Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has written an op-ed in the New York Times, “America Must Recognize Palestine,” which is filled with outright lies and fails to condemn — or even address — Palestinian terror.
The article is set to run in print on Tuesday, Nov. 29 — the anniversary of the date of the original United Nations General Assembly vote that enabled the creation of the State of Israel. It is being featured on the front page of the newspaper, A1.
In a cynical gesture repeated each year, the UN observes the “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” on Nov. 29, turning a positive anniversary into a pretext for Israel-bashing and antisemitism.
Carter’s op-ed is no exception. He calls on President Barack Obama to recognize “Palestine” before he leaves office on Jan. 20, and to push for the admission of “Palestine” into the United Nations as a full member — despite the fact that “Palestine” has no fixed borders; is divided between the West Bank and Gaza; encourages terror against its neighbor, and has shown no interest in abiding by basic international human rights norms, even towards its own potential Muslim and Christian citizens.
The former president writes that “most” Palestinians in the “occupied territories” — it is never clear which ones he means — “live largely under Israeli military rule.” That is a blatant lie, as the roughly 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza are ruled by the Hamas terrorist organization, and nearly all of the 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under the direct control of the Palestinian Authority.
He also claims that “600,000 Israeli settlers in Palestine enjoy the benefits of Israeli citizenship and laws.” The number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank is roughly 300,000 at most; Carter is clearly counting Jewish residents of Jerusalem as “settlers,” an absurd claim that denies Israeli sovereignty and Jewish history in the country’s capital city.
Carter wants the United Nations to impose a Palestinian state by fiat, with U.S. recognition of “Palestine” being the catalyst: “I am certain that United States recognition of a Palestinian state would make it easier for other countries that have not recognized Palestine to do so, and would clear the way for a Security Council resolution on the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he writes.
He makes no mention of Palestinian terrorism, and ignores the future status of Jerusalem.
Read the full op-ed here.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.