The release of President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," has garnered a reaction from the American political establishment that can best be characterized as scandalized, tumultuous and loud. The book's commitment to truth — including a biting analysis of Israeli human rights abuses — has resulted in a "full-scale furor," according to The New York Times. The Anti-Defamation League took out full-page ads attacking President Carter and his book in numerous newspapers. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party was quick to satisfy the powerful Zionist lobby. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "With all due respect to former President Carter, he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel."
Predictably, insidious charges of bigotry have ensued as well. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and vociferous defender of the Jewish state, showed a lack of honesty and decency when he recently said, "I believe [Carter] is engaging in anti-Semitism." Other Jewish leaders have echoed Foxman's claim.
In response to this outcry from Zionist extremists, President Carter points out that "Out in the real world … the response has been overwhelmingly positive." Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein notes that "Outside the never-never land of mainstream American Jewry and U.S. media, [the reality of Israeli apartheid] is barely disputed." Still, the cries of bigotry, anti-Americanism and support for terrorism have been so shrill that a discussion of the actual content of President Carter's book has been sidelined.
The truth is that "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" is written by a sincere man who shows a remarkable understanding of the conflict in the Middle East. President Carter first takes the reader down history lane, chronicling the major events in the region since the Yom Kippur War of 1973. He writes of the futile violence and religious intolerance for which both Jews and Arabs have been responsible. He also laments that the breakthroughs have been limited. The Camp David Accords of 1978 and Oslo Accords of 1993, for example, only amounted to broken Israeli promises.
Contemporary political developments have been similarly lamentable. At the Camp David peace talks of 2000, President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made a "generous" offer that turned out to be anything but generous — and was rightfully rejected by Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian delegation. As many commentators have noted, it would have fragmented Palestine and created a system of Bantustans that remained subservient to Israel. There was a 90-percent increase in Israeli settlers as President Clinton desperately pursued peace. The continued increase of Jewish fundamentalists in the occupied territories signifies the Israeli government is not interested in offering the Palestinians a viable state. In the minds of many politicians, Israel is entitled to the entire Kingdom of David, including the West Bank.
As political negotiations ended in repeated failure, the Palestinians continued to face dehumanizing oppression. President Carter courageously points out what few Americans dare to: The Israeli system of subjugation in the Palestinian territories is apartheid. Through his visits with the Palestinians, President Carter has attained a heartfelt sympathy for the Palestinian people and their struggles. He details his visits with Palestinian families and recounts their Israeli-induced hardships.
He tells of Palestinian homes demolished to make way for Israeli settlements. He tells of villages that were destroyed in response to local children throwing stones at Israeli tanks. He tells of egregious human rights violations, including the inability to travel freely or assemble publicly. He tells of the imprisonment of Palestinian children, who are tried as adults by the age of 14. He tells of harsh Israeli military courts and a prison system that penetrates the consciousness of the Palestinian population. He tells of wealthy, subsidized Israeli settlements amidst malnourished Palestinians. He tells of the construction of a wall that encompasses Palestinian land and separates families. In short, he tells a human tragedy that both saddens and angers the reader.
While President Carter lays the blame where it belongs — at the blood-soaked feet of the Israelis — his solution to the conflict is disappointingly timid. His conviction is that the best hope for peace and dignity for the Palestinians is through peaceful negotiation. Such a conclusion is a blatant contradiction of President Carter's own analysis. How can the Palestinians hope for justice through peace when offered no legal recourse or even a semblance of fairness from the most liberal Israeli administration? President Carter paints a bleak picture for the Palestinians, but then strips them of their only method of resistance — armed struggle.
Still, President Carter has chutzpah for bringing the reality of the conflict to Americans, who are used to being fed Zionist propaganda. For this achievement, he is to be commended.
Kyle Szarzynski ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in Spanish and history.
