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Tag: Jimmy Carter

  • Finklestein: Israel is a Lunatic State

    Finklestein: Israel is a Lunatic State

    ‘Israel is a Lunatic State’ – Finkelstein on Gaza Flotilla Attack

    finkelsteinAmerican political scientist Norman Finkelstein has given his reaction to the Israeli attack on the Free Gaza flotilla by warning the Israeli regime has become a serious threat to its neighbors.

    The author of ‘The Holocaust Industry’ and ‘Beyond Chutzpah‘ made the comments today during an interview with the Russian English-language news channel RT (Russia Today).

    Responding to a question regarding the American reaction to yesterday’s Israeli commando raid on the Free Gaza flotilla, Finkelstein replied “so far there has been a pretty mild statement by President Obama”, referring to the carefully worded statement made by the White House expressing “deep regret […] at the loss of life and injuries sustained […]”.

    He went on to dismiss the notion that the Israeli reaction was an attempt to “protect Israeli citizens against those who would seek to discredit the state of Israel” by pointing to the illegality of the Israeli blockade on Gaza.

    Finkelstein referred to recent condemnation by reputed human rights group Amnesty International, which called the Israeli blockade on Gaza “a flagrant violation of international law” and the United Nations’ Global Elders, a group comprising notable public figures including Nelson Mandela, Desmund Tutu, Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter, which issued a statement calling the Israeli blockade on Gaza “one of the wost human rights violation in the world today” as important examples of this fact.

    Finkelstein went on to point out that Israel had used armed commandos to assault a humanitarian aid mission in international waters which he said could not be justified:

    I think everyone can agree that there’s no possibility, that there’s no way to justify using armed force against what were clearly unarmed humanitarians trying to relieve an illegal siege of Gaza.

    Referring to comments he attributes to Israeli officials made in the aftermath of last year’s invasion of Gaza, Finkelstein says the Israeli military had wanted to reestablish its dominance over the Arab world by demonstrating that they were “capable of acting like a lunatic state and like mad dogs and […] [in order to] restore the Arab world’s fear of Israel”.

    After yesterday’s events, you really have to ask the question: is Israel acting like a lunatic state or has it become a lunatic state?

    Finkelstein responds by asserting that Israel has indeed become a “lunatic state”, one armed with nuclear weapons and one making regular threats against its neighbors:

    Things are getting out of control, […] can a lunatic state like Israel be trusted with 200 to 300 nuclear devices when it is now threatening its neighbors Iran and Lebanon with an attack?

    Finkelstein’s condemnation is part of a global chorus that has emerged in response to the Israeli attack which left dozens dead or injured among peace activists attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aide to the besieged Palestinian territory. The events have sparked outrage with ally Turkey, who helped sponsor the mission, and has called an emergency United Nations Security council session to discuss the attack.

    Israeli officials have defended the attack, saying its commandos were attacked by passengers upon arrival, charges which the Free Gaza movement has denied, saying the commandos rappelled unto the boat with weapons in hand shooting indiscriminately.

    , 01 June 2010

  • Barack Obama Is No Jimmy Carter. He’s Richard Nixon.

    Barack Obama Is No Jimmy Carter. He’s Richard Nixon.

    THE NEW REALISM

    By Michael Freedman | NEWSWEEK

    Published Apr 25, 2009
    From the magazine issue dated May 4, 2009

    Republicans have been trying to link Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter ever since he started his presidential campaign, and they’re still at it. After Obama recently shook hands with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, GOP ideologue Newt Gingrich said the president looked just like Carter—showing the kind of “weakness” that keeps the “aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators” licking their chops.

    But Obama is no Carter. Carter made human rights the cornerstone of his foreign policy, while the Obama team has put that issue on the back burner. In fact, Obama sounds more like another 1970s president: Richard Nixon. Both men inherited the White House from swaggering Texans, whose overriding sense of mission fueled disastrous wars that tarnished America’s image. Obama is a staunch realist, like Nixon, eschewing fuzzy democracy-building and focusing on advancing national interests. “Obama is cutting back on the idea that we’re going to have Jeffersonian democracy in Pakistan or anywhere else,” says Robert Dallek, author of the 2007 book, “Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power.”

    Nixon met the enemy (Mao) to advance U.S. interests, and now Obama is reaching out to rivals like Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the same reason. “The willingness to engage in dialogue with Iran is very compatible with the approach Nixon would have conducted,” says Henry Kissinger, the architect of Nixon’s foreign policy. “But we’ll have to see how it plays out.” Hillary Clinton has assured Beijing that human rights won’t derail talks on pressing issues like the economic crisis, another sign of Nixonian hard-headedness. And echoing Nixon’s pursuit of détente, Obama has engaged Russia, using a mutual interest in containing nuclear proliferation as a stepping stone to discuss other matters, rather than pressing Moscow on democracy at home, or needlessly provoking it on issues like missile defense and NATO expansion, which have little near-term chance of coming to fruition and do little to promote U.S. security. Thomas Graham, a Kissinger associate who oversaw Russia policy at the National Security Council during much of the younger Bush’s second term, says this approach by Obama, a Democrat, resembles a Republican foreign-policy tradition that dates back to the elder George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, and then even further to Nixon and Kissinger.

    It’s hard to know if such tactics will work, of course. But Obama has made clear he understands America’s limitations and its strengths, revealing a penchant for Nixonian pragmatism—not Carter-inspired weakness.

    © 2009

    Source: Newsweek, Apr 25, 2009