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Jimmy Carter gets a big ole yuk… — 36 Comments

  1. Why do both of them smile when discussing this, like it’s some sort of inside joke? Probably chatted about this before the interview where Carter gave his off the record answer (which one can only imagine given his hatred for the Jews and Israel).
    Creepy.

  2. My Okie grandmother strayed from her yellow dog Democrat heritage when she voted for Herbert Hoover in 1928. She feared that Al Smith would follow the dictates of the Vatican. The Depression followed. She later prayed to God to forgive her for voting for Herbert Hoover.

    Were I not an agnostic, I would pray to God for forgiveness for my voting for Jimmy Carter in 1976.

  3. Aside from Carter losing his mind (although don’t you have to have something before you can lose it?) I might actually agree with him – yes, there are places in Israel where rockets come raining down on your neighborhood all too often.

    So, in that regards he does have a point about France being safer than Israel. And, I agree with the title of your post – he could have made that point without that “big ole yuk.”

    However, and it is a big however, in Israel you don’t have to worry about your fellow citizens turning on you because you’re a Jew. That doesn’t always hold true in France or the rest of Europe.

  4. I personally plead ignorance as to whether Jews are on balance safer in France than they are in Israel; maybe they are and maybe they’re not.

    Without question, there are neighborhoods in France where it is very unsafe for Jews. Are there neighbrohoods in Israel — Palestinian neighborhoods — where it is very unsafe for Jews? Here’s where my ignorance enters in. My uneducated guess is that Jews would clearly be better off in Israeli Palestinian neighborhoods than in French muslim neighborhoods, because I’m guessing there are more radical nutcase muslims in France than there are in Israel. But that guess is rooted in neither definite knowledge nor experience.

    However, I need not plead ignorance as to whether the government and fellow countrymen (and -women) of Israel are more committed to Jews’ safety, as compared with the government and fellow countrymen (and -women) of France. I mean, c’mon!

    Nothing remarkable here . . .

    It seems to me Mr. Carter and the tee vee host were sharing a moment of congeniality, which neo describes as a “yuk”, in front of the camera. Nothing remarkable here either, it seems to me. Is it that Carter and the host take it as axiomatic that Jews are safer in France than in Israel, so axiomatic that it merits a “yuk” to consider that anyone might not readily agree? Carter himself admits it’s a guess on his part, so I’m not sure where that leads . . .

  5. charles:

    Carter’s point is fine.

    His laughter is not.

    And if Jews are unsafe in Israel, he certainly did his part in recent years, with his book likening Israel’s policies to apartheid, and criticizing (among other things) Israel’s building of the security fence which is the only reason terrorist attacks there have gone down in recent years.

  6. M J R:

    As I wrote in my comment right below yours (I hadn’t seen yours yet when I wrote it), Carter wrote a very destructive book about Israel, and has been 100% against their building a security fence.

    He has done has bit to try to make Jews maximally unsafe in Israel.

    Here is evidence of more of his pro-Palestinian bias.

  7. neo . . .

    Point taken.

    I just don’t pay much attention to Carter, and I’m not familiar with his books or with his pronouncements. You have provided context for me that I did not have (not least because I have not availed myself over the post-Carter years).

    So (again), point taken!

  8. What, in Carter’s behavior, is different from what would have happened with any other politician in the Democratic leadership?

    Dick Durbin?
    Nancy Pelosi?
    Harry Reid?
    Elizabeth Warren?
    Barack Obama?
    James Clyburn?

    In these diverse days of Identity Group loyalty tests is it fair to single out an individual for marching to the tune of the group drummer, in this case the group being the Democratic Party?

  9. I saw Carter being interviewed a long time ago by Bill Moyers and he was ranting about the “Chosen People” with maximum venom, sarcasm and contempt. I knew he didn’t like Israel but I still could not believe this was a former POTUS. I’m not sure everyone understands that he is as viciously antisemitic as David Duke, Louis Farrakhan and Pat Buchanan.

  10. Carter’s laughing because he knew he had a hand in the result, just as he had a hand in giving Iran to the theocracy. In Rhodesia as well, he had a hand and thus America became guilty by extension. This was the leader installed and his actions reflect not just on his personal power, but on America’s power.

  11. neo-neocon
    Carter’s point is fine. His laughter is not.

    Looks you forgot the Free Speech for Mr Cater here neo?

    The “laughter” objectionable what if this matter drawn as a cartoons also how you feel?

  12. Btw how much safe in Israel:
    mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/world/middleeast/unrest-by-palestinians-surges-in-a-jerusalem-neighborhood.html?ref=middleeast&_r=0&referrer=

  13. Btw let see how much safe in Israel:
    mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/world/middleeast/unrest-by-palestinians-surges-in-a-jerusalem-neighborhood.html?ref=middleeast&_r=0&referrer=

  14. I have a story.
    I used to listen to the BBC when I lived in Israel in 1978-80. On one of their broadcast the anchorman was defending the BBC from charges of being anti-Israel by noting that some of their reporters were Jewish. While their gentile reporters could be anti-Israel the same could not be said for their Jewish journalists. I nearly fell down from laughter. The BBC could hate Israel all they wanted because Israel could make short work of anything that Britain or anyone else could throw at us. Later it hit me that if I heard the same report living as a Jew in Britain I would be very nervous; it would be a reminder that I was an outsider, a not totally welcomed guest.

    That is the difference between living as a Jew in Israel and be a Jew in Europe.

  15. japan: You misunderstand the meaning of free speech. It does not mean immunity from criticism.

    The difference between this and the Islamist murders in reaction to cartoons of Mohammed is that the people who are criticizing Carter are not suggesting that he should be killed because they object to his laughter. In the marketplace of ideas, everyone has freedom of speech — the speakers and the critics — but no one has the freedom to silence others because they disagree, or to kill them.

  16. BTW the wikipedia article on Carter mentions that he cooperated with Mary Robinson in anti-Israel activities. Ms. Robinson is a former President of Ireland who oversaw the 2001 Durban anti-Israel hatefest. She also received a Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama out of appreciation for her work.

    Odd how many people still deny the obvious about Barack Obama. Jimmy Carter and he are both obvious Israel-haters, why the free pass for Barack?

  17. Without realizing it MJR had a point in the original post. Without context Carter’s behavior including the little “yuck” appears inoffensive.

    It’s only when you discover that every time Israel is attacked Jimmy Carter rushes to a microphone to agonize over the Palestinian casualties and suffering and never even acknowledges the damage the Palestinian aggression does to the Israeli people that his yuck becomes the howl of a monster. But it is not just the inappropriate laugh, in this passage he has just admitted that his pretenses that only the Palestinians suffer is a lie and that he has known it is a lie all this time.

    This is a teachable moment about the left. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature has to know exactly what Islam is. There are too many Muslim majority countries in which Islam is on full display for the left to not really know how Muslims behave. In the same way that Jimmy Carter downplays the suffering of the Jews when they are under attack by the Muslims, the left downplays the suffering of Christians who are under constant attack by Muslims. Even worse the left elevates the Muslims to the status of victims, innocent victims, and blames their victims Jews and Christians alike for the atrocities they themselves suffer.

    The first genocide in the twentieth century was the genocide of Armenians in Turkey. Turkey did not and has not paid any price whatsoever for murdering a million Christian Armenians. If the World had reacted more strongly against Turkey after their genocide against the Armenians and had prosecuted the offending Turks for crimes against humanity, the Nazis may not have had the courage to perform their own genocide against the Jews. There is a saying attributed to Hitler while he was planning the holocaust that the Germans don’t need to fear punishment for mass murder for “after all who remembers the Armenian.”

    A little known fact is that the ultimate target of the holocaust after the Jews were exterminated was genocide of the Polish people who lived on land the Nazis coveted so Germany could have more ebensraum.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obersalzberg_Speech

    http://www.boxer.senate.gov/press/update/90th-anniversary-of-the-armenian-genocide/

    https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090425014105AAYxtLy

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

  18. Japan:
    “neo-neocon
    Carter’s point is fine. His laughter is not. Looks you forgot the Free Speech for Mr Cater here neo?”

    Mrs Whatsit’s response says it better than I could. But I suspect it will go over the head of Japan.

    As a Catholic, I also wanted to post this reply from another blog about the current Pope’s comments about Free Speech.
    It mirrors my thoughts on Pope Frances, though in a more intellectual and compassionate way. 🙁

    http://www.redstate.com/2015/01/16/pope-francis-free-speech-terrorism-works-like-hell/

    “As for this hippie Pope: As a Catholic, all I can say is that we had 40 years of exceptional men – the razor sharp intellect of Benedict; and the philosopher-priest JP2 – in Peter’s Chair. We were probably overdue for a fool; and while Francis is clearly a very good man of deep feeling, he is a reflexively thoughtless child in his political pronouncements.”

  19. Birds of a feather Left together.

    What’s what they are, these zombie tools.

    It’s funny that when the light touches under the rock, we have all these roaches and other vermin out there that’s obviously been helping mass murder along, but feel they are morally better than humans.

  20. @ Mike, I m catholic as well & totally agree with that assessment of
    Francis, sadly he ll be used by the Left.
    Plus being So American he ‘s awash & agreeable with their Communist sympathies.
    I saw a blurb on ?PBS of *Americans* doing adult ed in So American villages, everytime a student
    made an observation supporting the USA ( this was filmed in Regans Admin) saying the US was an egalitarian society, that people could get ahead there, that you could work & EARN, that student would be *shot down* by the instructor. “No no no he would chant to them, The US is run by Big Money at the very top, Regan is a “cowboy” (what ever THAT means, they used it for Bush too) amazingly to me he was describing South American society, projection I guess.

  21. Japan,
    One of the reasons free speech is so valuable in a society is because it permits different points of view to be presented. Jimmy Carter has a bigger voice than most of us because of his former office and the media. We disagree with him and have a duty to say why, so that his POV is not considered orthodoxy. So let me say here that Jimmy Carter has a super case of moral superiority. He speaks about things he knows nothing of, and he loves to defend people he wouldn’t want living next door to him. Any commenter on this site has more insight into world affairs than Carter, and I think most are far better people. Free speech gives you the right to challenge my thoughts. I won’t come gunning for you but I may scroll over your comments.

  22. Carter got visibly depressed or sad or emotional on one interview when a caller came in and started attacking Carter as a Jewish hating something or other.

    It’s hilarious how Carter’s face changed, like his feelings were hurt or something. Those killer rabbits must have really hurt him, and he was told it came from the Jews, probably.

  23. I disagree with Neo that the laughter is the only issue here. I don’t think his point is fine.

    It’s an insult to Israel to say that Jews are safer in France. For goodness sake, the entire point of Israel is to have a haven where Jews are safe. Carter’s implication is that Israel is useless in that regard. That’s certainly not true.

  24. Israel refuses to exterminate the Palestinians, preferring live for whatever political reasons. That’s been the case for some time now. That, by itself, leads to American well wishers like Carter and Hussein Obola to sabotage matters. It ends up that Jews in Israel get bombed and rocketed all the time, so some of them moved to France because of that. And now they’re moving back.

    Whether they are right or now, really depends on if they survive this century.

  25. Sarah Rolph:

    At the moment, I think he is correct that Jews are safer in France than in Israel, or at least not too incorrect. I’ve never seen any statistics, but I don’t think he’s far off—that is, in terms of the chance of attacks that lead to death. In terms of atmosphere and a general feeling that Jews get in the country itself, there is no comparison: of course Jews feel more at home in Israel.

    However, my point is that Carter himself has worked hard to make the Jews of Israel unsafe. He wrote an entire book of propaganda accusing them of all sort of heinous acts, based on falsehoods. And he has been strongly against the security fence that has afforded the Jews of Israel a modicum of safety. If the Jews are safer in Israel than in France, it’s in spite of Jimmy Carter’s efforts.

  26. Someone says to Carter: “You’re going to die on a Jewish holiday.” Carter asks: Which one? Answer: Doesn’t matter: whatever day you die on will be a Jewish holiday.

  27. Oh how delightfully he simpers and flashes his eyes. Are he and the precious Charlie Rose related perhaps?

  28. Carter is a deeply flawed human being and one demonstrably incapable of self-examination. He’s in for quite a shock, when he meets St. Peter at the gate.

    The prophet Isaiah: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”

  29. Neo, thanks for the clarification. Your paragraph two says the rest of what I was thinking but was unable to articulate well enough to include it in my comment.

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