31.1.07

Jimmy Carter en la Universidad de Brandeis

Me comentaban, hace un par de días, que el expresidente norteamericano, Jimmy Carter, conocido por auspiciar los Acuerdos de Camp David junto a Begin y a Sadat para sellar la paz entre Israel y Egipto, y actualmente polémico, por publicar un libro infame llamado Palestine:Peace not Apartheid. acudió a la Universidad de Brandeis en Massachusetts y fue objeto de preguntas incómodas respecto al citado libro y al tema de Oriente Medio.

Aquí se relata lo sucedido.

2 comentarios:

Daniel dijo...

Este despreciable sujeto acusa a Israel, única democracia en un mar de atroces dictaduras, de segregar, oprimir y agredir a los "pobres e inocentes palestinos", mientras calla como un muerto cuando terroristas árabes lanzan todos los días misiles contra Israel y cuando un criminal suicida asesina a ciudadanos israelíes que compran pan.

Buena Prensa dijo...

Me tomaré la molestia de transcribir algunos pasajes que me parecieron interesantes:

Asked about a sentence in his book that seemed to justify terrorism by saying that suicide bombings should end when Israel accepts the goals of the “road map” to peace with Palestinians, Carter said, “That sentence was worded in a completely improper and stupid way. I’ve written my publishers to change that sentence immediately in future editions of the book. I apologize to you personally and to everyone here.”

En otra parte:

Carter says in his book that Israel is responsible for making peace. He told the audience, “Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighbors’ land and to permit the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights.”

Mas adelante se menciona la participación de Alan Dershowitz en la conferencia:
After the completion of the Carter program at Brandeis, Professor Alan M. Dershowitz spoke in the same venue to about 800 members of the university community. He, too, was invited by a group of students and faculty that said it wanted to hear alternative analyses about the situation in the Middle East. Dershowitz criticized Carter’s book but said he had many views in common with what Carter imparted in his Brandeis address. “Had he written a book similar to what he said on stage, I don’t believe there would have been much controversy,” said Dershowitz, adding, “There are two different Jimmy Carters.” He criticized Carter for being overly simplistic.

“President Carter suggests that everything rides on Israel’s decision not to give back land. Somehow this is about land and the small percentage of Israelis who live in the occupied areas, that they are the only barriers to peace. That simply is not the reality.”

Y aquí creo que viene lo mejor, a la hora de las preguntas Jimmy Carter es un astro en hacerse el bobo:
Question 1: In an interview on “Hard Ball with Chris Matthews” this past November, you compared Palestinian oppression to the situation in Rwanda. Could you both clarify this remark and justify comparing the political oppression of an anti-governmental group to an all out genocide?

President Carter: Well Christopher was not there, and his substitute was fumbling around with a present tense, I think he got Darfur mixed up with Rwanda. And my question if you look at the exact transcript was: “Are you talking about today, the persecution today?” And my answer was: at the current time, there’s no substantial persecution in Rwanda. I’m quite familiar with that area of the world. So today, obviously the Palestinians have a worse time than the Rwandans do, but in history one of the worst examples second only in my memory to the Holocaust in Germany was the execution over just a 48-hour-period of 500,000 Rwandans. So there is no comparison between what happened in Rwanda, I think in 1993, and what is happening in Israel with the Palestinians now. That would be a ridiculous comparison. But he was talking about today; he was confused. Chris Matthews, as I said once more, was not there.

Ok, entonces Carter pretende hacernos creer que cuando el dijo que Palestina está peor que Rwanda se refería a que hoy en día en Rwanda no hay conflictos... ahá... ya veo... debería haberlo aclarado mejor. Por otro lado, si le dijeran "lo que le pasa a los palestinos es peor que lo que sucedió con los judíos en Alemania" supongo que Carter diría que si, porque "la semana pasada" no le sucedió nada a los judíos en Alemania.

Questions 8 and 9: First of all, Mr. President, thank you for coming to speak to us today. My question is as follows: In your book you stated, quote, “Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land had been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land,” end quote. As someone who helped negotiate the Camp David Accords and has seen Israel’s huge sacrifice’s for peace, how can Israel be to blame when supposed partners like Hamas and the PLO have explicitly declared that they accept no Jewish State in the land, and that negotiations with Israel are inherently forbidden?

I don’t have any brief to bring here to you supporting any Palestinian who advocates violence or the destruction of Israel; that’s completely obnoxious to me. Prior to Oslo, as you know, the PLO, headed by Arafat, did have that as one of their basic premises. When Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres and other negotiators on Israeli side and the Palestinians on their side, concluded the Oslo Agreement, then Arafat went to the PLO and declared the official policy was to accept Israel’s right to exist and to live in peace. That was making good progress until Rabin was tragically assassinated. Ariel Sharon, announced even before Rabin’s assassination, that the Oslo agreement was national suicide, and that was the opinion of Netanyahu as well as Ariel Sharon, and I presume Ehud Olmert, I’m not sure about him. But it was a discarding of the friendly and peaceful agreement that was negotiated under the auspices of the Norwegian government. But any Palestinian who won’t accept the three premises that I’ve mentioned in my book—the recognition of Israel’s right to live in peace in compliance with the 2002 unanimous Arab nations commitment; and to forego violence, any acts of terrorism; and to accept previous agreements, which would include Oslo and Camp David—then I would have no brief for them and no sympathy for them. But I think that those radical Hamas voices are in direct contradiction with 81 percent to the Palestinian citizens recently polled just last month by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. After Hamas won their victory—they only got 42 percent of the votes—there was another poll by the same institution—the Harry S. Truman Institute at Hebrew University. It showed that only one percent of the Palestinian population would approve an Islamic government Sharia government. So those radical voices from Hamas and from other groups like Hezbollah I think are an extreme minority, particularly when you look at the broad gamut of every single Arab country being committed to Israel’s right to live in peace within their borders