Bonus Peanuts

Here are reprinted, in their entirety, the Carter Center descriptions of the Iranian hostage crises and the Palestinian question. They are presented as a public service. Further commentary would be superfluous.

Iranian Hostages

On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took approximately seventy Americans captive. This terrorist act triggered the most profound crisis of the Carter presidency and began a personal ordeal for Jimmy Carter and the American people that lasted 444 days.

President Carter committed himself to the safe return of the hostages while protecting America's interests and prestige. He pursued a policy of restraint that put a higher value on the lives of the hostages that on American retaliatory power or protecting his own political future.

The toll of patient diplomacy was great, but President Carter's actions brought freedom for the hostages with America's honor preserved.

Palestinian Question

Palestine - Whose Homeland?

The growing Jewish presence in Palestine in the late 1940s brought trouble for Palestinian Arabs. When war broke out in 1948, tens of thousands of Arabs fled Palestine. While Jewish refugees became Israeli citizens, many Palestinian Arabs became homeless refugees

The 1967 War drove even more Palestinian Arabs from their homes. Those not trapped in refugee camps lived in the Israeli occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Fire by stories of a homeland taken from them, generations of Palestinians fought to create their own nation. The cycle of violence continued unbroken.