If you are sickened by the thought of a former U.S. president and a former First Lady of the United States and the career terrorist Yasir Arafat all sitting around bashing Ronald Reagan . . . you and I think alike.
Mary King was Carter’s key aide and emissary. She once took a flight with Arafat and Arafat noticed that I was tired and insisted that I take his customary seat on his plane because it reclined in a certain way so that I could sleep. I used my handbag as a pillow. After some time had passed I noticed that a pillow was being ever so gently substituted for the handbag. Arafat himself was trying to place the pillow under my head without waking me. This reflected a caring side to his character which has rarely been evident to the international public as a whole.”
Here folks we are in Ambassador Joseph Davies territory. Remember him? ”He gives the impression of a strong mind which is composed and wise. His brown eye is exceedingly kindly and gentle. A child would like to sit in his lap and a dog would sidle up to him.” Davies spoke these words about Stalin.
When Saddam Hussein invaded and raped Kuwait Mary King cabled her boss Carter: ”Saddam learned from the Israelis that might makes right — they took most of Palestine by force and 20 years later occupied the West Bank and Gaza.” That’s the Carter mindset: no thought to the wars of attempted annihilation waged against Israel which made such occupation thinkable or necessary.
After Carter had that first meeting with Arafat he went home and promptly served the PLO head as PR adviser and speechwriter. What do I mean? Listen to Brinkley: ”On May 24 Carter drafted on his home computer the strategy and wording for a generic speech Arafat was to deliver soon for Western ears . . .” Said Carter ”The audience is not the Security Council but the world community. The objective of the speech should be to secure maximum sympathy and support of other world leaders . . . The Likud leaders are now on the defensive and must not be given any excuse for continuing their present abusive policies.”
Carter went on:
”A good opening would be to outline the key points of the Save the Children report. . . . Then ask: ”What would you do if these were your children and grandchildren? As the Palestinian leader I share the responsibility for them. Our response has been to urge peace talks but the Israeli leaders have refused and our children continue to suffer. Our people who face Israeli bullets have no weapons: only a few stones remaining when our homes are destroyed by the Israeli bulldozers.”. . . Then repeat: ”What would you do if these were your children and
grandchildren?”. . . This exact litany should be repeated with a few other personal examples.”
Things are a little clearer now.
Still Singing His Anti-Israel Song
Carter’s op-ed piece for The New York Times last April 21 was a nasty piece of work an apologia for Arafat (despite a pro forma and unconvincing attempt at ”balance”) and a mendacious attack on Ariel Sharon and Israel.
His hatred for Sharon is deep obvious and personal. At times he seems to use the man as a proxy for Israel: in other words it’s okay openly to despise Sharon if it’s slightly less okay openly to despise Israel. He refers to Sharon’s — Sharon’s — ”invasion” of Egypt and his ”invasion” of Lebanon.
Of course Golda Meir was prime minister in the one instance and Menachem Begin was prime minister in the other. Sharon was respectively a general and defense minister. Carter also forgets the annoying little detail that Israel is a democracy and that the people of that country democratically elected Sharon their prime minister. This is in sharp contrast to the Arab states plus the P.A. that Carter admires and excuses.
