Jimmy Carter's controversial new book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006) spells out the major issues involved in the Israel-Palestine conflict in language accessible to the average newspaper reader. In other words, the reader doesn't have to navigate philosophical discussions about "realism" vs. "internationalism" vs. "neoconservatism".But he does manage to define the issues well and put them into their diplomatic context since the Six Day War of 1967. The book has a handy 10-page chronology in the beginning, maps illustrating peace propossals and the political situation at various points, and in the and in the app-endices the texts of UN Resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973) and 465 (1980), the text of the 1978 Camp David Accords and other key diplomatic documents.
This may sound ike something only a libararian or a professor of diplomatic history could love. Or even stay awake to read. Instead, what Carter does here is to provide a kind of handbook that anyone literate in English can use as a reference when confronted with news references to various agreements and historical events. Most importantly, he demystifies the Israel-Palestine conflict. He presents not a struggle of eons based on irreconcilable hatreds, or a hopelessly complex tangle of issues only a diplomat could decipher. He presents a political conflict that can be resolved to the great benefit of both sides.
The basic issues are well-known: Palestinian and Arab government recognition of Israel in its 1949-67 borders; a genuinely sovereign Palestinian state; withdrawal of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank; the Palestinian "right of return"; a resolution of the status of Jerusalem with general access to the holy places of Islam, Judaism and Christianity; an end to violence as a regular political tool on all sides.
There are problems in the details, of course. But the basic problem is to achieve the will on all sides to settle the issues, especially Israelis and Palestinians. And the current Israeli policy of expanding settlements in the West Bank while building a "secruity wall" that carves up Palestinian territory makes a permanent peace progressively more difficult to achieve. As Carter's book makes clear, the current Westn Bank policy is not likely to impose the peace of a prison on the Palestinias, but to prolong violent conflict indefinitely.
Having read the book, I'm a bit puzzled at some of the reactions I've seen. Sure, he criticizes the positions of Israeli hardliners and the current government. But his criticisms are sound. And the United States has a great interest in seeing the Israel-Palestine conflict peacefully resolved, as the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report emphasized.
The Los Angeles Times reports on new settlement activity in West Bank housing OKd by Richard Boudreaux 12/27/06:
Israel has approved construction of new housing for Jewish settlers in the West Bank, officials said Tuesday, drawing protests from Palestinian leaders and Israeli peace activists who said the decision violated a 3-year-old pledge to the United States to freeze settlement activity.The settlements are also illegal under international law because settlements are forbidden in occupied territories. And Israel itself officially recognizes the West Bank as occupied territory. It's exactly stories like this for which Carter's book could be a handy reference for newspaper readers.
Israeli officials insisted that there was no such breach, saying the site of the new homes for 100 families in the northern Jordan Valley had been a Jewish settlement since 1981. But Palestinian leaders said the announcement, coming just three days after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas launched an effort to revive peace talks, undermined the cooperative spirit of the weekend meeting. ...
Yariv Oppenheimer, director general of Peace Now, disagreed. "They're effectively establishing a new community," he said. "It's a violation of the road map accord."
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On one thing we can all agree this Christmas:
Bethlehem is no longer a Christian town.
But why?
If you believe the New York Times or former President
Jimmy Carter, the Israelis are to blame. Those nasty
Jews built a security fence around the town,
apparently with the specific purpose of persecuting
Christians, who have fled the town in droves.
Here's what Carter had to say in calling the security
fence a crime against Christianity: "[It] ravages many
places along its devious route that are important to
Christians. . In addition to enclosing Bethlehem in
one of its most notable intrusions, an especially
heartbreaking division is on the southern slope of the
Mount of Olives, a favorite place for Jesus and his
disciples."
Tracing this particular myth of the Middle East is
easier than many others. It first gained urban legend
status two years ago when the New York Times blamed
Israel's security fence for the dwindling Christian
population in formerly Christian towns like Bethlehem.
While Snopes did nothing to bust this hoax, I did my
best when I first read the story by Greg Myre. It
began:
In the town where Christians believe Christ was born,
the Christians are leaving. Four years of violence, an
economic free fall and the Israeli separation barrier
have all contributed to the hardships facing
Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem, one of the
largest concentrations of Christians in the region.
There you have it. Why are the Christians leaving
Bethlehem? At least partly, according to the New York
Times, because of the Israeli security fence. And, of
course, the New York Times is Jimmy Carter's gospel.
But, as I pointed out then, the claim defies common
sense. Just ask yourself a question: Why would the
security fence disproportionately affect Christians?
If the security fence were contributing to the exodus,
it should be causing an exodus of Muslims as well,
right?
Last year, perhaps taking their cue from the New York
Times, the story was recycled in a thousand other news
venues. Political leaders around the world took up the
lie as their own. And, of course, Arab and Muslim
leaders were only too happy to begin championing the
cause of these poor, misplaced, mistreated Christians.
There's just one problem. It's a total, bald-faced
lie.
Here is the truth. Bethlehem, once a 90 percent
Christian town, now claims only 12 percent of its
population of 60,000 Arab residents as Christians. The
number drops day by day, month by month, year by year.
Last year, for comparison purposes, the town was 35
percent Christian.
They haven't left for no good reason. They have left
for very good reasons. In fact, knowing the conditions
these Christians face today, it's surprising there are
still some around. But the exodus of Christians has
nothing to do with the Israeli security fence.
Six years ago, when the latest exodus began, the
Israelis had not even started construction of the
security fence.
Up until 1948, Bethlehem was more than 90 percent
Christian. The Arab-Israeli war of 1948, begun by Arab
states in response to the founding of Israel, brought
an influx of Muslim refugees to the Bethlehem area and
signaled the start of a demographic shift. Then six
years ago, the exodus of Christians became a flood.
Buried in the New York Times story of two years ago
was a key paragraph that explained why:
In the early days of the uprising, Muslim gunmen in
the Bethlehem area took hilltop positions in Beit
Jala, which is predominantly Christian. That afforded
them a clear firing line at the southernmost part of
Jerusalem. When the Israeli military responded, Beit
Jala residents found themselves on the front lines of
the conflict, and occasionally among its casualties.
In other words, Muslim terrorists have intentionally
placed Christians in the crossfire between them and
Israel. They did that when they seized the Church of
the Nativity, nearly destroying it, defecating in the
hallways, smashing statues and stealing precious
objects. The Israelis, for their part, negotiated an
end to the standoff rather than destroy the church
that represents so much to the Christian world.
If the Israelis contributed in any way to the exodus
of Christians, it was by withdrawing from Bethlehem
and the so-called "Palestinian territories" in the
West Bank. Since they left, the Palestinian Authority
has waged a jihad against the Christian community,
raping women, extorting businessmen, lynching
"collaborators" and seizing homes.
That's why the Christians have left and continue to
leave. They enjoyed life while their towns were under
the control of Israel. Once they were turned over to
the terrorists, there wasn't much left to keep them in
the areas in which their families lived for
generations.
It took WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein to set
the record straight last year.
"All this talk about Israel driving Christians out and
causing pain is nonsense," a Bethlehem Christian
community leader told WND. "You want to know what is
at play here, just come throughout the year and see
the intimidation from the Muslims. They have burned
down our stores, built mosques in front of our
churches, stole our real estate and took away our
rights. Women have been raped and abducted. So don't
tell me about Israel. It's the Muslims."
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