In an interview with a Swiss and Belgian newspaper, Carter brings out all the stops - the Jewish lobby, Hamas as a peaceful democratic partner, Israel as an evil theocratic superpower. The usual.
Translated by Philosemitism:
The Palestinians' situation is as follows: in Israel, they are subject to 35 laws which discriminate specifically non-Jewish citizens, who were denied the right to own land, to marriage, to travel, to have access to medical care and the media. In East Jerusalem - occupied by Israel - the Palestinians are not treated as citizens. The Silwan community, where there are 55,000 Arabs, has no playground and there is no school building. Jerusalem Mayor apologized while explaining that he was planning a tourist and archaeological site there. The Arabs who have lived there for sixty-five years will be forced to leave. In the West Bank, more than 300,000 Israeli settlers have confiscated land and properties off the Palestinians to build their own houses. Finally and even worse, Gaza is like a cage in which 1.5 million Palestinians live, 75% of which are refugees.Not a single bad word for Hamas, and not a single good word for Israel. That's our Dhimmi!
Why are the United States so close to Israel?
The same can be said of the Europeans. Firstly, there is a very powerful Israeli political lobby in the United States. Then there is a natural belief that Israel is a great democracy like ours somewhere in the Middle East. Americans see Israel as a small country besieged by hundreds of millions of hostile Arabs - but the truth of the matter is that thanks to the United States Israel has the most advanced military capability in the planet. I must underline that the Carter Center has helped to oversee some 80 problematic elections in the world. The best three elections that we oversaw were in Palestine: when Arafat was elected, the election of Mahmoud Abbas and the 2006 elections. When Hamas won the elections, Israel and the United States said that they were terrorists in order to prevent them from ruling the Palestinian territories while a few months earlier they were considered as legitimate candidates. When I meet with Hamas leaders, they clearly state that they will accept any peace treaty negotiated between Abbas and Israel that is approved by referendum by the Palestinian people.
Don't you think that Israel is a democracy?
They have democratic elections for their own people. But, as I said, they have specific laws that prohibit equal treatment for non-Jews. This includes 1.5 million Arabs (20% of the population) and about 320,000 others who are neither Jewish nor Arab. I'm not saying that Israel is not a democracy, but it is not a democracy like ours.
There are also reports that Jimmy told his pals at Al Jazeera - the same network that publicly celebrated 9/11 - that "the continued blockade on the Gaza Strip as one of the worst violations against humanity."
Meanwhile, Fatah and Hamas continue to arrest leaders of the other parties in their respective territories, they suppress any media critical of them, they allow hundreds of thousands of people under their rule to rot in "refugee" camps...and Carter is more than willing to approve of their thugocracies as being brilliantly democratic.
What a tool.