Jimmy Carter is Pro Terror: A NY Post Editorial

The Editorial page of today's New York Post asks the Democratic Party to "excommunicate" the Peanut President from the party. I have a better Idea. Lets make him move to Gaza where he can be amongst friends, and maybe even run for PLO President. I wonder if they could make non-alcoholic Billy Beer?

JIMMY FOR TERROR

January 15, 2007 -- Has a former president of the United States - a Nobel Peace Prize winner, no less - given his blessing to wanton murder and terrorist assaults against Israel?

Sure looks that way.

How else to read that astonishing statement on page 213 of Jimmy Carter's new anti-Israel screed, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid"?

To wit: "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel." (Emphasis added.)

You don't have to read between the lines here.

Carter isn't calling on the Palestinians to give up terror and murder now as a way to convince Israel they are serious about peace. Rather, he says they can wait until they've achieved their goals at the bargaining table. No need, says Carter, to give up terrorism until then.

Certainly, that's how 14 members of the Carter Center's advisory board read that paragraph. Indeed, it's why they angrily submitted their resignations last week.

That's also how Melvin Konner read it. He's a respected anthropology professor at Emory University and had been asked to be part of an academic group meant to advise the former president and the Carter Center on how to respond to criticism of the book.

As Konner wrote to John Hardman, the center's executive director, in declining the invitation: "I cannot find any way to read this sentence that does not condone the murder of Jews until such time as Israel unilaterally follows President Carter's prescription for peace. The sentence, simply put, makes President Carter an apologist for terrorists and places my children, along with all Jews everywhere, in greater danger."

Konner, by the way, is no Carter-basher; he describes the former president as "one of my greatest heroes."

But he is troubled by what he calls Carter's "rigid and inflexible views" that render him "no longer capable of dialogue" on the issue. He is deeply bothered by Carter's "complete failure to engage criticism from much greater experts than me about his numerous and serious errors" of fact in the book.

And he's understandably offended by Carter's "repeated public insinuations that the Jews control the media and the Congress - well-worn anti-Semitic slurs that, especially coming from President Carter, present a clear and present danger to American Jews."

How did this man ever become president of the United States?

He's gone from failed president to friend of left-wing tyrants and global scold of anything that represents America's legitimate interests.

Now, in his bid to demonize Israel (recall that he secretly gave PR and political advice to Yasser Arafat), Carter has turned mythmaker - distorting history and misrepresenting facts, when he isn't making them up altogether.

That's bad enough, of course.

But when he flatly condones mass murder, he goes beyond the pale.

It's time for the Democrats to finally cut all their ties to Carter, who was rehabilitated as a party icon at the 2004 convention. If they don't, Americans should consider the implications.