Jimmy Carter on Israeli-Palestinian peace
December 20th, 2006
I have great respect for Jimmy Carter’s taking on defense of Palestinians and pushing for a bearable peace between Israel and the Palestinians. I say “bearable” because, as in so many negotiations, no agreement can possibly right the wrongs that have been done. What is needed is an agreement that both sides can live with, allowing the region to flourish rather than continue its slide into barbarism.
I am here posting Carter’s op ed from today’s Boston Globe as a brief summary of his position. We shouldn’t let the Israel-no-matter-what faction demonize and distort his thinking.
Reiterating the keys to peace
By Jimmy Carter | December 20, 2006
MY BOOK “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid” was published last month, expressing my assessment of circumstances in the occupied territories and prescribing a course of action that offers a path to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. My knowledge of the subject is based on visits to the area during the past 33 years, my detailed study and personal involvement in peace talks as president, and my leadership role in monitoring the Palestinian elections of 1996, 2005, and 2006.
Some major points in the book are:
Multiple deaths of innocent civilians have occurred on both sides, and this violence and all terrorism must cease.
For 39 years, Israel has occupied Palestinian land, and has confiscated and colonized hundreds of choice sites.
Often excluded from their former homes, land, and places of worship, protesting Palestinians have been severely dominated and oppressed. There is forced segregation between Israeli settlers and Palestine’s citizens, with a complex pass system required for Arabs to traverse Israel’s multiple checkpoints.
An enormous wall snakes through populated areas of what is left of the West Bank, constructed on wide swaths of bulldozed trees and property of Arab families, obviously designed to acquire more territory and to protect the Israeli colonies already built. (Hamas declared a unilateral cease-fire in August 2004 as its candidates sought local and then national offices, which they claim is the reason for reductions in casualties to Israeli citizens.)
Combined with this wall, Israeli control of the Jordan River Valley will completely enclose Palestinians in their shrunken and divided territory. Gaza is surrounded by a similar barrier with only two openings, still controlled by Israel. The crowded citizens have no free access to the outside world by air, sea, or land.
The Palestinian people are now being deprived of the necessities of life by economic restrictions imposed on them by Israel and the United States because 42 percent voted for Hamas candidates in this year’s election. Teachers, nurses, policemen, firemen, and other employees cannot be paid, and the UN has reported food supplies in Gaza equivalent to those among the poorest families in sub-Sahara Africa, with half the families surviving on one meal a day.
Mahmoud Abbas, first as prime minister and now as president of the Palestinian National Authority and leader of the PLO, has sought to negotiate with Israel for almost six years, without success. Hamas leaders support such negotiations, promising to accept the results if approved by a Palestinian referendum.
UN Resolutions, the Camp David Accords of 1978, the Oslo Agreement of 1993, official US Policy, and the International Roadmap for Peace are all based on the premise that Israel withdraw from occupied territories. Also, Palestinians must accept the same commitment made by the 23 Arab nations in 2002: to recognize Israel’s right to live in peace within its legal borders. These are the two keys to peace.
Not surprisingly, an examination of the book reviews and published comments reveals that these points have rarely if ever been mentioned by detractors of the book, much less denied or refuted. Instead, there has been a pattern of ad hominem statements, alleging that I am a liar, plagiarist, anti-Semite, racist, bigot, ignorant, etc. There are frequent denunciations of fabricated “straw man” accusations: that I have claimed that apartheid exists within Israel; that the system of apartheid in Palestine is based on racism; and that Jews control and manipulate the news media of America.
As recommended by the Hamilton-Baker report, renewed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are a prime factor in promoting peace in the region. Although my book concentrates on the Palestinian territories, I noted that the report also recommended peace talks with Syria concerning the Golan Heights. Both recommendations have been rejected by Israel’s prime minister.
It is practically impossible for bitter antagonists to arrange a time, place, agenda, and procedures that are mutually acceptable, so an outside instigator/promoter is necessary. Successful peace talks were orchestrated by the United States in 1978-79 and by Norway in 1993. If the American government is reluctant to assume such a unilateral responsibility, then an alternative is the International Quartet (United States, Russia, the United Nations, and the European Union) — still with American leadership.
An overwhelming majority of citizens of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Palestine want peace, with justice for all who live in the Holy Land. It will be a shame if the world community fails to help them reach this goal.
Former US president Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Entry Filed under: Israel,Middle East,Palestine,Social Issues,War and Peace
1 Comment
1. Joe Burke | December 20th, 2006 at 9:28 am
Former President Jimmy Carter has spent much of his adult life championing Palestinian rights. However, his most recent book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” will not help the Palestinians.
Some Palestinians may listen to Carter. Therefore, his book is a squandered opportunity. Instead of dispelling the myths that enable them to avoid making key decisions and moving forward, Carter perpetuates the fictions that have helped create the state of affairs: demonization of Israel, distortion of history and an overall sense of victimhood that puts no premium on Palestinian accountability.
The demonization of Israel begins with the book’s title. Carter’s use of such a charged word seems aimed at de-legitimizing Israel as a South Africa-type state. Carter mentions in a single, brief sentence on Page 189 that Israel is not a racist state like South Africa but does not elaborate. Had he taken the time to explain, he would have had to mention that Israel has airlifted many tens of thousands of black Ethiopian Jews from misery into new homes. He would also have had to mention that Arabs have Israeli citizenship, vote and hold office.
Israel has clearly made major mistakes since the 1967 war, but Carter conveniently puts virtually the entire onus for the ongoing conflict on Israel’s shoulders. This is completely unfair. Yes, Israel’s settlement enterprise has been misguided, with tragic consequences for both peoples, but this is only part of the picture. In the aftermath of that war, Israel faced classic Arab rejectionism and, more recently, growing Islamism, with groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad receiving funding from Iran.
Carter’s book bathes Arab leaders in a very positive light and takes Arab statements at face value but casts the Israelis as often being disingenuous. His depiction of Yasser Arafat after becoming head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in the late ’60s emphasizes that he spent much of his “attention to raising funds for the care and support of the refugees and inspiring worldwide contribution to their cause.”
Really? In fact, his group was engaged in the early ’70s in a bloody civil war in Jordan, cross-border attacks against Israelis from Lebanon including civilian terror attacks, maintaining a shadowy link to the Munich massacre at the 1972 Olympics, and killing the U.S. ambassador to the Sudan.
Carter allows a statement made by Arafat to him at their first meeting in 1990 to stand without challenge in the book. Carter cites (Page 62) Arafat as telling him, “The PLO has never advocated the annihilation of Israel.” In fact, the charter of Arafat’s PLO states (Article 22) that “the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence.” The Washington Post cited Arafat as saying on March 29, 1970: “Peace for us is the destruction of Israel and nothing else.”
If the issue were only about land, the problem would have already been solved. At the 2000 Camp David summit, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was willing to confront the settlement enterprise and yield more than 90 percent of the West Bank. President Bill Clinton sweetened the offer to 95 percent, Barak concurred, and both agreed to offsetting territorial swaps to deal with the remaining land.
Carter, however, ignores the views of participant Clinton, who publicly said it was Arafat who missed that opportunity for peace.
Carter often minimizes terrorism. He falsely claims that Hamas has not been involved in terror since 2004. In reality, Hamas has directly claimed responsibility for several attacks since then, including blowing up part of the Karni crossing, a border point through which Palestinians were able to export goods to the outside world. Moreover, Hamas members are involved in the Popular Resistance Committees, which have fired more than 1,000 rockets from Gaza this year alone with Hamas-led security forces not lifting a finger to stop them. This came after Israel confronted its settler constituency and withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
Carter apparently minimizes terrorism in order to make it possible to blame Israel for malevolence. But his arguments don’t hold water. For example, after 35 years without security barriers, why would Israel suddenly begin building a fence in 2002? Carter would have us believe that ill will on Israel’s part led to that initiative, but in fact it was Hamas that effectively built the barrier by inundating Israel with suicide bombings that claimed an estimated 1,000 lives between 2000 and 2004. After the barrier was built, the amount of suicide attacks dramatically decreased.
Moreover, it has not precluded a two-state solution. In fact, the barrier’s route is very close to the borders that Clinton envisioned at the end of his presidency. And the Israelis have regularly adjusted the barrier’s route on their own accord, so it shrinks the amount it dips into the West Bank.
Terrorism prevention aside, the wider implications of the barrier’s route are obvious, and contrary to what Carter repeatedly alleges. The stage is set for a historic two-state agreement. There is still room for land swaps on both sides to complete the picture, if the parties agree in the future that the goal is to give the Palestinians the territorial equivalent of 100 percent of the West Bank. However, this is an option, not a requirement. Contrary to Carter’s assertion, diplomats from many countries who negotiated every word and voted for U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 after the 1967 war have said that the measure did not mandate such a 100 percent return.
The Carter of the late ’70s, who was a vital peacemaker in bringing about the historic Egypt-Israel accord, knew the goal of peacemaking is to get each side to abandon their myths as they move toward coexistence. Sadly, Carter the polemicist of today has made this work much harder.