Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
That would be irrational. I don't think that even Carter would say that spending billions on food aid would be punishment. Since you only quoted a sentence of what Carter said, I'm not sure what he meant, but you'll see in what I posted that the author has something different in mind as "punishment."
|
Carter's full sentence "The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah"
Also, (from Pravda(!)):
Carter said the United States and others supplied the Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza with vastly superior weaponry in hopes they would "conquer Hamas in Gaza" - but Hamas this month routed Fatah because of its "superior skills and discipline."
He said plans to reopen international aid to the West Bank, but clamp down on aid to Gaza, would imprison 1.4 million Gazans. He called for both territories to be treated equally.
"This effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples now is a step in the wrong direction," he said. "All efforts of the international community should be to reconcile the two, but there's no effort from the outside to bring the two together."
Carter was pessimistic this would happen soon.
"I don't see at this point any possibility that public officials in the United States, or in Israel, or the European Union are going to take action to bring about a reconciliation," he said.
There's no need to slice up Carter's statements to take issue with the point he is making. He raises a legitimate question about whether "punishing" the Palis for electing (in an apparently reasaonble fiar election) Hamas is actually in the best interests of US, Israel and the EU. He also adds a layer of humanitarianism (I know, they're terrorists, nothing is too bad for them) to his consideration of the situation; disagree with it, fine, but it's a big part of what Carter was talking about.
And, in any case, it isn't "some evil U.S. empire sitting down around a table", it's just Dick Cheney, puppetmaster.
