Quote:Jimmy Carter: Punishing the innocent is a crime


Jimmy Carter International Herald Tribune


SUNDAY, MAY 7, 2006


Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas, the United States government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life.


Overwhelmingly, these are school teachers, nurses, social workers, police officers, farm families, shopkeepers, and their employees and families who are just hoping for a better life. Public opinion polls conducted after the January parliamentary election show that 80 percent of Palestinians still want a peace agreement with Israel based on the international road map premises. Although Fatah party members refused to join Hamas in a coalition government, nearly 70 percent of Palestinians continue to support Fatah's leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as their president.


It is almost a miracle that the Palestinians have been able to orchestrate three elections during the past 10 years, all of which have been honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the results accepted by winners and losers. Among the 62 elections that have been monitored by us at the Carter Center, these are among the best in portraying the will of the people.


One clear reason for the surprising Hamas victory for legislative seats was that the voters were in despair about prospects for peace. With American acquiescence, the Israelis had avoided any substantive peace talks for more than five years, regardless of who had been chosen to represent the Palestinian side as interlocutor.


The day after his party lost the election, Abbas told me that his own struggling government could not sustain itself financially with their daily lives and economy so severely disrupted, and access from Palestine to Israel and the outside world almost totally restricted. They were already $900 million in debt and had no way to meet the payroll for the following month. The additional restraints imposed on the new government are a planned and deliberate catastrophe for the citizens of the occupied territories, in hopes that Hamas will yield to the economic pressure.


With all their faults, Hamas leaders have continued to honor a temporary cease-fire, or hudna, during the past 18 months, and their spokesman told me that this "can be extended for two, 10 or even 50 years if the Israelis will reciprocate." Although Hamas leaders have refused to recognize the state of Israel while their territory is being occupied, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed approval for peace talks between Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel. He added that if these negotiations result in an agreement that can be accepted by Palestinians, then the Hamas position regarding Israel would be changed.


Regardless of these intricate and long-term political interrelationships, it is unconscionable for Israel, the United States and others under their influence to continue punishing the innocent and already persecuted people of Palestine. The Israelis are withholding approximately $55 million a month in taxes and customs duties that, without dispute, belong to the Palestinians. Although some Arab nations have allocated funds for humanitarian purposes to alleviate human suffering, the U.S. government is threatening the financial existence of any Jordanian or other bank that dares to transfer this assistance into Palestine.


There is no way to predict what will happen in Palestine, but it would be a tragedy for the international community to abandon the hope that a peaceful coexistence of two states in the Holy Land is possible. Like Egypt and all other Arab nations before the Camp David Accords of 1978, and the Palestine Liberation Organization before the Oslo peace agreement of 1993, Hamas has so far refused to recognize the sovereign state of Israel as legitimate, with a right to live in peace. This is a matter of great concern to all of us, and the international community needs to probe for an acceptable way out of this quagmire. There is no doubt that Israelis and Palestinians both want a durable two-state solution, but depriving the people of Palestine of their basic human rights just to punish their elected leaders is not a path to peace.


(Former President Jimmy Carter is founder of the Carter Center, a nonprofit organization working for peace and health worldwide. )


http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/07/opinion/edcarter.php

Quote:Jimmy Carter: Punishing the innocent is a crime


Jimmy Carter International Herald Tribune


SUNDAY, MAY 7, 2006


Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas.


The United States government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life.


Public opinion polls conducted after the January parliamentary election show that 80 percent of Palestinians still want a peace agreement with Israel based on the international road map premises.


It is almost a miracle that the Palestinians have been able to orchestrate three elections during the past 10 years, all of which have been honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the results accepted by winners and losers.


With American acquiescence, the Israelis had avoided any substantive peace talks for more than five years, regardless of who had been chosen to represent the Palestinian side as interlocutor.


Restraints imposed on the new government are a planned and deliberate catastrophe for the citizens of the occupied territories, in hopes that Hamas will yield to the economic pressure.


<b>With all their faults, Hamas leaders have continued to honor a temporary cease-fire, or hudna, during the past 18 months, and their spokesman told me that this "can be extended for two, 10 or even 50 years if the Israelis will reciprocate."</b>


Regardless of these intricate and long-term political interrelationships, it is unconscionable for Israel, the United States and others under their influence to continue punishing the innocent and already persecuted people of Palestine.

Quote:Jimmy Carter...what can I say. He loves the liberal media in the US.


Hamas IS a terrorist organization. If they ever make terrorists acts against the US they will get a dose of what the Taliban got. Maybe they'll clean up and be a legitimate government...I hope they do.

Quote:<b>O ye who believe! take not into your intimacy those outside your ranks; they will not fail to corrupt you. They only desire your ruin: rank hatred has already appeared from their mouths;
what their hearts conceal is far worse. We have made plain to you the Signs if ye have wisdom.</b>


Ah! ye are those who love them but they love you not though ye believe in the whole of the Book. When they meet you they say "We believe"; but when they are alone they bite off the very tips of their fingers at you in their rage. Say: "Perish in your rage; Allah knoweth well all the secrets of the heart."


If aught that is good befalls you it grieves them; but if some misfortune overtakes you they rejoice at it. But if ye are constant and do right not the least harm will their cunning do to you for Allah compasseth round about all that they do. Al-i'Imran 116-120

Quote:Take the plank out of your own eye. I've seen you post a lot about "Down with America" etc. lately.....

Quote:It's not a log in our eye, but the dead bodies of over one million innocent iraqi kiddies!


But that's not why we hate you.


We hate you because you have rejected Our God and the God of Jesus! You people are merely the new Pharaoh and his ilk.


<b>And We verily did show Pharaoh all Our tokens, but he denied them and refused. </b>


He said: Hast come to drive us out from our land by thy magic, O Moses ?


But we surely can produce for thee magic the like thereof; so appoint a tryst between us and you, which neither we nor thou shall fail to keep, at a place convenient to us both.


Moses said: Your tryst shall be the day of the feast, and let the people assemble when the sun hath risen high.


Then Pharaoh went and gathered his strength, then came (to the appointed tryst).


Moses said unto them: Woe unto you! Invent not a lie against Allah, lest He extirpate you by some punishment. He who lieth faileth miserably.


Then they debated one with another what they must do, and they kept their counsel secret.


They said: Lo! these are two wizards who would drive you out from your country by their magic, and destroy your best traditions;


So arrange your plan, and come in battle line. Whoso is uppermost this day will be indeed successful.


They said: O Moses! Either throw first, or let us be the first to throw ?


He said: Nay, do ye throw! Then lo! their cords and their staves, by their magic, appeared to him as though they ran.


And Moses conceived a fear in his mind.


We said: Fear not! Lo! thou art the higher.


Throw that which is in thy right hand! It will eat up that which they have made. Lo! that which they have made is but a wizard's artifice, and a wizard shall not be successful to whatever point (of skill) he may attain.


Then the wizards were (all) flung down prostrate, crying: We believe in the Lord of Aaron and Moses.


Pharaoh said: Ye put faith in him before I give you leave. Lo! he is your chief who taught you magic. Now surely I shall cut off your hands and your feet alternately, and I shall crucify you on the trunks of palm trees, and ye shall know for certain which of us hath sterner and more lasting punishment.


They said: We choose thee not above the clear proofs that have come unto us, and above Him Who created us. So decree what thou wilt decree. Thou wilt end for us only this life of the world.


Lo! we believe in our Lord, that He may forgive us our sins and the magic unto which thou didst force us. Allah is better and more lasting.


Lo! whoso cometh guilty unto his Lord, verily for him is hell. There he will neither die nor live.


But whoso cometh unto Him a believer, having done good works, for such are the high stations. Ta-Ha 56-75


So as you can see, the straight path is to fear and worship the One who can cast you into hell after you die. Just like the magicians who believed and were crucified for their faith, we too are waiting our turn. And we have not faltered in the least. You lot are like the people of Pharaoh, we will not give in. Just as they slaughtered the first born of the children of Israel, history is repeating again, as it always does. And you, the new tyrants, are slaughtering our children. 500,000 confessed Albright. The final figure exceeded one million kiddies. Do as you wish, we will not bow our knee to you, for you are merely destined to be fuel for the blazing fire, just like Pharaoh and his folk.


What arrogance to threaten us with overwhelming firepower if we fight back instead of just sitting there to starve to death like you did to the Iraqi kiddies. The God of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them all) is not unaware of what you do.