That would explain, further, why Carter keeps insisting that he knows better than Clinton what Clinton's proposals were. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer he was asked plainly why his version of Camp David II is so different from Bill Clinton's. Clinton puts the onus of the failure directly on Arafat. He was there. He quotes a conversation with Arafat in which he makes his judgment clear. But Clinton's word is not good enough for Carter. He just smiled and shrugged off the quote from Clinton's book. What was he suggesting, with that smile and that shrug? That Clinton is lying? That he, Carter, surely knows better? Too bad the pusilanimous Blitzer did not press the point.

"BLITZER: But Barak, Ehud Barak, they offered,
under the last days of the Bill Clinton administration, a deal which
would give up most of the West Bank, including parts of Jerusalem
itself. And Clinton said Arafat missed a major opportunity to resolve
this crisis right then.
CARTER: That is not quite an accurate description of it, which the...
BLITZER: Well, let me read to you what
CARTER: ... the accurate description...
BLITZER: Let me read to you what Jim -- what Bill Clinton wrote in
his book, "My Life." He was the president who as negotiating at Camp
David...
CARTER: OK.
BLITZER: ... and then at Taba, trying to resolve this. And Barak,
the prime minister...
CARTER: Right, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) yes.
BLITZER: ... who made some major...
CARTER: OK. Go ahead.
BLITZER: ... major concessions. He said: "Right before I left
office, Yasser Arafat thanked me for all my efforts and told me what a
great man I was. 'Mr. Chairman,' I replied, 'I am not a great man, I am
a failure and you have made me one.' Arafat's rejection of my proposal
after Ehud Barak accepted it was an error of historic proportions."
CARTER: OK, well...
BLITZER: That's what the former president wrote in his book.
CARTER: All right. Well, in my book, which I think is accurate --
I hate to dispute Bill Clinton on your program because he did a great
and heroic effort there. He never made a proposal that was accepted by
Barak or Arafat.
BLITZER: Why would he write that in his book if...
CARTER: I don't know.
BLITZER: ... if he said Barak accepted it?
CARTER: I don't know...
BLITZER: And Arafat rejected it."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/11/28/jimmy-carter-iraq-invas_n_35097.html

He may not have been there physically but he was there, hovering over Arafat's shoulder. How is it possible that a former president would be working in this clandestine way to frustrate the efforts of a sitting president to broker a peace agreement? If he had any real influence on Arafat's rejection then he has a lot to answer from, including the blood that has flown since on both Israel's and Palestinians' sides.

Maybe if the right person asks the question ..

If a front running Republican candidate were to ask the question of him, media interviewers might pick it up. Even if he never answers, it could become a wedge issue on the left, separating principled liberals form moonbat groupies.

I truely doubt that one-term President jimmy carter (Worst President EVER) had much influence over arafat.

arafat lived for "kampf"/jihad - his raison d'être.

Peace would be anathema to a CONSTANT pistol toting, CONSTANT miltary uniform wearing devil.

I once watched an interview with Henry Kissinger on Charlie Rose. He spoke of a dinner he had at the invitation of Arafat in Ramallah, sometime after Oslo and before Camp DavidII. Arafat wanted to hear his opinion about borders and Jerusalem. Kissinger recounted that he had opined to Arafat that the Israelis would never agree to the partition of Jerusalem. He thought a possible solution would be to assign one of the Arab neighbourhoods (Abu Dis) as a possible Palestinian version of Jerusalem. According to him, Arafat did not reject the possibility outright but asked for a map of the area to be brought.

I think it was one of those nuggets of information that sometimes get overlooked, but it was an indication, for me, that Arafat might be a more amenable partner for peace after all.

His position in CDII was implacable. I have to wonder what made him as rejectionist as that, aside from Hamas growing popularity. Some day we will know the truth. But it will be too late for the two peoples involved.

If Carter had any hand in this rejectionism, then he bears at least partial responsibility for the situation today. He may have helped create the conditions for which the building of the Barrier/Fence became necessary, causing the hardships to Palestinian normal life that he dares to decry as Israeli apartheid.

I do hope someone is digging and researching this issue.

Noga:

There are some who would point to a major conference of Muslim countries that took place between CDI and CDII wherein Arafat was warned against settling with Israel.

Then, there's the patronage he received over the years from Saddam.

After he signed the accord with Israel, it is said that Anwar Sadat found justification in so doing by noting that the oil-rich Arab nations that opposed his settlment "...shed crocodile tears over the blood of the sons of Egypt..." so there could be any number of parties who didn't want a settlement.

As for Carter, vain little SOB that he was, never conceding that his rep for "peace making" was more a matter of being in the right place at the right time -- i.e. Sadat was moving away from the Soviet sphere of influence and on his way to Jerusalem without any help from J. Carter, US Pres., didn't want to be shown up by Slick Willy Clinton.

[quote]I don't see how. We can only embarrass him for continually ducking it.[/quote]

Nah. It's impossible for Carter to be embarrassed. Impossible.

Yes, I agree with Grantman, even though I have never thought about him in this way. Carter is unembarrassable. I tend to compare him to Tartuff, except that Tartuff is a more honest hypocrite, who knows he is faking it, while Carter genuinely seems to believe his own saintliness.

Mr. Pecksniff, maybe? I'll have to look into it :)

First we get him to drink a six-pack of Billy Beer . . . .