Of Peanuts and Painted Buntings...

Of Peanuts and Painted Buntings...

By Gerald A. Honigman
April 11, 2004

It's been an exciting week.

After not seeing some of my increasingly threatened (mostly due to loss of nesting habitat), beautiful feathered friends for some time, the pure green female and the red, yellow, green, and blue male painted buntings came to my birdbath and feeders. The sparrow-sized male is one of the most amazingly colored birds in the world... the most in the United States. What a gift!

I live on endangered scrub habitat along the eastern central Florida coast and did my best to leave a lot of the habitat in its natural state. I tried to convince my neighbor to do likewise, showing him gopher tortoise mounds, wild scrub jays which come to your hands to feed, etc... To no avail.

Having no real meaningful environmental protections, these officially threatened species are basically left at the mercies of the lot owners and developers. I contacted the powers that be to try to prevent this, but there are too many loopholes.

So the moron cut down over 90% of the trees to make room on his two lots for his own private putting range. Something else to endear me to golfers...

I drive a super low emission hybrid Toyota Prius, have a solar collector on my roof, and use no pesticides in the house or in my organic garden. I've taught these sort of things to several thousand students and dozens of teachers over the years and have led many of them on field trips for direct encounters.

So I guess I have something in common, though I hate to admit it, with Jimmy Carter. To his credit, he did have a good environmental record. I voted for him in 1976... Ugh!!!!!

I just read James Pinkerton's Houston Chronicle article discussing how Mr. Peanut, on an early April 2004 birding trip in the lower Rio Grande Valley, took Dubya to task on Iraq, environmental concerns, and the Arab-Israeli mess.

Some of his criticisms on the first two issues were not without some merit.

The war needed to be thought out better than it was before it was launched. We really didn't expect any lasting gratitude from the Shi'a for ridding them of their executioners, did we?

And what's this deal about continuously treating the only real allies we have over there--the Kurds--worse than we do the Arabs who despise us...be they Sunni or Shi'a? America's "crime" against the latter? We said that someone else in addition to Arabs--i. e. Jews--should also have political rights in the region.

Despite scores of millions of non-Arabs who have historically lived there--Berbers, Copts, Jews, Kurds, etc.--Arabs insist that the region is purely Arab patrimony. This mindset is largely responsible for the problems we're facing today. When the four century-old empire of the Ottoman Turks collapsed after World War I, Arabs saw the chance to reassert their own earlier Caliphal imperial hegemony over the entire area and were in no sharing mood. An independent Kurdistan (promised after the Paris Peace Conference) thus got nipped in the bud, Berber language and culture became largely "outlawed" in "Arab" North Africa, the only safe native Copt in Egypt was one who became immersed in the forced Arabization process, etc., etc., etc.

Guess who'll be left holding the bag when we pull out of Iraq and who will quite possibly be slaughtered, as they were repeatedly before, for their friendship towards us? Yet the Foggy Folks insist that 30 million Kurds will remain forever stateless... no roadmap for them... while insisting on a 23rd state for Arabs dedicated to Israel's destruction. And, by the way, I don't hear a peep out of Mr. Peanut about them either. Quite a selective morality for a Habitat For Humanity spokesman...don't you think?

Carter is correct, however, in asserting that Dubya's callous treatment of environmental issues is unfortunate. His record speaks for itself, and it's not saying anything too good. Big industry polluters and developers are reaping the benefits of their alliance with the Bush oil boys. And I say this as someone who might very well vote for Dubya the next time around.

But this is going to be a close election, and many who truly care about the condition and quality of the air, water, biodiversity, and overall ecology of this nation and planet that supports our healthful existence have some legitimate concerns here. Ignoring millions of people who care about such things is not a particularly wise move...even for purely selfish reasons. The Republicans need to pay more attention to this critique and not just brush it off as lefty politics.

But it's when Carter turns to Arab-Israeli issues that he totally loses it. He has never met an Arab disemboweler of Jewish babes and grandmas that he hasn't blamed the Jews themselves for.

Pardon me if I'm not sounding too respectful, but the ex-President has been shown to be a blatant hypocrite and, despite delusions about his own self-worth (an argument could be made that Camp David Accords occurred despite him, not because of him), an outright menace to the survival of a viable Jewish State.

In an earlier Indian summer blast of hot air in the September 23, 2003 Washington Post ("The Choice For Israelis"), he had proclaimed that the occupied territories and settlement issue were the main causes of Arab resentment and thus the violence as well. As can be seen in James Pinkerton's April 2004 report, this has become Mr. Peanut's standard line.

Surely he's aware of poll after poll taken among Arabs that have shown that even if Israel withdrew completely from those disputed areas (not "occupied Arab lands"), the Arabs would still reject Israel's right to exist.

It's not how big Israel is but that Israel is that's the problem...and Mr. Peanut knows this.

And he knows about the offers made by Barak and Clinton at Camp David 2000 and Taba which would have handed over 97% of those disputed territories--including one half of Jerusalem and a $33 billion bonus as icing on the cake--to Arafat's boys.

And he knows what the bloody Arab "counter offer " has been...hundreds of deliberately murdered and thousands of deliberately maimed Israeli civilians.

Yet he insists on prodding Jews to take suicidal chances and forsake security measures with a bloodthirsty enemy he wouldn't dream of asking others to do. Who's kidding whom here?

Surely he knows that Israel had been repeatedly attacked and terrorized prior to '67 and that the PLO was formed in 1964...long before Israel was in the "occupied" territories.

And surely he knows that nothing has changed in the Arab mindset since then or before.

Carter sees the Palestinian Authority websites, maps, schoolbooks, hears the imams calling for death to the Jews, etc. He knows full well that the proposed 23rd Arab state--second Arab one to be created within the original borders of Mandatory Palestine as Britain received it on April 25, 1920--plans to replace Israel, not live side by side with it. The evidence for this is overwhelming.

It's no accident that at the summits leading up to the roadmap, Ahmed Qurei'--latest Arafatian chief marionette--went on record opposing the use of the word "Jewish" along with "State of Israel."

And these folks still insist that Israel, after being made to return to its 9-mile wide, pre-'67 armistice line existence, then agree to absorb millions of real or alleged descendants of Arab refugees. The half of Israel's Jews who were refugees themselves from so-called "Arab" lands doesn't seem to register with him. And the lie that the recent "Geneva Initiative" renounced the "right of return" was just that...a lie.

At the close of hostilities after the invasion by Arab states of a nascent Israel in 1948, the fragile, U.N.-imposed Auschwitz/armistice lines made Israel a constant temptation to its enemies. Most of Israel's population and industry lies in that narrow waistband. Mr. Carter knows full well that you need a magnifying glass to find Israel in a map of the region...a microscope for a map of the world.

He frequently brings up U.N. Resolution #242 to support his position for Israel's departure from the territories. While he's been a bit more careful in his wording of late, he still implies that a virtually total Israeli withdrawal is required. That's what his rants about settlements are all about.

Nations have acquired territories thousands of miles away from home in the name of their own security, but Mr. Carter can't seem to figure out that Israel's 9-mile wide, artificially-imposed existence (the '49 armistice lines were never meant to be final borders) was a travesty of justice in desperate need of rectification.

Whatever the size, shape, etc. the proposed 23rd Arab state might eventually be, it must not come at the expense of the security of the sole, miniscule state of the Jews.

In the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War Israel was forced to fight after it was blockaded at the Straits of Tiran (a casus belli) and other life-threatening hostile acts, U.N. Resolution #242 did not demand that Israel return to the status quo ante. The architects of that resolution such as Eugene Rostow, Arthur Goldberg, and others all stressed quite the contrary. It called, instead, for the creation of secure and recognized borders to replace those fragile armistice lines.

Most of Israel's settlements have been built on strategic high ground areas for this reason. Even with these left in place, Israel's width goes from about nine miles up to perhaps around twenty in that waist bordering the West Bank/Judea and Samaria. Most people in America drive further than that just to go to work. Any roadmap discussions must continue to take this into account. Those currently involving the path of the security fence are particularly relevant. While compromises are in order, Carter's demands, advice, or whatever on this issue are not.

Carter's brother, Billy, made lots of money endearing himself to the Arab oil folks. I haven't checked too deeply into his own record yet, but I'm told that Mr. Peanut has been going after that same money himself... full speed ahead. But on this issue, in all fairness, he certainly couldn't be any worse than the Bushes and their own closest friends and political allies. Best Bush buddy James Baker's law firm, for example, has quite lucratively represented the Saudis in this country. Now remember that he was appointed Secretary of State under Bush the First and Dubya has designated him as his special Middle East envoy.

Carter speaks of the territories as if Palestinian Arabs (many of whom were recorded by the League Of Nations Permanent Mandates Commisssion as newcomers--settlers-- themselves in Palestine) had exclusive rights there. Contrary to popular current protestations, these are not "occupied Palestinian Arab lands."

Leading scholars such as William O'Brien, Rostow, and others have pointed out that these lands were non-apportioned areas of the Mandate, and all residents--Arabs, Jews, etc.--had the right to live there.

Indeed, Jews had lived and owned land in Judea and Samaria until their earlier massacres by Arabs. And Mr. Carter knows this too...as he does the writings of the so-called "moderates" like the late, showcased Faisal Husseini whose goal was/is still a purely Arab Palestine from the River to the Sea.

Indeed, the "moderates" of the good cop/ bad cop game the Arabs have played to gain concessions from the Jews speak in terms of temporary, meaningless concessions to the Jews as the "Trojan Horse" that will be used to deliver the final prize, Arafat's modern professed version of the "Peace of the Quraysh." The latter were the pagan tribe the Muslim Prophet, Muhammad, made a temporary truce with until he gained the position and strength to deliver the final blow. Talk of a new "truce" with Arafat falls into this same category. Arabs offer this hudna while expecting Israel to yield to all of their demands.

So it's time to call it what it really is...

Jews have repeatedly offered Arabs reasonable compromises and an honorable way out of this bloody mess. It is Arabs who have rejected all of these.

The plain truth is that any solution which is not another Final Solution will not be acceptable to Arabs...at least those with both the real power and the power to influence their own captive masses. And Mr. Peanut knows this too.

Carter's constant demand that Israel cave in to such above hogwash is nothing short of hostile intent on his part towards the Jewish State. He expects no others to bare their necks so freely to their sworn murderous enemies as he does Jews.

When I see Mr. Carter show the same concern over the plight of millions of Blacks in Africa who have been slaughtered in the name of Arab nationalism, or that of some thirty million perpetually victimized, stateless Kurds, as he does for creating a 23rd state for Arabs (on the ashes of Israel...but fear not, he'll give a proper southern gentleman's eulogy), then I might listen to him again.

For now, his blatant hypocrisy and double standards vis-à-vis Jews and Israel simply make him a spokesman for the Arab cause.

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