Quote:
Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
According to Jimmy Carter, only the U.S. and Israel are punishing Palestinians. You know -- the countries run by Jews.
|
(a) Carter is not anti-Semitic, and I think it is wrong for you to ascribe those motivations to his comments.
(b) What Carter said is absolutely true at its core -- though I understand why we might not like the _way_ he said it or like the fact that he said it.
The U.S. and others made certain policy choices to try to compel certain results in Palestine (hoping to either effectively reverse the outcome of the election or to compel changes in Hamas' policies), knowing full well that those choices would result in a whole lot of instability and suffering for the population as a whole -- Hamas and its suporters, Fatah and its supporters, and everyone else too. The cash was a principal leverage that we had, and we tried to use it. Period.
It didn't work well, because Hamas is who they are -- they won't willingly compromise or bow to that kind of pressure, and they thought (correctly) that they could get more political mileage from resistance and that the US policy would harden their support. And -- they are willing to see people suffer for their cause.
I'm not sure we should have done anything else, but you're burying your head in the sand if you think this is not true.
S_A_M
