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bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Memoir of a great friend
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.
source:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/801270.html
===
-muslim voice-
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