicians are adherents to what I call the hegemonic block theory of global politics. Wretchard describes it in terms of entropy. The idea is that the world would be a more stable and peaceful place if there were a handful of powerful nation-states (or in the case of Islam, a caliphate) with monopolistic control over the land, resources, and political machinery in a given neighborhood. In such a world, there is no room for a pesky Jewish state, uppity Christian blacks or Tibetan monks to challenge the ruling authority of the local junta.
Essentially a return to the days of the Soviet Union — which Carter obviously misses — but with an expanded set of hegemonic players, stability and world peace (albeit a cold one) prevail where otherwise messy and dangerous internecine and regional conflicts would interfere with global trade and threaten security.
October 11th, 2007 at 11:24 am
“MORAL EXHIBITIONIST”. GOD, I LIKE THAT TERM.
October 12th, 2007 at 1:59 am
Carter is the United Nations personified.