When in doubt, blame Israel — at least that seems to be the habit of America’s least respected former president.
In the wake of the Islamist terror attacks in France against cartoonists and Jews, former President Jimmy Carter’s first reaction was to pin the motivation for such terrorism on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Appearing on “The Daily Show” Monday, Carter was asked by host Jon Stewart whether the violence the world saw on the streets of Paris was actually fueled by something else other than Islamic extremism.
“Well, one of the origins for it is the Palestinian problem,” Carter replied. “And this aggravates people who are affiliated in any way with the Arab people who live in the West Bank and Gaza, what they are doing now — what’s being done to them. So I think that’s part of it.”
Carter didn’t explain how solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue would in any way resolve the violent conflicts currently engulfing the Arab world, including the Syrian civil war, the Islamic State’s takeover of part of Iraq and its brutal implementation of Islamic law, and the conflict between the Egyptian government and the Muslim Brotherhood, just to name a few. Nor did he detail how the “Palestinian problem” helps explain why three French Muslims murdered innocent French Jews buying groceries for the coming Sabbath and cartoonists preparing the next issue of their paper. (READ: The Truth About Muslim Violence)
Carter did go on to warn that the world is witnessing “a new evolutionary development in terrorism.”
“But I think this is a new evolutionary development in terrorism, where people go into Syria, they get trained there, they have a passport from France, from Great Britain or from the United States,” he added. “They stay there for a few months and learn how to be a terrorist and then they come back through Turkey and you know they have been there and you know who they are. And I think this event in Paris is going to waken up the people in charge of security to watch those people more closely than they have in the past — and not single out all of the Muslims in the country.”