limited, modified mea culpa

Nemo and others have complained that I should have read the Jimmy Carter book before commenting on the controversy surrounding it. Having now read it, I concede I found it more unbalanced in favor of the Palestinians than I had expected. I stand by the main point I made in my previous postings on this question; that it was outrageous for Alan Dershowitz to shout before Jewish gatherings that Carter has "blood on his hands" for his insistence that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians is profoundly wrong, or for other critics to label as an "anti-Semite" the former president who worked his ass off to help Israel to get its first peace treaty with an Arab nation. However, it was a mistake on my part to plunge headlong into the controversy without, as Nemo says, having done my homework, and I hereby acknowledge my mistake. So what, you may ask, was it about the Carter book that turned me off? I agree fully with his premise that the Israeli occupation and oppression of the Palestinians over the past 40 years is morally wrong and has contributed mightily to the perpetuation and intensification of the conflict. But Carter sees the occupation as the central cause, the causus belli, for the endless, every worsening Israeli-Palestinian conflict; riting that Palestinian suicide bombing and other violence, while wrong, is simply a "reaction" to Israeli occupation and would stop if Israel carried out a withdrawal to the lines which may or may not have been agreed to by Israeli and Palestinian neogitators at Taba in December 2000, with Israel leaving all but about 2-3 percent of the WB and the Arab populated parts of East Jerusalem in exchange for full peace and recognition (Dennis Ross says both sides signed off on this, Carter says Israel never really did).


Whatever. The problem with that analysis is, of course, that there is a very sizable chunk of the Palestinians, today represented by Hamas, which won the last Palestinian elections which do not accept Israel within ANY borders, and see such a peace treaty as only a way station to their long term goal of making Israel disappear. Also, obviously that the Palestinians, as then represented by the PLO, did not accept Israel's existence before 1967, and only did so at the 1992 Oslo Agreement, while never giving up on the right of return that if fully implemented would destroy Israel as a Jewish state.


I certainly agree with Carter's point that hard-line Israeli policies and never-ending settlement building have pushed more and more Palestinians into the extremist camp and undermined the moderates, most damagingly in the post-Oslo period when for a fleeting time there was a 70 percent majority of Palestinians in favor of permanent peace with Israel. But the same thing can be said in reverse; that continuation of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians after Oslo destroyed the Israeli majority in favor of the agreements. The main point is that Carter declines to grapple seriously with Palestinian rejectionism, except to blame it on Israeli policies. That is much too facile. Palestinian rejectionism of the Jewish state project began at least 50 years BEFORE the 1967 war. Also, while the former president rightly expresses great moral indignation at Israeli policies which oppress and torment the Palestinians, one does not feel a similar sympathy from him for an Israeli population which has suffered grievous losses and trauam due to ongoing Palestinian terrorism. The problem with that kind of selective moral outrage is that it just contributes to further polarization and closoing of minds. Yes, 3-4 times of Palestinians have died in Israeli-Palestinian violence since the explosion of the second intifada in 2000, but that still leaves something like 1000 Israelis who were killed by Palestinians during the same period. They and those who loved them deserve every bit as much compassion as Palestinian victims do.


The reality is that only a moral witness that gets that BOTH sides are suffering horribly in the present situation and deserve equal love and compassion has a chance to elicit healing and reconciliation rather than the opposite impact. Many people in the pro-Israel camp cannot find it in themselves to feel human compassion for Palestinians and plenty of people in the pro-Palestine camp cannot find any compassion for Israelis. I had expected more from Carter, a deeply religious Christian who has done much wonderful work around the world for peace and democracy since leaving the presidency. His book left me feeling sad. To the extent that he confronts Jews and says insistently 'look at the hideousness and moral squalor of the occupation straight in the face' he is doing us a moral service. But to the extent that he seems hard-hearted and unable to feel Israeli and Jewish pain, as he does in this book, he undercuts the usefulness of the whbole project and and a potential opportunity for honesty, truth and healing slips away.