Ironically, the campaign to discredit the 2002 Nobel peace laureate has achieved nothing but open up forums of discussing
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"One of the major goals of my life, while in political office and since I was retired from the White House by the 1980 election, has been to help ensure a lasting peace for Israelis and others in the Middle East."
If such was Jimmy Carter's opening statement in his latest book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, why would the Israel-sympathetic words cause uproar among US Jews and elsewhere? And why would the former US president be accused by many Jewish groups of being a liar, a bigot, an anti- Semite, a coward and a plagiarist? And why would staunch protest to the book come from none other than 14 members of the advisory board of the 25-year-old Atlanta-based Carter Center, resigning en masse, stating that "we can no longer endorse your strident and uncompromising position." The letter of resignation addressed to Carter went on attacking the book as being "unfairly critical of Israel and riddled with inaccuracies". In effect, the most vociferous of protestations were geared against the comparison of Israel's treatment of Palestinians with South Africa's gruesome apartheid system of racial segregation.
In his first direct address to Jewish Americans on his book at Brandeis University last month, Carter said the word "apartheid was intended to provoke debate on the rights of Palestinians, unfairly treated by Israel," he stressed to his audience. Ironically, the campaign to discredit the 2002 Nobel peace laureate has achieved nothing but open up forums of discussing Palestine in the context of apartheid and focus on the crimes of Israeli occupation. For the 11th consecutive week now since it hit the market last November, Palestine Peace not Apartheid has ranked high on the New York Times best selling list, unyieldingly defiant in the face of its assailants. For the mere effect of injecting such a debate into American circles, Carter's latest publication is no meagre accomplishment.
Outlining steps that ought to be taken for Palestinians and Israelis to share the Holy Land without the benefit of an apartheid system and the constant fear of "terrorist" attacks, is the book's declared objective. And Carter does not mince his words when he asserts that Israel's refusal to fully withdraw from the Occupied Territories is the main obstacle to a settlement. A glance through the last few pages of the book is sufficient to learn of the author's three most basic premises for peace: Israel's right to exist within recognised borders accepted by Palestinians and all other neighbours, a halt to acts of violence against civilians and the necessity for Palestinians to live in peace and dignity in their own land as specified by international law unless modified by good-faith negotiations with Israel.
But it would indeed be a great pity if the reader limited him or herself to the last two pages, for the author has been very clever and skilful in building up his case. Contrary to his stated objective, the prescription for peace is in fact not the only goal; rather more important for Carter is pricking the existing abscess.
Apart from the controversial title, the word apartheid does not resurface till relatively late in the chapter on the separation wall, or the "imprisonment wall" as Carter emphasises, that being a more accurate description than "security fence" . Absent it may be, yet apartheid is the omnipresent thread running throughout the various chapters reviewing the Oslo agreement, the Camp David summit in 2000, the subsequent Clinton parameters, the road map, the Geneva Accord of 2003, Sharon's unilateral disengagement from Gaza, the legislative elections won by Hamas, the war in Lebanon and finally the deteriorating situation in Gaza. Page after page, Carter skilfully introduces the intrinsic details of daily life under occupation in Palestine, unravelling the essence of an apartheid system beyond scholarly definitions and philosophical interpretations.
It is no coincidence that a strong emphasis is placed on the use of the term "Holy Land" in the first chapter. Carter dwells on his biblical affiliation with Jerusalem and dedicates considerable space to narrating his impressions of the first trip he made to the holy sites in Palestine in the early 1970s. By the end of the chapter, the average American reader imbued with a Judeo-Christian affinity with Palestine as a holy land has warmed to Carter and is indeed ready to receive what the following chapters have to say.
The realities of living under occupation in Palestine come in a flashing sequence of simple narrative: Truckloads of Palestinian oranges held by the Israeli army till they rot and their owner matter-of-factly giving away the spoilt fruit as livestock feed; a family describing to the author how their home was demolished by Israeli bulldozers and dynamite; doctors pointing at idle ambulances donated by the European Union, left to bask in the sun, denied a license... Some of the most powerful pages describe the voting process in East Jerusalem and the systematic intimidating measures imposed by Israeli authorities on the voters. And even though Carter, who was an observer to the elections in 2006, hails the clean elections leading to Hamas's victory, he does not hide his condemnation of the suicide bombing policy of the movement. Nevertheless, the author painstakingly delineates why some Palestinians may consider this as an option to resist occupation.
Likewise, settlements in the reader's psyche change from being leafy compounds perched on hills, welcoming New Yorkers wishing to fulfil their dreams of living in the Holy Land, to an image of how the West Bank is sliced into three Bantustan-like parts where 200 Jewish-only settlements are mostly erected on confiscated Palestinian land. For the safety and convenience of some 187,000 settlers, about 2,460,000 Palestinians suffer considerable restriction of movement imposed by a rigid permit system enforced through 520 checkpoints and roadblocks
Interestingly, the many reviews flooding the world press have either emphasised the truth of the grim situation of occupation in Palestine or Carter's "biased" position towards Palestinians. None or few have dwelt on the peace blueprint Carter proposes. Several observations are noteworthy in this regard. From the very beginning Carter emphasises international law as a basis for solving the conflict. Yet he fails to explain what international law is in more concrete terms, letting it span a wide variety of norms, principles and issues ranging from relevant United Nations resolutions to state responsibility to reparations to self-determination -- to name just a few. Carter also declares a penchant for Security Council resolution 242 of 1967 and stays mute on General Assembly resolution 194 of 1948. One of the reasons for this may be to avoid delving into the Palestinian refugee problem. With one out of three refugees in the world Palestinian, Carter may have deemed it easier to avoid discussing resolution 194, calling for the right of return, compensation and restitution of property. In fact, the refugee problem is so strikingly trivialised throughout the book that it is almost unperceived and one wonders how peace can be discussed without a mention of the fate of over five million Palestinian refugees.
From another perspective, the only US president to have succeeded in brokering a peace agreement within the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict offers surprisingly little on his insights into bridging gaps between conflicting parties. We are told nothing about the lessons learnt from negotiating Camp David between Egypt and Israel in 1978. Nor do we find resonance of the wealth of experience accumulated throughout the presidency of a superpower and a conflict-resolution centre dealing with conflicts throughout the globe.
Palestine Peace Not Apartheid is not an authoritative analytical view of the conflict, nor is it innovative regarding its resolution. What Carter succeeds in doing is shake up Americans slumbering under George Bush's interpretation of the world and a media confusing its readers over who is fighting over what in Palestine. More importantly, for the many who have not read the book, debating the realities of the Israeli occupation of Palestine is very much on the menu of the written and visual media. Jimmy Carter is indeed paying tribute to the Holy Land.
* The writer is a lecturer in political science at the British University in Egypt. She specialises in the field of reparations and historical injustice, Palestinian refugees, displacement and the Arab-Israeli conflict
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