Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
by Jimmy Carter
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Book Reviews of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
Book Review: An accurate synopsis of the painful struggle of two incompatible peoples.
Summary: 5 Stars
Carter's account of his involvement in the Middle East crisis is influenced by multiple effects, which explain his daring deviation from mainstream American politics:
1- Christian beliefs:
- Carter's devout Christian beliefs underline his incessant drive to defend the Christian right to the Holy land, in equal footage with Jewish and Islamic claims. He starts his book with scripts from the Bible, condemning the blood shed of the sons of Abraham. In his frequent visits to Palestine, Carter went to every place where he thought Jesus had lived, walked, or breached. He even dived into the Dead Sea to experience the baptism of early Christianity.
- Carter was unsettled with the alteration of the places of Christ's birth and wished to see them the way they were when Christ lived. Such unreal wishful expectation is genuinely expressed by an ex-nuclear engineer and prominent leader of a super power.
- His Christian beliefs made the Israeli leaders distrust and even fool him. After Carter's retiring from presidency, Menachem Begin reneged on his promises in Camp David and humiliated him for requesting an explanation for such lack of honor. Begin fulfilled his obligation to Egypt, yet slaughtered, imprisoned, and robbed the Palestinians. All Israeli figures, which Carter has praised, never honored their promises to him.
- On the Arab side, Hafez Assad expressed to Carter his sworn intent never to visit America and his faith in Saladin's doctrine of freeing the Middle East from invaders. Carter admired the pristine thinking, eloquent expression, and honest confrontation of Assad. He also touched on the criminal and persecutory history of Begin. He goes further to claim that Jews were treated better under Islamic rulers than under Christian rulers and attributes that to the recognition by Muhammad of the two prior religions. A strength in Islam that is unmatched by others.
- Carter questions the secular nature of the Jewish government and distinguishes between the two Israels; the biblical Israel, which Americans attach to the state of Israel, and the real Israel that perpetrates apartheid. He graphically describes Golda Meir's smoking habit while addressing the issue of secularism.
2- Political experience:
- Carter praises every Israeli leader he met even with the realization that they all played the game of grabbing land from the Palestinians and treating the Palestinians as subhuman. His calm and probing attitude enabled him to establish that persistent and ingrained hatred of Israelis to non-Israelis.
- Even when he details the long and constant violation of Israelis to human rights, Carter attempts to balance his views by blaming the Palestinians for violence. He even accuses them by being tunnel visioned in dreaming with the impossible and compromising their options for peace.
- Apartheid, he claims, is on grabbing land, not on racism. [If land is being grabbed by one race of people and from another race, and the latter is imprisoned and oppressed, wouldn't that be racism?] Carter coined the word "incompatible", to describe the Arab and Israeli relationship, after an Israeli politician. Yet, Carter never questioned the incompatibility of those who escaped the persecution in East Europe with their persecutors. He thus accepted the plausible term of "incompatibility" as a substitute for "racism".
- Carter explains that the American superpower cannot do what others expect it to, in reaching peace in the Middle East. Yet, he admits to the $10 million daily support paid to Israel by America and the military support that enables Israel to oppress its captive population of Palestinians. How has America been willing to demolish the state of Iraq, causing hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, while failing to curtail the Israeli apartheid? Carter blames the democratic system for such lack of logical, focused, or consistent course of history: the Congress and the Knesset decide, the president or prime minister proposes.
3- Racial past:
- Carter likens the Palestinians extermination by Israel with the native Indians extermination by the white European from his home, Georgia. He also cites the failure of apartheid South Africa from the mouth of Rabin, after the latter's return form a visit to it. He further reminds the reader with the persecution of Christ by the same people of Israel.
- During a morning jog in Jerusalem, an Israeli soldier escort belligerently hits a harmless Arab bystander, when Carter requested the Israeli escort to leave his company. Carter repeatedly elaborates on such dark side of the powerful and arrogant occupiers and the helplessness of the Palestinians.
- Carter explains the difference between the various Jewish denominations of Israel and traces their persecution in Eastern Europe to their current victimization of the Palestinians. He does not go as far as George Soros by claiming that the perpetrator-victim cycle has been implanted in the psyche of Jewish immigrants by their Christian abusers.
4- American make-up:
- The free mindedness of southern, well-educated, religious, and prominent American is contrasted by the close minded, victimized, and obsessed Israelis and Arabs. Such contrast enables Carter to see what the two adversaries could not.
- Carter looks for opportunities to compromise and change in rigid beliefs in hope to obtain concessions. Sadat was his best friend and subject for willingness to change. Assad was diagonally the opposite. The Israelis were yielding only to material forces.
- The remoteness of American culture to the theater of conflict and the passion of Christianity hindered Carter's understanding of the deep motives of the conflicting parties. The Israelis sense the inevitable long term threat of their opponents in view of historic facts and admitted beliefs. The Palestinians never gave up on their rights. Amidst such historic conflict, Carter exercises the pragmatic American reasoning for resolving disputes.
- Carter's latest and daring punch to apartheid might have been uninhibited sense of Americanism, yarning for human equality. That breached his restrained political reservation. Empowered by presidency, faith, education, Nobel Prize, and activism, Carter gathered his courage and equated Zionism with apartheid. In contravention, George W. Bush appoints John Bolton to the UN in reward to his sanitizing of Zionism.
The book is written as a documentary account in 16 chapters and 7 appendices. The appendices are handy source of information on the subject matter. Except for the errors that Egypt's population was 47 millions and the myth of direct descent of King Abdullah of Jordan from Prophet Muhammad, the book is fairly accurate on the development between WWI to date.
Mohamed F. El-Hewie
Author of
Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training
Book Review: CARTER'S THINLY VEILED ANTI-SEMITISM
Summary: 1 Stars
I am disgusted and profoundly disturbed by President Carter's insinuation linking Israel to apartheid. I consider this to be anti-Semitic because of the blatant double standard to which he holds the Israeli people. His book is undermined by some glaring factual omissions, as follows:
1. The UN approved the creation of the State of Israel and the Israelis, and much of the world, accepted those boundaries. The Arab states vehemently refused to do so, launched an all our war on the nascent State of Israel and the Arabs were badly beaten. Since that time, the Arab states (with two notable exceptions, Egypt and Jordan) have continued to deny the fundamental premise that the Jewish people have a right to their homeland and that their historic homeland is in Israel. The Israelis never asked the Arabs to leave; rather, it was the Arab Mufti of Jerusalem and his cohorts who urged the Arab residents to leave temporarily while the Arab armies drove the Jews to perish in the sea. By the way, Arab citizens have always lived in Israel and enjoy an equal standard of living and the same civil rights as Jewish and Christian Israelis. When the Arabs controlled Jerusalem, both the Jewish and Christian holy sites were in ruins. Not so under Israeli rule where all religious sites are well-maintained and accessible to visitors and clery.
2. The Arab states have started several wars with Israel and have been beaten each time. The Israelis have seized land to protect themselves and so that they have something to trade for a lasting peace. They showed that this was true when they entered into a peace accord with Egypt and returned the vast Sinai desert to Egypt. The PLO, Hamas, Hesbollah, Syria, et al are firmly commited not to peace, but to the complete destruction of Israel. One need only look at the PLO emblem which is worn as a patch on military uniforms of the Palestinian Authority to see that the PLO vision is of a Palestine with no Jews and no Israel. How does one negotiate with an enemy that is firmly committed to your destruction?
3. The Arab states have tortured and driven the Jews in their countries to the brink of oblivion. They have seized their land and massacred countless Jews. The remainder, including the Ethopian Jews (who are Black), have sought refuge in Israel and been supported fully. Why does Pres. Carter omits this "minor" detail in his analysis of "apartheid"?
4. Any intelligent discussion of the Middle East crisis must include a thorough treatment of the rather savage political landscape that exists virtually throughout all Arab states. Israel is the ONLY democracy in the Middle East. In Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and most other Arab states, there is no democracy, no free press, and women are treated as something lower than cattle. These are blatant human rights violations, but why do we never hear about it? How come no one is complaining at the UN about the cruel mistreatment of women in virtually all Arab states? Why is Pres. Carter silent on this point if he is such a human rights activist? We accept this barbarism as a "cultural" phenomenom and turn a blind eye to it. Let me ask you this: Would we accept similar treatment of Black or Hispanic Americans and justify it as part of our "culture"? I think not. But the double standard is used to impune Israel for "human rights" violations while her Arab neighbors quite literally get away with murder -- the murder of women and men who do not agree with this appalling gender apartheid.
5. The corollary of point # 4 is that the Arab states are dictatorships and they are much more interested in protecting themselves than in creating any meaningful change in their own societies. It is clear, then, that Israel and the Palestinian conflict have become a convenient way to deflect attention from the torture, barbarism and utter lack of anything we recognize as democracy in most of the Arab world.
6. The most glaring omission in Pres. Carter's book is his almost complete diregard for the sordid history of Palestinian and Arab terrorism. He briefly mentions it toward the end of the book but the reference is so minimal as to be inconsequential. Let's face it: Israel is about the size of New Jersey. If you were living in New Jersey and someone was routinely lobbing missiles and bringing suicide bombers in from Manhattan, you'd take some pretty forceful action to protect yourself. Think about how the US reacted to 9/11. We marched into Afghanistan and attempted to crush the Taliban. Was that a "human rights" violation? We are still in Afghanistan? Is that "apartheid"? Carter's omission of any meaningful discussion of the impact of unrequited Arab terrorism is the most compelling evidence of his anti-Israel bias. Need I remind you that the Palestinians were dancing in the streets and celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center.
7. The Palestinians have done an amazing PR job at selling themselves as victims. They could have had peace but Arafat turned it down when the Israelis offered him much more than anyone thought they ever would? Why? Because the only "peace" the Palestinians will accept is the complete destruction of Israel. They fight by hiding behind women and children then convince the media that the Israeli army is killing helpless civilians. If the Palestinians want a lasting peace with Israel, they will cease suicide bombings and sending missiles into Israel and negotiate. But they cannot do this because the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are corrupt and rotten to the core. Witness what has become of the Gaza strip since the Israelis left.
8. My final point. Why is Carter's book anti-Semitic? I can only say this: Racism and horrific events such as the Holocaust never occur in a vacuum. In order for that to happen it is essential to first demonize and dehumanize the Jewish people. If you had an opportunity to watch the recent show on public television about anti-Semitic propaganda and how widely it is disseminated in the Arab world (including to the burgeoning Muslim community in Europe) then you know what I mean. Well-funded television shows on Arab networks depict Jews killing small children and using their blood for religious rituals. They claim there is a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world, both capitalist and communist. We have seen this all before. It started in Europe with the rise of Catholicism, culminated in the Holocaust and is now being used to support the Palestinian cause with a vengeance. Demonization and dehumanization. These are the first essential steps to eradicating a people. Pres. Carter has just written another chapter in this long, sad story. Thank God that this time around, there is a place called Israel so that it can never happen again.
Book Review: Carter's book is an important advance for the cause of Justice and Peace for Israel and Palestine.
Summary: 5 Stars
Over the years, President Jimmy Carter has garnered my increasing respect and regard. His continuing work on furthering peace, justice, and democracy has earned him a place amongst one of our great former-Presidents. Even though he was maligned as President, he was one who realized we needed a sound energy policy, installing solar panels on the White House (which Reagan took down). Imagine America's energy situation if we had followed his guidance back then? Carter also achieved one of the Middle East's most important peace treaties between Israel and Egypt which is still in effect today.
Carters work on democracy, helping to encourage and monitor fair and honest elections in developing democracies, stands in stark contrast to Bush's attempt to democratize Iraq by military force.
Carter has continued to work on Middle East issues and has worked hard to help bring peace between Israel and the rest of her neighbors, particularly the Palestinians.
Anyone who has visited the West Bank or Gaza and seen the conditions of life and witnessed the effect of Israel's wall on the Palestinians knows exactly what he is talking about: before you is a system of Apartheid. The wall is as he describes, an imprisonment wall apparently designed to cause as much damage as possible to Palestinians and their freedoms. The settlements, sitting on confiscated hilltops surrounding Palestinian living areas are strange abomination: creating ghettos for Jews within stolen lands while breeding anxiety and hatred amongst the Palestinians. Almost all the settlements have construction cranes actively working to increase the size of the settlements, illegal under international law.
It is these conditions that Carter critiques in his book: Israel's colonization and occupation must end before there can ever be peace for Israel and certainly before there is justice for the Palestinians.
Rather than being against Israel, Carter realizes that Israel MUST achieve peace with her neighbors if Israel is to survive as a viable and secure state for Jewish people. The terrible conditions and violence in the Middle East today only make this requirement more urgent than ever before.
Jeff Halper, an Israeli human rights activist and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), details in his article "The Problem with Israel" many of the various potential peace initiatives ignored or destroyed by Israel over the years. He states that:
"With an end to the Occupation and a win-win political arrangement that would satisfy the fundamental needs of both peoples, the Palestinians could make what would be perhaps the most significant contribution of all to peace and stability in the Middle East. Weak as they are, the Palestinians possess one source of tremendous power, one critical trump card: They are the gatekeepers to the Middle East. For the Palestinian conflict is emblematic in the Muslim world. It encapsulates the "clash of civilizations" from the Muslim point of view. Once the Palestinians signal the wider Arab and Muslim worlds that a political accommodation has been achieved that is acceptable to them, and that now is the time to normalize relations with Israel, it will significantly undercut the forces of fundamentalism, militarism and reaction, giving breathing space to those progressive voices that cannot be heard today - including those in Israel. Israel, of course, would also have to resolve the issue of the Golan Heights, which Syria has been asking it to do for years. Despite the neocon rhetoric to the contrary, anyone familiar with the Middle East knows that such a dynamic is not only possible but would progress at a surprisingly rapid pace."
Continuing to deny Palestinians their human rights and continuing to demonize the Arab and Muslim world will do nothing to ensure Israel's future, and, in fact, will insure further conflict and danger to Israel.
Carter knew full well that his book would be an incredible lightening rod for criticism in the United States, even though the rest of the world would accept his viewpoint as non-controversial and even though his recommended solutions are supported by both Israeli and Palestinian moderates. Much of the criticism is simplistic and stupid: that he was the "worst President ever", the he is "ignorant and doesn't know what he talking about." This is ridiculous. Carter has had the privilege of negotiating Israel most successful peace treaty: Carter has met with many of the important figures involved in the conflict including Begin, Sadat, Rabin, Peres, Abbas, and Arafat; Carter has worked to bring democratic process and reforms to the Palestinians. The anti-Semitism label is frequently used to label critics of Israel and is attempt to force an end of the discussion. Carter is criticizing the policies of a foreign government, one that the United States gives $5 billion a year to. Certainly Americans have a right to criticize the policies of a government that creates so much hatred against us and costs us so much in blood and money and stature in the world. Finally, critics of Carter question the use of the Apartheid label. The label is quite apt if you see what is happening on the ground. For example, I remember seeing Jewish only roads built on confiscated lands that not only were off limits to the non-Jewish people living next to the road, but constituted a new barrier that prevented Palestinians caught on either side of the road from easily visiting each other. In effect, the road was a new wall, a wall for Jews only to drive on. If that is not Apartheid, then the word is meaningless.
My criticisms of Carter's book would include:
- Some pictures of the wall and checkpoints would have helped with understanding the situation on the ground, though he does provide some outside references and the maps are useful.
- Carter should have talked more about the discrimination against Palestinians who are citizens of Israel and, in fact, glosses over this important point. The subordinate status of Palestinians and non-Jews within Israel are very serious issues (though not nearly as dire as Palestinians in the occupied territories).
- I believe that anti-Arab racism is an important factor in both Israel and the occupied territories (and in the U.S.)
- Carter should have detailed more of the many pernicious and discriminatory laws and policies that are so hated by Palestinians. The Kafkaesque situation of Palestinians in East Jerusalem could have been used as an example.
Book Review: Worst Book Ever
Summary: 1 Stars
Jimmy Carter's new book, Peace Not Apartheid, is one of the most controversial, anti-Israel, bordering on anti-semitic book ever written by a former president. He insults former leaders of Israel Begin and by the ultimate release of this book the respected former Prime Minister Yitzhack Rabin (may he rest in peace). Not only does Jimmy Carter use the word apartheid to discriminate against Israel and ultimately the 6 million Jews occupying Israel at this time, but he also makes irrelevant and nonsubstantial points.
My first question is why Carter does not explain the necessity of the actions of Israel by building the fence around the West Bank. Terrorism is a major threat to the security of the world. This wall does not take away a Palestinian's human rights, nor its civil rights. The wall protects Israel's security, and that is the right of a sovereign nation.
In my previous post, my dad explained the three contingent promises needed to be made by Palestian leaders to have progressive peace talks with Israel. These still stand. It is ridiculous to negotiate with a party who does not even recognize your country. The most important promise needed is for the Palestians is to stand by previous agreements made in the 1998 Oslo Agreement and the 2000 Camp David Accords. Israel will give up lands such as the West Bank in return for the promise of living in peace.
Finally, here is a piece the Jewish Standard, who can express their opinion way better than me:
One should never judge a book by its cover, but in the case of former President Jimmy Carter's latest work, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid," we should make an exception. All one really needs to know about this biased account is found in the title.
It is truly shocking -- at a time of Islamic extremism running rampant, of suicide bombs polluting cities in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, of Iran's publicly stating its desire to wipe Israel off the map and building nuclear weapons to achieve that end, of the missile and rocket attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas on Israel -- that Jimmy Carter can to a large degree only see Israel as the party responsible for conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
In some ways, Carter's book reinds me of the outlandish paper on "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, though he doesn't go to their extremes. Like them, his examination of almost every issue concerning the conflict results in blaming Israel for most or all of what has gone wrong.
Listen to his conclusions: "Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land." And, "The bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the road map for peace...."
In order to reach such a simplistic and distorted view of the region, Carter has to ignore or downplay the continuing examples of Palestinian rejection of Israel and terrorism, which have been part of the equation from the beginning and which are strong as ever today. He has to minimize or condemn all the instances of Israel's peace offers and withdrawals, most particularly former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's initiative at Camp David in 2000, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement from Gaza in 2005, and current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's campaign pledge to withdraw from the West Bank. And he has to frame every example of Palestinian distress as simply the product of Israeli repression instead of Palestinian extremism, e.g., the economic condition of the Palestinians, which has much to do with the continued terrorism against Israel.
Much as in the paper of Mearsheimer and Walt, one doesn't have to be a pro-Israel advocate to recognize that the issues in the long conflict are a lot more complicated than Carter would portray. It's particularly revealing that at a time when even many Arab leaders are recognizing the destructive and dangerous policies of the Palestinians, Carter can hardly bring himself to speak to such matters.
It is not the goals that Carter seeks that are so troubling -- he calls for a two-state solution, with Palestinians and Israelis living securely in two states, which, of course, is the policy of Israel -- but his obsession with blaming Israel for these goals not being achieved.
The problem with this approach is twofold. He unjustly encourages Israel-bashers around the world. The legitimizing factor of being able to quote a former president of the United States and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize cannot be overestimated.
Secondly, this gives comfort to the extremists on the Palestinian side who are reinforced in their extremism by this kind of "analysis." In the end, it is the Palestinians themselves who are hurt by such a biased approach because they become even further entrenched in their illusions about weakening Israel and the need not to change.
As disturbing as Carter's simplistic approach is, however, even more disturbing is his picking up on the Mearsheimer-Walt theme of Jewish control of American policy, though in much more abbreviated form and not the focus of his work. Referring to U.S. policy and the "condoning" of Israel's actions, Carter writes: "There are constant and vehement political and media debates in Israel concerning its policies in the West Bank but because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the U.S., Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned, voices from Jerusalem dominate our media, and most American citizens are unaware of circumstances in the occupied territories." In other words, the old canard and conspiracy theory of Jewish control of the media, Congress, and the U.S. government is rearing its ugly head in the person of a former president.
It is sad that Mr. Carter would attempt to use his influence in this way. It is dangerous because he will be used by elements that want to undermine support for Israel in this country.
Ultimately, we have faith in the good sense, fairness, and understanding of the American people. They know that life in the Middle East is much more complicated and will require seeing all sides of the issue, something President Carter doesn't seem to be interested in doing.
Book Review: IT CAN'T GO ON LIKE THIS
Summary: 5 Stars
When I hear criticism of Israel in Europe I sometimes wonder how Britain or France would behave if they suffered terrorist violence to the extent that Israel does and if they had mouthy local demagogues announcing that their state ought to be wiped off the map. I suspect they would behave a lot worse than Israel does. However while the climate of debate remains comparatively rational there is no taboo against criticising Israel. The content of this book is not greatly controversial to European ideas, but in America matters are otherwise. I have seen a certain amount of American comment on it, some of the commentators preferring to read each other rather than the book, and I would advise prospective readers that a great deal of the comment is not to be believed. If the topic were anything else, the shrillness of the tone would alert anyone who is alert in the first place to suspect that the problem with the book is not that it is anti this that or the next thing, but that it is uncomfortably near the bone for some people's liking.
Mr Carter's tone throughout is dispassionate to the point of dryness. He mainly reserves his conclusions for the end, but here and there in the earlier chapters, as in his semi-didactic novel of the American civil war The Hornet's Nest, he highlights certain observations in a manner that invites readers to draw our own conclusions. This is most marked in his summation of Arafat's failure to respond to an opportunity and to raise his game from that of leader of an uprising to being leader of a prospective nation, and Mr Carter quietly but explicitly blames himself for failing to get a better text on the occupied Palestinian lands incorporated in the Camp David accords. The book is short, the print is clear and the author clearer still, although one would hardly think so from much of what poses as commentary. In terms of accuracy I haven't tried to verify the minutiae, but Carter was always one for detail and while it would be unlikely that there are no errors any that I have seen alleged, other than grandiose denunciations of the whole book for manifest incredibility, are small beer. In particular his accounts of the conditions that Palestinians live under are familiar stuff on European news broadcasts, and not just those of the BBC either but the commercial channels too. This is the sort of content that raises an outcry in America - it is intolerable emotionally and therefore must not be allowed to be true.
At the very least it has to be conceded (you might think, but of course this is the topic it is and abnormal criteria apply to what has to be conceded) that Carter is in a position to know more about the topic of this book than any other American. Knowledge of any subject doesn't, obviously, compel agreement with the knowledgeable party's conclusions, but it should at least make anyone hesitate before criticising him on such grounds, whereas in fact many have rushed in to do so and are probably rushing still as I write, much as the Gadarene Swine were doubtless rushing to refute the outrageous teachings they had just overheard. To invoke a different culture, the Emperor's clothes are just marvellous and to say otherwise is to be guilty of an ignorant and biased rant. So with Mr Carter. In my own view to find anything particularly contentious about his findings, still less anything biased in his tone or style, one has first to be American. He was an odd misfit among the tradition of American presidents, he was a bit of a misfit in the job, but a lot of the long-term value of his perceptions is precisely that he didn't think in a conventional American way. America is my own second home and I love it dearly, but for sheer sterility in its political thinking at this stage of history one might search the globe in vain for its equal.
Housman outraged classical scholars by heading his edition of Juvenal `Edited for the use of editors'. Carter may similarly be thought to outrage a segment of his compatriots' perceptions by issuing a work for education of Americans. The situation they seem wedded to simply can't go on as it is. Mr Carter has a deep religious faith that I can't share, whereas I do share the candid opinion of the last British ambassador to Washington Sir Christopher Meyer that the `Road Map' to middle east peace, which Carter still embraces, is not worth the paper it's written on. Simply - if nations try to determine land-rights on the basis of who God says can have them then we have the formula for a never-ending dispute, as God talks in mysterious ways. Again, if Palestinians are expected to recognise the legitimate existence of Israel (as we all should) exactly what `Israel' are they being asked to recognise? West Bank settlements on lands to which they may own legal deeds? Israel's right to secure borders should be indisputable in general, but how can this apply to borders on someone else's land? The questions continue, and Carter dissects them coolly.
Equally beyond dispute ought to be that attacks on civilians are plain crime. In ordinary life we don't stop trying to smooth out areas of dispute until all criminals renounce their ways or until someone promises to stop them, as unrealistic a promise as was ever demanded except, apparently, in Palestine. Nor do we usually think we can solve disputes by refusing to talk those in dispute with us until they capitulate to our demands to start with, a long-standing anomaly of US foreign policy that Carter highlights, no doubt in a ranting and anti-US manner that I have not detected.
Total support for Israel is emotional in America, and also historical from the days when Israel was America's foothold in the area to combat whatever the USSR might have been doing. An older and firmer tradition of American foreign policy is that its basis in sentiment falters when strategic and commercial interests indicate otherwise, as they now do. If the strategic and commercial lobbies in Washington are not already patiently at work indicating a new direction I shall be very surprised indeed. Support for the Israel of Ben Gurion was one thing, but if I were Israeli and expecting eternal American support for condominiums on the West Bank the question that I would dread to think Americans might ask themselves would be the question - WHY?