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Opinion

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Greenberg' View

Editorial

Carter's Puzzle

D

id you ever get your fingers
caught in one of those Chinese
puzzles, the ones that gain a
stronger hold as you pull harder to get
free? That's the conundrum posed by for-
mer President Jimmy Carter's Palestine:

Peace not Apartheid.

The book is a great trap for the Jewish
community. We can't allow someone
with the stature of a former president
and Nobel laureate to spread so many
lies and so much misinformation about
Israel. But every critique of the book
— no matter how rational, no matter
how reasoned, no matter how responsible
— serves as proof of the lethal lie that
it's impossible to criticize Israel in the
United States.
It doesn't matter that Carter's month
of virtually unchallenged appearances
on TV talk shows and his book's run
on the best-seller lists show that no one
has silenced him. It doesn't matter that
professors Walt and Mearsheimer have
not only gained a year of publicity for
their false claims about the "Israel lobby:'
but have landed an advance of $750,000
for a book expanding on their thesis. It
doesn't matter that secular newspapers
are full of columns and letters to the edi-
tor cheering Carter and lambasting Israel

for every sin under the sun.
Carter still says repeatedly that criticiz-
ing Israel in public is inconceivable in
American politics.
That lie, which for American Jewry is
perhaps the most damaging one Carter
has spread, bordering on something out
of The Protocols of the Learned Elders
of Zion, has only grown in outrageous-
ness while the one-time peacemaker has
sold his book.
In his initial appearances, as on
Larry King Live on Nov. 27, Carter
said criticism of Israel was impossible
in America but didn't say why. By the
time he appeared on Meet the Press on
Dec. 3, he was blaming the "Israel lobby."
Five days later at the Carter Center, he
named the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee as the evil force behind the
silencing of brave critics such as himself.
And he has become more aggressive in
his statements since then.
Carter also has displayed a nastiness
toward his critics that is unbecoming
of a former occupant of the Oval Office.
Emory Professor Ken Stein, for example,
has refrained from personal attacks and
has been ever respectful and professional
in detailing the flaws in Carter's book.
Carter has responded by hinting that

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Stein owes his reputation as a Middle
East scholar to the ex-president's willing-
ness to associate him with the Carter
Center. Yet Stein and other critics are
accused of getting personal.
We have no doubt that the Reform rab-
bis who announced Jan. 11 that they will
not visit the Carter Center during their
convention in Atlanta and the group of
center advisers who resigned the same
day will face the same backlash for exer-
cising their First Amendment right and
their Jewish communal responsibility to
speak out — the same backlash Carter

says he and fellow "truth speakers" must
withstand to reveal the plight of the
Palestinians.
This weekend marks the 30th anniver-
sary of Carter's presidential inauguration
and with it a conference at the University
of Georgia. Next week, Carter has
agreed to answer questions at Brandeis
University. We hope those two academic
settings force Carter to deal in facts
instead of his pro-Palestinian fantasy.
Only then can we ease off the pressure
and gracefully escape the trap Carter
set. 1

is into an attack on all immigrants, legal
and otherwise, and drummed up a storm
of outrage. It was a deliberate campaign
of distortion and it worked beautifully.
Even on the most trivial of celebrity
garbage, the same concept applies. Rosie
O'Donnell, who seems to be in a constant
tizzy about one thing or another these
days, recently accused Kelly Ripa of being
anti-gay. When one of her guests clapped
his hand over Ripa's mouth, she told him
to take it away "because I don't know
where it's been."
Since the guest was rumored to be gay,
in O'Donnell's odd version of reality that
made it a homophobic remark. Well, I can
think of a dozen places I would not want
a hand to go from to my mouth without
the slightest hint of anti-gay bias. And
isn't it what parents say to their children
all the time when they want them to wash
up before mealtime?
Not good enough for Rosie, who seems
to have given up on comedy in favor of
becoming the village scold. But she got

the grievance across, didn't she?
Our community is far from immune.
When rising anti-Semitism is a grim and
real business, why would anyone waste
an ounce of concern on something as
screwy as the Borat movie?" It's just a
case of falling in love with outrage as a
first response.
But every minority group has become
adept at playing this game, and in some
cases they can end up extorting cash
from a few companies in order to make
their hurt feelings all better.
There aren't really any Troglodytes
around anymore although if you walked
by the beer concession at a Lions game
you might doubt that.
But watch out for the Amalekites. There
must be a surviving pocket of them
somewhere, and when they catch which
way the wind is blowing, I'm sure they'll
be printing up picket signs, too. I

Reality Check

Down With Alley Oop

0

ne of the funniest ad campaigns
of the last few years is the Geico
spots featuring the peeved cave-

men.
I'm sure you've seen them. "So easy,
even a caveman can do it." I don't know
if the ads are doing much for Geico's auto
insurance business, but they're sure mak-
ing the country laugh.
They tap into something all of us have
learned. The best way for any group to get
noticed by the media in this country is to
come up with some kind of grievance.
It isn't hard to do. Some self-appointed
spokesperson can always be counted on
to get whipped into a snit no matter how
innocuous or misdirected the perceived
slight may be. Outrage sells, and the more
furious the better.
It is a wonder to me, for example, how
America's Muslim community convinced
most of the media that it has been the
injured party after 9-11. Actual violence
directed at Muslims after the attacks was
amazingly small, especially when com-

pared to what hap-
pened to Japanese-
Americans after
Pearl Harbor or
even German-
Americans when
the country
entered World
War I.
Yet every airport
search and rude e-
mail is magnified
to make it seem
as if Muslims are under constant siege in
this country.
A few poorly conceived prosecutions
were driven by political ambition rather
than fact. But there have also been a dis-
turbing number of Muslims who were, in
fact, funneling money to terrorist organi-
zations. That is more than a mere pouty
face.
You could also see it happening in the
demand for a crackdown on illegal immi-
grants. Advocacy groups transformed this

'

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor614@aol.com.

January 18 . 2007

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