Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid-by Jimmy Carter

The most significant thing you can say about this book is that it is one of a 1000 extremely boring and tedious accounts of Middle Eastern History. The justification Carter uses to turn what should have been a 500 word essay containing new insights about the Middle East into a 250 page book is, "it helps to know the history." So if you don't know the history or want to refresh your memory of it , then perhaps this book is as good as most, but no better.

But, there is one highly unique thing about this book, i.e., Carter's extreme prejudice against the way Israel has treated and is treating the Palestinians. Carter is virtually the only person in America to side with the Palestinians, and certainly the most important person to side with them. Those 10 pages tacked on at the end do stand out, but then again, by now, most Americans have heard and absolutely ignored the stories about occupation, walls, and checkpoints. Carter's decency and humanity is beyond question so you have to believe that his complete failure to mention that an average Palestinian is by this time a half crazed, psychotic, suicide bomber, is committed not because he believes it to be true (one hopes), but merely to provide a balance, albeit a manipulative one, that is, indeed, sorely missing in American perceptions.

Carter simplistically blames this lack of balance on the Jewish lobby, which is in part true, but that does not to account for why the Jewish lobby is not equally effective everywhere in the world. One would think the strength of the Jewish lobby here is caused by America's deeper guilt over the holocaust. In fact, our superior but sometimes irrational character (based on bringing the freedom and police protection the world currently enjoys) makes us feel worse about the Holocaust we stopped, than the Europeans, for example, feel about the Holocaust they started.

In the end Carter's book is intellectually mostly irrelevant, despite high sales, because no peace plan is presented. Carter merely proposes that the two parties talk and agree on the same old two state solution. This approach is maddeningly idiotic and, in fact, has failed since 1948. It is that failure which was principally responsible for 9/11, the war on terror, Iraq, and now Iran.

To solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict , the US must finally take a moral position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, i.e.,two states divided at the '67 borders or no more weapons for Israel. The notion that we can merely assuage our guilt about anti-semitism by blindly giving Israel weapons with which to brutalize the Palestinians and expand its territory is purely immoral. Then, we must internationalize the conflict by insisting the world defend the internationally recognized, UN decreed, '67 borders, and aid the Palestinians, or, forever shut up and stay out of the matter in all ways. Only then will the tumor at the source of the world's most pressing problems be destroyed. This may not take care of the metastatic growths that have now spread far beyond the original tumor site but it would be our first giant step toward putting things back in a moral order that we are largely responsible for having destroyed.

Ted Baiamonte
bje1000@aol.com
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