Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
by Jimmy Carter
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Book Reviews of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
Book Review: Where are the facts?
Summary: 1 Stars
I would like to include a review by someone who is an expert on the subject, Alan Dershowitz:
Sometimes you really can tell a book by its cover. President Jimmy Carter's decision to title his new anti-Israel screed "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" (Simon & Schuster, 288 pages, [...]) tells it all. His use of the loaded word "apartheid," suggesting an analogy to the hated policies of South Africa, is especially outrageous, considering his acknowledgment buried near the end of his shallow and superficial book that what is going on in Israel today "is unlike that in South Africa--not racism, but the acquisition of land." Nor does he explain that Israel's motivation for holding on to land it captured in a defensive war is the prevention of terrorism. Israel has tried, on several occasions, to exchange land for peace, and what it got instead was terrorism, rockets, and kidnappings launched from the returned land.
In fact, Palestinian-Arab terrorism is virtually missing from Mr. Carter's entire historical account, which blames nearly everything on Israel and almost nothing on the Palestinians. Incredibly, he asserts that the initial violence in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict occurred when "Jewish militants" attacked Arabs in 1939. The long history of Palestinian terrorism against Jews -- which began in 1929, when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem ordered the slaughter of more than 100 rabbis, students, and non-Zionist Sephardim whose families had lived in Hebron and other ancient Jewish cities for millennia -- was motivated by religious bigotry. The Jews responded to this racist violence by establishing a defense force. There is no mention of the long history of Palestinian terrorism before the occupation, or of the Munich massacre and others inspired by Yasser Arafat. There is not even a reference to the Karine A, the boatful of terrorist weapons ordered by Arafat in January, 2002.
Mr. Carter's book is so filled with simple mistakes of fact and deliberate omissions that were it a brief filed in a court of law, it would be struck and its author sanctioned for misleading the court. Mr. Carter too is guilty of misleading the court of public opinion. A mere listing of all of Mr. Carter's mistakes and omissions would fill a volume the size of his book. Here are just a few of the most egregious:
- Mr. Carter emphasizes that "Christian and Muslim Arabs had continued to live in this same land since Roman times," but he ignores the fact that Jews have lived in Hebron, Tzfat, Jerusalem and other cities for even longer. Nor does he discuss the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries since 1948.
- Mr. Carter repeatedly claims that the Palestinian Arabs have long supported a two-state solution and the Israelis have always opposed it. Yet he makes no mention of the fact that in 1938 the Peel Commission proposed a two-state solution, with Israel receiving a mere sliver of its ancient homeland and the Palestinians receiving the bulk of the land. The Jews accepted and the Palestinians rejected this proposal because Arab leaders cared more about there being no Jewish state on Muslim holy land than about having a Palestinian state of their own.
- He barely mentions Israel's acceptance, and the Palestinian rejection, of the United Nation's division of the mandate in 1948.
- He claims that in 1967 Israel launched a preemptive attack against Jordan. The fact is that Jordan attacked Israel first, Israel tried desperately to persuade Jordan to remain out of the war, and Israel counterattacked after the Jordanian army surrounded Jerusalem, firing missiles into the center of the city. Only then did Israel capture the West Bank, which it was willing to return in exchange for peace and recognition from Jordan.
- Mr. Carter repeatedly mentions Security Council Resolution 242, which called for return of captured territories in exchange for peace, recognition, and secure boundaries, but he ignores that Israel accepted and all the Arab nations and the Palestinians rejected this resolution. The Arabs met in Khartum and issued their three famous "no's": "No peace, no recognition, no negotiation." But you wouldn't know that from reading the history according to Mr. Carter.
- Mr. Carter faults Israel for its "air strike that destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor" without mentioning that Iraq had threatened to attack Israel with nuclear weapons if Iraq succeeded in building a bomb.
- Mr. Carter faults Israel for its administration of Christian and Muslim religious sites, when in fact Israel is scrupulous about ensuring those of every religion the right to worship as they please -- consistent, of course, with security needs. He fails to mention that between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Hashemites destroyed and desecrated Jewish religious sites and prevented Jews from praying at the Western Wall. He also never mentions Egypt's brutal occupation of Gaza between 1949 and 1967.
- Mr. Carter blames Israel, and exonerates Arafat, for the Palestinian refusal to accept statehood on 95% of the West Bank and all of Gaza pursuant to the Clinton-Barak offers at Camp David and Taba in 2000-2001. He accepts the Palestinian revisionist history, rejects the eyewitness accounts of President Clinton and Dennis Ross, and ignores Saudi Prince Bandar's accusation that Arafat's rejection of the proposal was "a crime" and that Arafat's account "was not truthful" -- except, apparently, to Mr. Carter. The fact that Mr. Carter chooses to believe Arafat over Mr. Clinton speaks volumes.
- Mr. Carter's description of the recent Lebanon war is misleading. He begins by asserting that Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. "Captured" suggests a military apprehension subject to the usual prisoner of war status. The soldiers were kidnapped, and have not been heard from -- not even a sign of life. The rocket attacks that preceded Israel's invasion are largely ignored, as is the fact that Hezbollah fired its rockets from civilian population centers.
- Mr. Carter gives virtually no credit to Israel's superb legal system, falsely asserting (without any citation) that "confessions extracted through torture are admissible in Israeli courts," that prisoners are "executed," and that the "accusers" act "as judges." Even Israel's most severe critics acknowledge the fairness of the Israeli Supreme Court, but not Mr. Carter.
- Mr. Carter even blames Israel for the "exodus of Christians from the Holy Land," totally ignoring the Islamization of the area by Hamas and the comparable exodus of Christian Arabs from Lebanon as a result of the increasing influence of Hezbollah and the repeated assassination of Christian leaders by Syria.
- Mr. Carter also blames every American administration but his own for the Mideast stalemate with particular emphasis on "a submissive White House and U.S. Congress in recent years." He employs hyperbole and overstatement when he says that "dialogue on controversial issues is a privilege to be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior and withheld from those who reject U.S. demands." He confuses terrorist states, such as Iran and Syria, to which we do not extend dialogue, with states with whom we strongly disagree, such as France and China, but with whom we have constant dialogue.
And it's not just the facts; it's the tone as well. It's obvious that Mr. Carter just doesn't like Israel or Israelis. He lectured Golda Meir on Israeli's "secular" nature, warning her that "Israel was punished whenever its leaders turned away from devout worship of God." He admits that he did not like Menachem Begin. He has little good to say about any Israelis -- except those few who agree with him. But he apparently got along swimmingly with the very secular Syrian mass-murderer Hafez al-Assad. Mr. Carter and his wife Rosalynn also had a fine time with the equally secular Arafat -- a man who has the blood of hundreds of Americans and Israelis on his hands:
Rosalynn and I met with Yasir Arafat in Gaza City, where he was staying with his wife, Suha, and their little daughter. The baby, dressed in a beautiful pink suit, came readily to sit on my lap, where I practiced the same wiles that had been successful with our children and grandchildren. A lot of photographs were taken, and then the photographers asked that Arafat hold his daughter for a while. When he took her, the child screamed loudly and reached out her hands to me, bringing jovial admonitions to the presidential candidate to stay at home enough to become acquainted with is own child.
There is something quite disturbing about these pictures.
"Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" is so biased that it inevitably raises the question of what would motivate a decent man like Jimmy Carter to write such an indecent book. Whatever Mr. Carter's motives may be, his authorship of this ahistorical, one-sided, and simplistic brief against Israel forever disqualifies him from playing any positive role in fairly resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. That is a tragedy because the Carter Center, which has done much good in the world, could have been a force for peace if Jimmy Carter were as generous in spirit to the Israelis as he is to the Palestinians.
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Book Review: All terrorists usually need is just one little excuse...
Summary: 2 Stars
...(read: high-brow) excuse to commit another act urban or suburban atrocity, and thanks to Jaysus-lovin' Jimbo this book will give them that long-sought green light they've been fervently looking for. I've heard it variously described in many places that the former US President was interested in stirring up a dialogue with this title. That his "sole intent" was to get people talking again, and that his use of the word apartheid was an accurrate appellation, self-righteous in his use of it as he is. Perhaps, thought Carter, through his insistence to get them hurtling back to the negotiating table, they would rush back to the bargaining block with their tails between legs, disgusted at their relevant leaders' apathies, and the like. Who in tarnation appointed Jimmy Carter to the task?
I award this book two miserly stars only because I consider it required reading on the part of all concerned individuals in the region, and as 9/11 has shown us, much further afield. For Israelis, get reading this book and get to know (or re-acquaint yourselves with) a man who appears to befriend you and make overtures of peacelovingkindness, yet on the other hand takes active measures to deconstruct, undermine, and call into question nearly all of your official activities--those both announced, and unannounced (a la the Oslo Accords)--to ensure some kind of a modus vivendi in the region.
It's always been a curiosity of mine that since it's the industrial powers who are interested in killing the environment and the world through the unrestrained use of fossil fuels--oh, alright, let's just say it, OIL!--and since it is they who derive the bulk of their sources of same from Arabia and other part of the Arab Middle East, then it's the responsibility of more than just "the Israelis" to ensure that the peace is kept. Rubbish happens (and that wasn't the word I'd wanted to use) in the MidEast not ONLY because the Israelis can't keep a lid on the pressure cooker simmering on their borders. Israel herself cannot contravene the might of the industrialized nations on her own, and for that matter neither can she with the help of the US. To tell the rest of the world to stop using oil which also plays a prominent part of the realpolitik in the region...well, oh well, that's just too much of a weight for any Jewish State to bear.
I'm undecided on how to rate this book. On the one hand, I respect provocoteurs and even agents provocateurs who stimulate dialogue. My academe-loving side is totally infatuated with it. In the case of Jimmy Carter, though, and what will become his bestselling effort here, I think his stirrings-up will lead events towards more of a state of "abortive rebellion" rather than the "revolutionary change" he's sought to engender here. Plenty more people will lose their lives, become maimed, legless, armless, faceless, or be otherwise ultimately destroyed.
Is the fact that most Israelis and Jews cringe at the utterance of the word "apartheid," or the fact that such a term be attached to the situation in the Territories make the attribution of that same situation apartheid-like correct? Ask a South African who suffered at the hands of the system, and I'll bet you'll get more votes in opposition. Of course, the word "apartheid" is supercharged and it's going to ruffle more than a few feathers. Still, is that a sign it's correct to term the situation in Israel and the Territories apartheid-like? It's way too simplistic, and besides I'm not the right person to make that sort of judgement call. I'm not well-versed enough. Still, is the fact that one, two, or even several conditions extant in the Territories bearing similarity to South African-style apartheid, apartheid in the Holy Land make? I challenge others to chime in.
You know, I get totally ill inside thinking about all of Israel's perennial naysayers and policy critics sycophantically nodding their heads in assent with Carter's attempt to corner and isolate the little State-let, classifying it alongside the former South Africa using one of the most despicable "out of the box" titles imaginable. People talking in their coffee and tea klatches and agreeing with the ex-President's bombast and balls-to-the-wall attempt to frame the State of Israel as the largest crook on the block. Inconceivable!
When it comes to these fancy academic treatments of the conflict in the Middle East by people who might otherwise be accorded a great deal of respect in such matters...people such as Jimmy Carter, who travel around the world to ensure peaceful and fair elections and the prevention of all other sorts of human rights tragedies...I'm doubtful. I'm doubtful for several reasons. One, Carter doesn't reside in the Middle East. He'll tell you he does, because "Jaysus" lived in the Middle East, and we're all "Jayusus' children." So, exhibit#1: Carter, like many such armchair academics, merely visits Israel, and so their opinions are generally rendered from the comfortable confines of their nice Western computer desks, typing away as they sip on a triple-shot nonfat latte from the 'bucks. As such, he's inexperienced and is not in the right with his paltry attempts to chat up the day-to-day conditions on the ground. Exhibit#2: Carter has no right to criticize the manner in which Israel handles its domestic affairs in the same way that Israel possess no similar right to meddle in the US' domestic affairs. Even a two-week long sojourn in the Middle East doesn't give Carter a right to state his "expert's" bona fides in the matter, just as an Israeli's two week Washington sojourn wouldn't give it a right to comment on the downsides of innercity American politics, or how the US treats its millions of beautiful people of color or other "visible minorities." It's like some bleeding heart liberal swooping into Rwanda, and levelling all manner of accusations against the domestic state of affairs between Tutsis and Hutus over there. (By the way, where is Carter's book about "Rwanda: Peace not Apartheid." Or how about "Kosovo: Peace Not Apartheid." Or even "Sudan: Peace Not Apartheid." Need I say more?).
Lookit, I realize I'd get shouted down were I ever to utter such incendiary statements as part of some public "Peace in the Middle East" symposium on the subject, so I suppose you'll have to plainly suffer through (or not?) this ranting commentary of mine here in silent disapproval.
Exhibit#3: Carter's musings on this subject are totally suspect because he comes at this region from an evangelical's perspective. For that reason it's skewed. Need I mention that Israel doesn't control the non-Jewish holy places, nor access to them, so there. Sure, of course only over-45s are permitted onto the Temple Mount on Fridays. Why should rock throwing and testosterone-fuelled teens be permitted to pelt old people in the Western Wall Plaza with jagged boulders? Should Israeli gung-ho youth be permitted to do the same?
Sure, Carter's permitted to make his statements freely--even as an evangelical--but that he's used his bully ex-President's pulpit to make a case and confused throngs of people in the process, that's not acceptable and it's my hope by commentaries like these and others that certain readers will gain a perspective that what the ex-President's done is morally reprehensible. Throngs who shall misinterpret his message, and wreak havoc upon untold (Israeli, inevitably) innocents who will have to bear the brunt of his once-in-a-blue moon as-the-mood-strikes attempts to "shake up the discussion" in the Middle East, are encouraged by published material like this.
I have two fundamental (not fundamentalist, Jimmy!) questions:
**who appointed Jimmy Carter the Palestinian Authority's foreign spokesperson?
**when is amazing Alan Dershowitz going to come out with his anti-Carter book, because let me tell, folks, you it's sorely needed.
Saying Israel is in the back pocket of the US, and ergot that the US (and through now-virulent spokespeople like Jimmy Carter) has a right to dictate to the State of Israel (through the withholding/granting of aid and other dollar beneficience) about its internal policies and the like is like saying that Saudi Arabia has a rubber stamp right to tell the Americans how and when to implement certain policies.
What scares me the absolute most is that old-time evangelicals, as they near their mortal and biological end of the line, rise up from the heap to profoundly promote--through all manner of dangerously persuasive techniques (read: a mainline publishing contract)--the swaying of the hearts and minds of the so-easily-persuaded. If Carter and his evangelical ilk are so goshdarned correct, so morally upstanding, so virtuous, then can someone please tell lil' ole me why **they're** not running Israel, and it's rather the "misguided," "morally-reprehensible," and "farsighted" Jews who instead are?
I know, I know, there's probably a Bible-thumping answer out there somewhere which I just didn't think about. So shame on me in advance.
Oh well. People are going to sadly lose their lives because of so-called bestsellers like Carter's. The damage has alrady been massively done.
Nice going, Jimbo. Thanks for the memories.
Book Review: Jimmy Carter';s Narrow Vision
Summary: 1 Stars
Review of Jimmy Carter, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid
By Edward Green
The book is essentially a memoir of Jimmy Carter's efforts in trying to resolve Israeli-Palestinian differences. It includes a brief history of the conflict, portraits of the key players, the involvement of other American presidents, and recent developments from the year 2000 to 2006. One cannot help but suspect that Carter must have known that the use of the word apartheid, given its standard meaning, an acute form of racism, and with the fresh memory of the United Nations approval of the resolution, Zionism Equals Racism, would inflame Jews who would throng booksellers to obtain the book and confront their accuser.
The sketchiness of the narrative enables Carter to amplify information favorable to his position and to omit or downplay unfavorable information. Carter issues a stern indictment against Israel for the treatment accorded Palestinians-- the suppression of human rights by physical barriers, checkpoints, naval and air blockades which deny Palestinians fishing and shipping, and access to the outside world. Most egregious of Israeli offenses is the encroachment on land recognized internationally as Palestinian secured by walls and fences, which inexactly follow the line of separation between Israel and Palestine. Constructed on the Palestinian side of the line, the barriers destroy the integrity of communities and farms by cutting through them and gouging inward to accommodate Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
The word apartheid, though part of the book's title, appears only twice in the book, and then near the end, where it signifies the repressive outcome of Israeli policy rather than a legal or guiding principle. The separation of the two peoples, as Carter sees it, is not based on ethnicity but on land, with the Palestinians shunted on to the remnants of a once larger territory recognized by law as legitimately theirs. Carter uses apartheid ambiguously: in one context, a state of apartheid now prevails; in another context, apartheid, still in a nascent stage, is an option, which should be rejected.
No doubt Palestinian interests suffer under existing conditions. Carter puts the blame squarely on a minority of Israelis, mainly settlers and Zionist zealots, who use their political clout to frustrate legitimate Palestinian claims. But Carter also knows that those factions are balanced in Israel's democratic assemblies by equally vocal groups, Briera for example, which demonstrate in support of much of the Palestinian agenda. No such constituency in sympathy with Israel's interests surfaces on the Palestinian side, let alone the whole Arab world, where news of successful terrorist attacks inspires dancing in the streets.
More detrimental to Palestinian interests than anything the Israelis do is their own self-destructiveness, the consequences of which are laid on to the Jews. Carter must surely know of the blatant endemic corruption of the Palestine Authority whose high officials benefit from continuing the standoff with Israel. As reported in the CBS show Sixty Minutes , November 9, 2003, "So far, Prince's [auditing] team has determined that part of the Palestinian leader's [Arafat's] wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion -- with investments in companies like a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tunisian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands." Political rivalries, a policy of unwillingness to come to terms with Israel, encouragement of intifada, praise of martyrdom, and the resulting terrorist attacks have blunted the hope of many Israelis that fruitful negotiations are possible. Understandably the separation that Carter calls apartheid, the denial of Palestinians access to Jewish areas, is perceived on the Israeli side as a long overdue and effective strategy for preventing the entry of Palestinians intent on blowing up Jews.
Carter's scheme for the resolution of the conflict strikes a questionable equivalence between the requirements of the two sides. It proposes, that in exchange for withdrawal from lands seized in the Six Day War in 1967 all Arab neighbors must "pledge to honor Israel's right to live in peace." Israel in negotiations has demonstrated a willingness to accept that proposal. Enough Palestinians and Arabs generally, however, are indoctrinated from early years, in schools and media to act out hatred of Jews, making Arab compliance highly problematic.
In an appearance at Brandeis University, Carter retracted and apologized for statements that imply that it's alright to bomb Israelis until they fall into line Palestinian with demands regarding the Road Map and the witless statement on television (Meet The Press, Tuesday, December 19, 2006) that the misery in Palestine is worse than in Rwanda where an estimated 800,000 helpless people were slain by thug militias. Following are additional expressions of Carter's attitude, including gratuitous slaps, which in their totality betray a mind-set toward Jewish Israel that extends beyond the issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
p. 26 Carter mentions a complaint by Samaritans he met on travels in Israel, that their holy sites were not being respected (how is unspecified) by Israeli authorities. He bolsters the complaint by invoking Jesus and his disciples who heard the same complaint almost two thousand years earlier. Carter should be informed that archaeology is a national passion in Israel and that no nation surpasses Israel in devotion to the protection and preservation of antiquities.
p. 59 In the Six Day War, Carter writes, Israel launched pre-emptive strikes against Egypt, Syria, and then Jordan. The fact is that Israel asked Jordan to stay out of the conflict and did not attack Jordan until Jordan began an assault on Israel to honor its treaty obligations to Egypt. I heard King Hussein say exactly that on TV shortly after the cessation of hostilities.
p. 84-5 Carter discussing Jordan's economic losses from the Six Day War, has another opportunity to say that Jordan hit first, but doesn't take it. In describing the losses in population and income in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Carter describes them as Jordanian, not Palestinian losses: tacit acknowledgment that eighteen years after the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish portions, while under tight Jordanian rule, nationalism had not yet gripped the Palestinian consciousness.
p. 85 Re the civil war in Jordan between Palestinian guerillas and the Jordanian army, Carter says Syrian forces under Defense Minister Assad of Syria refused to attack Jordan's forces and Hussein was able to prevail. The fact is that Syrian forces had already penetrated Jordan to assist the guerillas, but under Israeli threat, withdrew.
p. 95 In the course of Israel's intervention in the Lebanese civil war in 1982, as many as 3500 non-combatant Muslims in the Shatila and Sabra Palestinian refugee camps controlled by Israel's allies were slain, for which, Carter writes, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was held accountable. Carter omits to say that the killings were done by Maronite Christian militiamen. Ariel Sharon's role in the matter is controversial. As commander of the Israeli and allied forces, the buck extended to him, but there is no evidence that he sanctioned the killings. He invited Lebanese Phalangist militia units to enter the refugee camps and expel the PLO fighters. Israeli soldiers would remain outside the camp while the Maronite forces under the direct command of Elie Hobeika, who would later become a longtime Lebanese parliament member and also a cabinet minister, entered. The Maronite phalangists exceeded Sharon's orders, slaying an estimated 700-3500.
p. 127 In a stunning non sequitur Carter connects the benefits accorded the deeply religious Jewish parties in Israel, their excuse from military service and funding for benevolent causes, to his understanding "for the first time why there was a surprising exodus of Christians from the Holy Land."
p. 150 Carter's discussion of the negotiations for a settlement of land issues between Yassir Arafat and Ehud Barak refereed by President Bill Clinton gives the clear impression that neither side extended itself in order to reach accommodation. That's not the way Clinton remembers it in his biography: "Barak had shown `particular courage, vision, and understanding," in making concessions and Arafat refused to seize the moment.
Book Review: Carter at his most controversial...
Summary: 4 Stars
Former President Jimmy Carter has stated that he carefully and deliberately included the word "apartheid" in the title of his latest book. In retrospect, and in light of all the controversy this slim volume has produced, one wonders how it would have resonated with a more prosaic title such as "Peace in Palestine." Would the book have garnered the attention Carter desired without that searing, evocative, and controversial word emblazoned across its cover? After all, those three pregnant Afrikaan syllables conjure up one of the twentieth century's most brutal and racially repressive regimes. Juxtaposing them with "Palestine," as the title of Carter's book does, in effect accuses Israel of the same. Since "apartheid" remains such a strong word it should get used, particularly by a former President of the United States, with extreme caution. In chapter 16 of "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" and in various media interviews Carter claims that within the occupied territories, but not in Israel proper, conditions of apartheid do in fact exist. Nonetheless, he qualifies this statement by saying that the desire of land, not racial prejudice, underlies this "Palestinian apartheid." What evidence does he have to make such a claim? Not only that, if things are indeed that bad how should readers react?
Those looking for a detailed argument within Carter's book must wait some 180 pages. The majority of the book weaves Palestinian and Israeli history with Carter's personal experiences and reflections. He begins in 1973, his first trip to Israel as a guest of Yitzak Rabin, and runs through August 2006 when Ehud Olmert became Israel's Prime Minister. Along the way Carter sprinkles his voluminous personal ruminations with history stretching back to Roman times. Some chapters have names such as "The Reagan Years" or "The George W. Bush Years." These chapters generally contain less about a particular president's mideast policy and more about Carter's reflections on the era. Regardless, the book soon becomes a chronological narrative of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Events such as the 1967 war, two intifadas, the Palestinian elections of 1996 and 2005, Israeli politics, the Oslo agreement, Bill Clinton's peace plan, the Geneva Initiative, and countless others fly by with little effort thanks to Carter's breezy prose. Readers unfamiliar with the conflict will learn some basic history. Two early chapters, "Key Players" and "Other Neighbors," provide some cursory background not only on Palestine and Israel, but also on Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. The most personal chapter, "My Visits With Palestinians," relates Carter's conversations with Palestinians who claim to have, or at least to know someone who, suffered legal injustice, punitive bulldozings, jailings, or torture under Israeli rule. This chapter presages the controversy yet to come in the book's final two chapters, "The Wall as Prison" and "Summary." The word "apartheid" does not appear until the beginning of chapter sixteen with this passage: "Utilizing their political and military dominance, they [the Israeli government] are imposing a system of partial withdrawal, encapsulation, and apartheid on the Muslim and Christian citizens of the occupied territories." Carter then describes the vast network of walls, sensors, surveillance equipment, and trenches that surround Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. These barriers make a Palestinian state "infeasible," he claims. He also makes some strong statements, such as "In order to perpetuate the occupation, Israeli forces have deprived their unwilling subjects of basic human rights. No objective person could personally observe existing conditions in the West Bank and dispute these statements." Then, in the final chapter: "A system of apartheid, with two peoples occupying the same land but completely separated from each other, with Israelis totally dominant and suppressing violence by depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights. This is the policy now being followed...." Carter then delineates the conditions he believes will lead to peace in the region. He also accuses the current United States administration of taking little to no action to foster peace between Israel and Palestine.
Carter tread on extremely controversial ground in this book. And he knew it. Israel remains one of the United States' only allies in the Middle East. Israel receives voluminous monetary and military aid from the United States, which has contributed to Israel's seemingly invincible armed forces. Debate or criticism, like that Carter presents in this book, seems nonexistent in the press or within Congress proper. Carter, also knowing this, had to walk a delicate line. Most likely this accounts for the sliht tension present throughout "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid." Most of the book discusses peace. Carter wants peace, he claims that the Israeli and Palestinian people want peace, and that the majority of Americans want to see a peaceful solution in the region. Fair enough. But the book's tension arises when the peace effort narrative gets overlaid with Carter's delineation of the treatment of the Palestinians. Not to mention the use of that explosive word "apartheid." So what was the goal of this book, laying out a plan for permanent peace in the region or exposing what Carter sees as a human rights atrocity? In effect, he attempted to weave both into the text. So what comes first, ending what Carter sees as an apartheid or finding conciliatory peace in the region? Can he have both at once? What takes precedence? Or are they one and the same? Given his arguments, one would think that this book would take a position of "liberate Palestine" in the same vein as arguments the Bush Adminstration presented to "liberate the Iraqi people." Obviously, the politics of the situation likely kept Carter from going there, assuming he wanted to. But if Carter truly believes an apartheid exists within the occupied territories, and he does seem to think so, the book then falls short of a response plan. Carter doesn't argue very strongly that the American government and the American people should demand an end to the alleged oppression. Instead, Carter argues for peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. But under conditions of apartheid, as outlined in the book, would such a conciliatory approach work? If a Palestinian state now seems infeasible, as Carter argues, what would a peace plan look like? It all seems a little fuzzy. Nonetheless, Carter, like him or hate him, is an extremely intelligent man who knows the limitations of the situation. Some supporters of Carter have criticized this book for "unevenness" or "incoherence." These conclusions ignore the volatile politics that undergird this issue. For Carter, peace means the ending of what he sees as atrocities against the Palestinians. It also means, as outlined in the book, separate and autonomous Israeli and Palestinian states within the land once known as Canaan. Given the political tensions, this likely remains the only viable road to travel. Incoherence in a book about Israel and Palestine? The situation itself is somewhat incoherent.
Since its publication, this book has raised the ire of many people. The lawyer Alan Dershowitz in particular has accused the book of containing numerous inaccuracies. Carter refused to debate him publicly. Carter also found an unusual ally in Fox Network's Bill O'Reilly, who defended Carter against accusations of anti-semitism. Though the book has succeeded somewhat in widening the debate in the United States, it might also contribute to Carter's isolation on the issue. His use of the word apartheid," accurate or not, places him firmly on one side of the issue. Can the Israeli government ever see him as an objective arbiter again? One would think not, but time will tell. Already some inauspicious signs have appeared. Prominent Democrats have distanced themselves from the former President and The Carter Center saw numerous resignations in protest. Not good. Regardless, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" has stirred dormant waters. Whether or not it contributes to the ending of the seemingly intractable Israeli/Palestinian conflict remains an open question.
Book Review: The Worst Book in recent history by the worst president in all of history
Summary: 1 Stars
Jimmy Carter continues to clinch his claim to being the worst president and the worst ex-president in modern times, and he's probably soon to become the worst ex-president of all time. His latest contribution to that claim is his new book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," one more demonstration of his overwhelming hatred of Israel and his incredible bias if not dishonesty in his approach to this subject.
The book is such a disgrace to anyone who respects truth that he couldn't even get anyone to write a blurb in its support. What's more the book has no footnotes, probably because there are no credible authorities to support his positions. And the reviews, even from his supporters, have been invariably and overwhelmingly critical. You would expect Norman Finkelstein, known for harsh criticism of Israel, to be favorably inclined toward the book, which is certainly harsh criticism of Israel. But he writes that the book "is filled with errors small and large, as well as tendentious and untenable interpretations." The editor of the New Republic, Martin Peretz, labels the book a "tendentious, dishonest and stupid book." Alan Dershowitz, the eminent law professor from Harvard, writes, "Mr. Carter's book is so filled with simple mistakes of fact and deliberate omission that were it a brief filed in a court of law, it would be struck and its author sanctioned for misleading the court. Mr. Carter too is guilty of misleading the court of public opinion. A mere listing of all of Mr. Carter's mistakes and omissions would fill a volume the size of his book."
This Carter book was delayed until after the election, and here's why, according to blogger Ann Althouse: "It is not difficult to understand why Democrats wanted the publication of Jimmy Carter's slim new book (216 pages of text, large print and no footnotes), with its tendentious title and its superficial analysis, delayed until today, a week after the election. The anti-Israel bias is so clear, the credulous description of Arab positions of cringe-producing, the key `facts' on which Carter relies so easily refuted by public documents, that the book is an embarrassment to Carter, the Democrats, the presidency and Americans."
Mr. Carter would like to be a peacemaker, but Dershowitz concludes in his review of the book: "Whatever Mr. Carter's motives may be, his authorship of this ahistorical, one-sided, and simplistic brief against Israel forever disqualifies him from playing any positive role in fairly resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians."
Such dishonest and biased work has no place in the bibliography of an ex-president, but it is not surprising when you look at Carter's history in dealing with the issues of the Middle East.
In fact, it doesn't take long to make an airtight case proving Carter's bias and hatred of Israel. Even a liberal historian such as Douglas Brinkley, in his book on Carter, The Unfinished Presidency, documents in detail how Carter did everything in his power to help and support terrorist-in-chief Yasser Arafat. Brinkley reports Carter gave Arafat public relations advice on how to project his image for Western journalists and even wrote some of his speeches. When someone lends total support to a terrorist and has only disdain and hatred for the only democracy in the Middle East, you have to wonder about his intellectual honesty and balance.
If you need more proof of where Carter is coming from consider the very title of this, his latest book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." This title, in effect, states that Israel, which has many Arabs with full civil rights among its population, some of them even having been elected to its parliament, the Knesset, is an apartheid state. This is especially outrageous in view of the comparison to Palestinian-Arab lands which have persecuted and driven out Jews and which do not even let them live in peace in their domains, even as second-class citizens. It is even more outrageous, as Dershowitz points out, as near the end of Carter's book, is buried an admission that Israel today "is unlike that in South Africa - not racism, but the acquisition of land." If Israel is unlike South Africa why does he say the opposite in the very title of his book? Carter is a self-admitted liar and distorter.
How can Carter's performance be explained? Dershowitz, despite writing a review that could not be more critical of the book, still wonders, "What would motivate a decent man like Jimmy Carter to write such an indecent book?" I'm afraid that Dershowitz may be paying Carter an undue compliment. Could such an indecent book, as so well documented by Dershowitz and other reviewers, be penned by a decent man?
Would a decent man write a book full of lies, which he must know to be lies considering his position and ability to acquire the facts?
Perhaps the noted Democratic consultant Bob Shrum knew what he was doing when he quit Carter's presidential campaign after just a few weeks, because of his disgust with Carter's habit of fudging the truth. Maybe the book is a continuation of this propensity to fudge the truth.
One of the best accounts of Carter's true nature can be found in the work of Jason Maoz, a senior editor of a New York weekly, The Jewish Press, which covers the Middle East and related American politics, better than almost any publication that I know of. In my view, it is must reading for anyone that wants to understand the conflict in the Middle East.
In its November 24, 2006 edition, the Press documents Carter's dishonesty in the book and his other tendencies to "fudging the truth" better than any other reviewer I've read. In addition to Maoz's regular column, Media Monitor, a front-page story further documents in detail what it calls "Jimmy Carter's Disingenuous Diplomacy." This material is available on the publication's web site, [...].
Among many other bits of evidence, Maoz refers to the book by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship. The Cockburn's report that during a March 1980 meeting with his staff, during his last and unsuccessful campaign for the presidency, while discussing his fading approval ratings in the Jewish community, Carter snapped, "If I get back in, I'm going to [expletive] the Jews."
Mayor Ed Koch, in his book, Mayor, reports that Koch told Carter's recently resigned Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, that Jews feared "that if he [Carter] is reelected he will sell them out." Vance, recalled Koch, nodded and replied, "He will."
Brinkley, quoted already above, also reported in his book, "Buoyed by the Intifada, Carter passed on to the Palestinians, through Arafat, his congratulations."
So what is the bottom line on Carter? Perhaps as Dershowitz seems to believe he is a "decent" man who has gone astray on one issue. But I would take a different view and say that a truly decent man does not fall in love with terrorists and aid and abet them in their work, and become blind to the line between truth and falsehood, and fall into the habit of fudging the truth and even ignoring it.
And here's a footnote to this whole Carter scenario, proving that major voices in the media can be as totally biased as Carter. Time just published a 122-page book entitled "Time: The Middle East: The History, The Cultures, The Conflicts, the Faiths." The book is designed to be a primer for the mass market on the Middle East, with a fair and balanced presentation of the issues. So who does Time select to write the introduction? I'm sure you'll have to see the book to believe this, but the answer is none other than Jimmy Carter, perhaps the most anti-Israel author Time could find now that Arafat is dead. To add insult to injury, in his introduction, Carter promotes his new book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid." It is incredible that Time could be so tone-deaf and clearly reveal its own deep-seated bias by having Carter write the forward. So we might add that Carter's book and Time's book are both embarrassments to Carter, to Time, to the presidency, and to Americans.