Jimmy Carter, Israel and the Palestinians

Eric Alterman:

Carter has departed from the accepted narrative that Israel's so-called friends in the United States insist on imposing on the Israeli-Palestinian narrative. Depart from it and expect to get called all kind of names, none of them nice.

Helpfully, Alan Dershowitz lays it out in the opening paragraphs of his review. "The former US president's 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."

Got it? Israel wants peace, not land. The more land you give the Arabs, the more they try to kill you. It's really that simple.

Carter of course, puts it differently. In a short New Yorker piece, he explained, "I'm not alleging racism, and I'm not referring to Israel. I'm talking about Palestine." It is his contention that the situation in the Occupied Territories "is not debated or acknowledged or even known in this country," and that the "tremendous aversion" here to criticism of Israel's policies has contributed to the disintegration of the peace process. "I can't imagine a presidential candidate saying, 'I'm going to take a balanced position toward the Israelis and the Palestinians,' and getting elected," he said. "It's inconceivable."

JIMMY CARTER ALOFT

Jimmy Carter, Palestinian Sympathizer

Standing Up for Jimmy Carter's Use of the Word 'Apartheid'

An Open Letter to the New Congress - Investing in Hate: America’s Support of Israel

President Carter talks about AIPAC and Israel on C-SPAN

President Carter, Mearsheimer and WaIt and The Israel Lobby