Jimmy Carter: Memoir of a great friend

Following all the shenanigans regarding Jimmy Carters book by the Jewish community in the states, I have stumbled upon a good article published in Israeli news media…

Memoir of a great friend
Taken from Haaretz, 16.12.06
By Tom Segev

One morning in the spring of 1983, Jimmy Carter left the King David Hotel and went for a morning jog, as he did wherever he was in the world. One U.S. Secret Service agent ran with him, as did two young Israeli soldiers who insisted on showing them the way.

They reached Jaffa Gate and turned north, circling the walls of the Old City. Carter was enthralled by the view. Their run led them to the Jericho road. Several elderly Arab men were sitting there reading the morning papers.

"The sidewalk was almost empty and wide enough for us to pass easily, but one of the soldiers cut to the right and knocked all of the newspapers back into the faces of the startled readers," Carter writes in his new book. Some of the papers fell to the ground.

Carter stopped and apologized but the old men didn't understand him. He told the soldiers to either let him continue alone or not harass anyone else. The soldiers reluctantly consented, and explained that "one could never tell what was being hidden behind newspapers."

Carter is apparently aware of the symbolic cliches in the story: There is enough room for everyone here; soldiers abuse people with no reason; misunderstandings; "the press is to blame."

He'd been in Israel several times, usually with his wife Rosalynn. Once, Rosalynn visited a hospital in Gaza. Her hosts showed her ambulances that the Palestinians had received from Europe. They couldn't operate them because the Israeli authorities refused to issue license plates, claiming the chassis were too long. Carter demanded an explanation and was told that, because of security concerns, the dimensions of all vehicles had to conform to a certain standard. "The Palestinians couldn't be given special permits to operate even ambulances that deviated from standards set by the local military officers," Carter writes.

The book is causing an uproar among those in America who consider themselves as "friends of Israel," for one thing because of its title: "Palestine - Peace Not Apartheid."

Predictably, some are accusing Carter of anti-Semitism. Carter is closely following the responses, including on the Internet, and responding to his critics. He is prepared to lecture for free about his views - but Jews don't want to hear, he complains. An Israeli reader won't find anything more in the book than is written in the newspapers here every day.

Carter has much praise for the public discourse in Israel, saying that it is more open to debate over a withdrawal to the Green Line than is the public discourse in America. It's become something of a fashion there lately to claim that the Jewish lobby stifles all criticism of Israel; in fact, it isn't difficult to find criticism there, too. Surveys show that a majority of Jews in America support a withdrawal in return for peace, as do at least half of the inhabitants of Israel. Carter isn't calling for anything more than that.

He has written a very personal and very Christian book, in the first person - I and the Middle East - that starts with his first visit to Israel in 1973. Prime Minister Golda Meir instructed that he be given the use of an old Mercedes and also provided a guide, by the name of Giora Avidar. Carter, who was then the governor of Georgia, describes his trip as if he were a 19th-century pilgrim visiting the Holy Land.

Visiting a kibbutz synagogue on the Sabbath, he remarked on the very small number of kibbutz members who came there to pray, and Giora the guide just shrugged his shoulders. He asked Golda Meir if she wasn't concerned by the secular character of her government and she, too, responded with a shrug, then lit cigarette after cigarette and said that there were enough religious people. Carter was disappointed, evidently; he'd imagined that Israel would be closer to God. But he returned from the trip "a great friend of Israel," as Golda Meir used to refer to people who supported her views.

He subsequently returned to Israel numerous times - and each time moved further away from what his official guide had pumped into his head on that first visit; from one visit to the next, he grew more critical. He has a good reason to be mad at Israel: Thanks to him, it achieved the first peace agreement in its history; and relations with Egypt are holding steady. This was "his" agreement, the one that brought him the Nobel Peace Prize.

It's no wonder that Carter sees it as key: Had Israel adhered to the Camp David Accords and not built settlements in the West Bank, it could have realized a comprehensive and lasting peace with Arabs who would recognize its legal borders, he contends. The expulsion of the Arabs reminds him of the expulsion of the Native Americans who once lived in Georgia and were forced to go west to Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears; his family farm was built on the land of those who were expelled.

In addition to offering personal memories, chapters of history and legal arguments, Carter frequently quotes UN resolutions and all kinds of other international decisions. He once went to meet with Prime Minister Begin to explain to him why the construction of settlements was a violation of UN Resolution 242.

To his surprise, Begin did not look him in the face; he was withdrawn and passive. He mumbled a few words and Carter understood that the conversation was over. He has several possible theories to explain Begin's behavior, most likely he was preoccupied with something. Tactfully, he does not mention Begin's shaky mental state. They sat in a small, dim room; Carter noticed that the room next door was empty and that it was also larger and better lit, and its number happened to be 242.

One evening, Carter invited Supreme Court president Aharon Barak to meet with him. They sat in the bar of a Jerusalem hotel; Carter urged him to act on behalf of the Palestinians' human rights, and told him of a number of abuses he'd heard of, including the story about the ambulances in Gaza. Barak said cautiously that he could not comment on specific cases.

Carter asked if Barak thought that the Palestinians deserved fair treatment. Barak replied that they do receive fair treatment before the high court, but that he was not in a position to undertake any legal action on their behalf. Carter asked if Barak felt a responsibility to really examine the overall situation. Barak said that he could only adjudicate matters brought before the court.

"When I requested his personal assessment of the situation in the West Bank and Gaza, he said that he had not been in the area for many years and had no plans to visit there," Carter writes. "I remarked that if he was to make decisions that affected the lives of people in the occupied areas, he should know more about how they lived.

He answered with a smile, 'I am a judge, not an investigator.'" It's not certain whether Carter also expects the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court to pay a visit, say, to Jamaica Plains, New York, to get a closer look at the place where an innocent black citizen was recently gunned down by police. Maybe he does.

The book appears to include a few errors: It's doubtful whether "cardinals" were included among the heads of the Christian communities who came to see him in Jerusalem; the capital of Yemen is not Tirana and UN Resolution 242 does not call for Israel to return to the 1967 borders.

Had Carter asked me, I would not have suggested that he sum up his theory of peace by means of citations from Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab and former MK Naomi Chazan. I would also have suggested that he not mention the Web site where a film on the security wall can be purchased for $10. Let people search for it on Amazon.

These are small things; the uproar is over the word "apartheid." That's another thing I would have recommended that Carter forgo, if he'd asked me. It's not necessary; the situation is terrible as it is. Now everyone's busy arguing about the use of the term "apartheid" instead of focusing on the horrors of the occupation in the territories. Similarly, I had a hard time getting worked up over the fact that the security wall in Jerusalem passes through territory that was a favorite of Jesus and his disciples.

But the principal argument is well-founded, and backed up by the reports from B'Tselem, Peace Now, Israeli newspapers and even many articles that appear in The New York Times (as opposed to the theory, which Carter cites, that says Israel's critics are being silenced). Like many others, Carter points out the ongoing and systematic violation of the Palestinians' human rights; the injustices of the oppression perpetuate the conflict. It's bad for everyone, the United States included.

The security wall is adding to the hardships for the Palestinians; its route is not meant solely to increase Israel's security, but to take a bite out of territories in the West Bank and annex them to Israel. Carter demands that Israel's right to exist in security and peace be ensured; he calls on Palestinians and the Arab states to accept this; he denounces terror. Time is pressing: Radical Islam is growing stronger, Israel has nuclear arms: This detail is mentioned in the book quite casually, as if it's something that everybody knows.

One reason the book is outraging "friends of Israel" in America is that it requires them to reformulate their friendship: If they truly want what's good for Israel, they must call on it to rid itself of the territories. People don't like to admit that they've erred; therefore, they're angry at Carter. But the belief that a withdrawal to the Green Line will bring peace has been around ever since the Six-Day War. What else is new?

Israel has remained in the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights mainly because the United States has not compelled it to withdraw. As optimistic as only a God-fearing person can be, the former U.S. president also essentially only propose that we all try to be nice to one another, in the spirit of the upcoming Christmas holiday. He has no new ideas to offer and thus his book is something of a let-down, though this does not justify a rebuke. Not to Carter. We owe him for the peace with Egypt.