The Honorable Jimmy Carter
The Carter Center
453 Freedom Parkway
Atlanta, Georgia 30307
Dear Mr. President:
I just read the transcript of your interview with the German magazine, Der Spiegel, in which you accuse Israel of launching an “unjustified attack on Lebanon.”
Even after the interviewer reminded you that Israel was the first to get attacked, you charged Israel with lacking “any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon.”
As someone who served in the White House as a spokesman for a President, I am reluctant to criticize another President, but in this instance my conscience compels me to do so.
Mr. President, your words are music to Hezbollah’s ears and your message is a blow to long-term peace.
Just as you underestimated the threat of the Soviet Union in the 1970s, you underestimate the threat of radical Islam today. Your condemnation of Israel, the victim, only encourages Hezbollah, the attacker, to bide its time and attack again.
Ahmed Barakat, a member of Hezbollah’s central council, last week told the Qatari newspaper as-Watan that “Today Arab and Muslim society is reasonably certain that the defeat of Israel is possible and that the countdown to the disappearance of the Zionist entity in the region has begun. The triumph of the resistance is the beginning of the death of the Israeli enemy.”
I was raised a Democrat but I changed parties in 1982 because I believed your policies and the nuclear freeze movement invited increased Soviet militarism and adventurism. President Reagan’s military build-up and credible threat of the use of force helped bring about the demise of Communism and brought freedom and a better life to hundreds of millions in Central and Eastern Europe. It also secured a lasting peace.
I’m sorry to see you articulate about Hezbollah and its aggression the same weak world-view that encouraged Soviet aggression. As Ronald Reagan showed us, peace through strength is the only formulation understood by those bent on destruction.
I understand your longing for peace and your fond hope that Hezbollah can be reasoned with. However, when you call Israel’s defense “an attack”, when you call what is justified “unjustified”, and when you call morality immoral, I conclude that the pro-defense, strong foreign policy lessons of the 70s and 80s remain unacceptable to you. Also, when you criticize Israel for targeting so-called “civilian” areas in Beirut and other areas where Hezbollah hides its operations, the result would be – if Israel listened to you – the creation of safe havens from which more violence and rocket attacks would be planned and launched.
Sadly, Hezbollah today is planning its next war. For the sake of peace, Israel deserves your praise, not your condemnation.
Sincerely,
L. Ari Fleischer
BEAR TO THE RIGHT 
Good for Ari Fleischer. Here’s what I don’t get: Jews vote Democrat 75% to 25% Republican yet virtually all the anti-Semitism, anti-Zionist rhetoric is coming from the LeftCindy Sheehan, A.N.S.W.E.R., Jimmy Carter, Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, the college campuses (students and professors), Cynthia McKinney, Dick Durbin, etc. Democrats poll quite unfavorably towards Israel and much more “balanced” or positive towards Palestine. On the other hand, President Bush and Republican Evangelical Christians are by far the strongest supporters of Israel, with rank and file Republicans supporting Israel much more robustly than Democrats. Beyond that, Jews are often small business owners or otherwise financially successful and as such benefit greatly from tax cuts. And of course, Jews are particular targets in the War on Terror. So, why the hell are we voting Democrat all the time? And, I don’t mean a moderate Jewish Democrat like Joe Lieberman I mean John Kerry, and Dick Durbin, and Hillary Clinton, etc. What’s up with that? Why are we voting against our own self-interest? Not to mention the interests of Israel and the United States. I don’t buy the “Jews are still voting for Franklin Roosevelt” line either. Those Jews are dead or near dead. Why are the baby boomers and younger generations of Jews voting Democrat? It just doesn’t make sense to me. Bobbi Leigh Zito
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I agree with you, Bobbi. I can not figure out why any Jew in America would be a Democrat.Read the post below from Larry Greenfield about his trip to Israel and his comments about why Jews should be Republican.
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Allow me to explain, Bobbi Leigh,Modern Liberalism is based on the belief that all people, peoples, cultures — including the behaviors that stem from those cultures — religions, forms of government and everything else is equally good and equally right and any other conclusion is bigotry (see the Democrat in the Assembly, his name’s not coming readily to mind, whose argument for teaching our children about transvestitism and bisexuality at tender ages is because we cannot be trusted not to be bigots and thus must outlaw rational, critical and moral judgments).To folks like Jimmy Carter, then, the ONLY explanation for people to behave in evil ways cannot be because they are evil, since they are the same as you and me, but rather then because somehow they were forced — victimized into — behaving that way. Thus the Modern Liberal — the dominant force in today’s Democrat party, INVARIABLY sides with those who commit evil acts. Similarly, since nothing is better than anything else, that which succeeds can only have done so by somehow cheating. Thus the Democrats (with the Modern Liberal mentality in control) will INVARIABLY seek to confiscate the “ill-gotten” gains of the successful and redistribute it to the failed who can only have failed because of vicitimzation as recognizing “fault” would require the critical, moral and factual judgment that Modern Liberals reject as nothing other than bigotry.The reason Modern Liberalism is attractive to Jews is because it is designed to constantly undermine passions by disproving that good is really good or that evil is really evil. Notice Michael Moore’s movie, nobody thinks it was an honest attempt to accurately portray the real facts and real events of 9/11 and it’s aftermath. It was designed (and applauded by the likes of Jimmy Carter) because it worked to undermine good (America), elevate evil (Saddam Hussein) so that no one would think America so good as to be worth fighting or dying for nor Saddam so evil as to be worth killing over.This lack of passion, then, is attractive to the Jew because, he hopes, it will also prevent the kinds of passions that lead to pogroms and Holocausts. He’s sadly mistaken, and, as is so evident to us, bringing about a second Shoah, nonetheless, this “everything’s the same, nothing’s so good, nothing’s so evil” mentality, they hope, will also include the Jews.Evan Sayet
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Wow, Evan. Brilliant analysis.
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