Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid


Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is a book written by Jimmy Carter. It was published by Simon & Schuster in November 2006.
The book is primarily based on Carter's long engagement in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, both before, during and after his presidency. He recounts his first visits to the Middle East as Governor of Georgia, his role as President in the Camp David Accords, his personal relationships with Arab and Israeli political leaders such as Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, his involvement in the peace process since leaving the White House, as well as his successors' policies in the region.
In the book, Carter argues that Israel's continued control and construction of settlements in the West Bank have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Middle East. That perspective, coupled with the use of the word "apartheid" in the title, and what critics said were errors and misstatements in the book, sparked controversy. Carter defended the book and countered that response to it "in the real world… has been overwhelmingly positive."
The 2007 documentary Man from Plains depicts the tour Carter undertook to promote the book.

Contents

Purpose

According to Carter:
The ultimate purpose of my book is to present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and to help restart peace talks that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. Another hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this same goal might be motivated to express their views, even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad to help with that effort.

Thesis

Carter identifies "two interrelated obstacles to permanent peace in the Middle East":

Some Israelis believe they have the right to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land and try to justify the sustained subjugation and persecution of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinians; and
Some Palestinians react by honoring suicide bombers as martyrs to be rewarded in heaven and consider the killing of Israelis as victories.

To bring an end to what he calls "this continuing tragedy", in Chapter 17, Carter calls for a revitalization of the peace process based on the following three "key requirements":

a. The security of Israel must be guaranteed...
b. The internal debate within Israel must be resolved in order to define Israel's permanent legal boundary...
c. The sovereignty of all Middle East nations and sanctity of international borders must be honored...

Apartheid analogy

Regarding the use of the word "Apartheid" in the title of his book, Carter has said:
It's not Israel. The book has nothing to do with what's going on inside Israel which is a wonderful democracy, you know, where everyone has guaranteed equal rights and where, under the law, Arabs and Jews who are Israelis have the same privileges about Israel. That's been most of the controversy because people assume it's about Israel. It's not.

I've never alleged that the framework of apartheid existed within Israel at all, and that what does exist in the West Bank is based on trying to take Palestinian land and not on racism. So it was a very clear distinction.

In remarks broadcast over radio, Carter claimed that Israel's policies amounted to an apartheid worse than South Africa's:
When Israel does occupy this territory deep within the West Bank, and connects the 200-or-so settlements with each other, with a road, and then prohibits the Palestinians from using that road, or in many cases even crossing the road, this perpetrates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even in South Africa.

Critical reaction and commentary

Critical response to Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid at the time of release was divided. According to Julie Bosman, criticism of the book "has escalated to a full-scale furor," much of which has focused on Carter's use of the word "apartheid" in the subtitle. Some critics, including several leaders of the Democratic Party and of American Jewish organizations, have interpreted the subtitle as an allegation of Israeli apartheid, which they believe to be inflammatory and unsubstantiated. Tony Karon, Senior Editor at TIME.com and a former anti-Apartheid activist for the ANC, said: "Jimmy Carter had to write this book precisely because Palestinian life and history is not accorded equal value in American discourse, far from it. And his use of the word apartheid is not only morally valid; it is essential, because it shakes the moral stupor that allows many liberals to rationalize away the daily, grinding horror being inflicted on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza". Former President Bill Clinton wrote a brief letter to the chairman of the American Jewish Committee, thanking him for articles criticizing the book and citing his agreement with Dennis Ross's attempts to "straighten... out" Carter's claims and conclusions about Clinton's own Camp David peace proposal in the summer of 2000.
Some critics claimed that Carter crossed the line into anti-Semitism. Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, initially accused Carter of "engaging in anti-Semitism" in the book; Foxman told James Traub later that he would not call the former president himself an "anti-Semite" or a "bigot". Ethan Bronner also asserted that Carter's "overstatement" in the book "hardly adds up to anti-Semitism."
Some journalists and academics have praised Carter for what they believe to be speaking honestly about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in a media environment described as hostile to opponents of Israel's policies. Some left-leaning Israeli politicians such as Yossi Beilin and Shulamit Aloni argued that Carter's critique of Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories reflects that of many Israelis themselves.

Carter's response to criticism of the book

Carter has responded to negative reviews in the mainstream news media in an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times :
He also wrote a "Letter to Jewish Citizens of America" explaining "his use of the term 'apartheid' and sympathizing with Israelis who fear terrorism."
In his op-ed "Reiterating the Keys to Peace", published in The Boston Globe on 20 December 2006, Carter summarizes "ome major points in the book":

  • Multiple deaths of innocent civilians have occurred on both sides, and this violence and all terrorism must cease
  • For 39 years, Israel has occupied Palestinian land, and has confiscated and colonized hundreds of choice sites
  • Often excluded from their former homes, land, and places of worship, protesting Palestinians have been severely dominated and oppressed. There is forced segregation between Israeli settlers and Palestine's citizens, with a complex pass system required for Arabs to traverse Israel's multiple checkpoints
  • An enormous wall snakes through populated areas of what is left of the West Bank, constructed on wide swaths of bulldozed trees and property of Arab families, obviously designed to acquire more territory and to protect the Israeli colonies already built.
  • Combined with this wall, Israeli control of the Jordan River Valley will completely enclose Palestinians in their shrunken and divided territory. Gaza is surrounded by a similar barrier with only two openings, still controlled by Israel. The crowded citizens have no free access to the outside world by air, sea, or land
  • The Palestinian people are now being deprived of the necessities of life by economic restrictions imposed on them by Israel and the United States because 42 percent voted for Hamas candidates in this year's election. Teachers, nurses, policemen, firemen and other employees cannot be paid, and the UN has reported food supplies in Gaza equivalent to those among the poorest families in sub-Sahara Africa, with half the families surviving on one meal a day
  • Mahmoud Abbas, first as prime minister and now as president of the Palestinian National Authority and leader of the PLO, has sought to negotiate with Israel for almost six years, without success. Hamas leaders support such negotiations, promising to accept the results if approved by a Palestinian referendum
  • UN Resolutions, the Camp David Accords of 1978, the Oslo Agreement of 1993, official US Policy, and the International Roadmap for Peace are all based on the premise that Israel withdraw from occupied territories. Also, Palestinians must accept the same commitment made by the 23 Arab nations in 2002: to recognize Israel's right to live in peace within its legal borders. These are the two keys to peace
In a report updated by the Associated Press after the publication of Carter's "Letter to Jewish Citizens of America", Greg Bluestein observes that Carter replied generally to complaints of the book's errors and inaccuracies by Dennis Ross, Alan Dershowitz, Kenneth Stein, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and others by pointing out that the Carter Center staff as well as an "unnamed 'distinguished' reporter" fact-checked it. Rachel Zelkowitz points out that, as cited in various news accounts, "Carter has consistently defended his book's accuracy against Stein and other critics"; in a prepared statement, Carter's press secretary Deanna Congileo responds "that Carter had his book reviewed for accuracy throughout the writing process" and that "s with all of President Carter's previous books, any detected errors will be corrected in later editions..." In response to the Associated Press's request for a comment on the resignations of Stein and 14 other members of the Center's Board of Councilors, speaking on behalf of both Carter and the Carter Center, Congileo provided a statement from its executive director, John Hardman, who, according to Zelkowitz, "also fact checked Palestine, saying that the members of that board 'are not engaged in implementing the work of the Center.'"