Hampton Roads Publishing Company Blog

I already published one article about the Brandeis confrontation, but this, from The Jewish Week, is also interesting. http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=13589

Carter Faces, And Disarms, Jewish Crowd

Dershowitz scores some points but former president earns respect with apology on book passage.

Larry Cohler-Esses - Editor At Large

Waltham, Mass. — Former President Jimmy Carter entered the lion’s den Tuesday — and emerged with two standing ovations.

Critics could carp that this was, at least in part, because the lion — in the form of Harvard law professor and Carter antagonist Alan Dershowitz — was barred from entering the den until he left. Carter declined a suggested debate format with Dershowitz for his landmark appearance at Brandeis University to defend his controversial new book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”

But for a little over one hour, Carter, under bitter attack for his criticisms of Israel in the book, spoke and took pointed questions in a converted gym from students who aspired to leonine aggressiveness in their own queries.

The former naval officer’s steady demeanor; clear message of support for Israel’s legitimacy and for a peaceful two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; his eloquent description of the oppressive conditions the Israelis have imposed on many aspects of life for the Palestinians; and the student body’s clear excitement at having a former president in their midst won him the audience’s good will, at the very least.

“I am familiar with the harsh rhetoric and extreme acts of violence that have been perpetrated against innocent civilians, and the fear this has generated among Israelis,” he assured his audience. But he stressed: “Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighbor’s land and give Palestinians their full rights.”

It was left for Dershowitz, in an appearance following the former president’s, to pick apart some of Carter’s arguments and warn against his plea that Israel’s agreement to withdraw from the occupied West Bank was the sure key to peace.

“He makes it sound so simple,” said Dershowitz. “You just give back the land, and peace will follow. Tell that to the residents of Sderot!”

Dershowitz referred to the Israeli town near the Gaza border that has suffered continued rocket attacks launched by Palestinian militants despite Israel’s withdrawal of military forces and dismantlement of settlements in that territory in 2005.

Carter disarmed the crowd, in part, by his willingness to listen carefully to questions — and at one key point, admit error. Asked if he was justifying terrorism in a passage in the book calling on Palestinians to cease terrorist attacks “if” the Israelis agree to abide by international law, Carter said: “That sentence was worded in a completely improper and stupid way. I apologize to everyone here. Throughout the rest of the book I call on all Palestinians and Israelis to terminate violence against civilians.” He promised subsequent editions would be changed.

The fact that no debate took place did not prevent each side from trying to score debating points. Carter repeatedly touted a 2002 Saudi peace proposal unanimously supported by the 22 countries of the Arab League. The plan, he noted, offered Israel “full recognition based on Israel’s return to internationally recognized borders” — the so-called Green Line separating Israel from the territory it won in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Dershowitz slammed Carter for omitting any mention that this plan also calls for the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel — a return that, if fully implemented, would turn Jews into a minority in Israel. He failed to note Saudi hints that a full refugee return might not be required, and that the plan does not do so.

Dershowitz also criticized Carter for failing to note Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat’s rejection of peace proposals put forward by President Bill Clinton in 2000 that would have given the Palestinians 97 percent of the West Bank, and land compensation for the rest to provide a contiguous viable state. The Palestinians would also have gotten all of the Gaza Strip and $30 billion in U.S. aid to repatriate Palestinians in those territories rather than Israel.

“I think he’s become an advocate for the maximalist Palestinian view,” Dershowitz said.

Carter’s omission of the Arab plan’s refugee provision did, indeed, leave his audience with a limited understanding of the hurdles to peace, and who was to blame for them. But Dershowitz omitted any mention of how Israeli leaders themselves, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, have recently played up the Saudi plan favorably, stressing the value of its willingness to establish full relations with Israel.

Dershowitz’s account of Arafat’s “rejection” of Clinton’s 2000 proposals also ignored important nuances — such as the subsequent negotiations that took place in Taba between the Palestinians and Israelis in which these “Clinton parameters” were the accepted framework.

Indeed, Dershowitz incorrectly charged the Palestinians had rejected the “Taba talks.” In fact, both sides then praised the negotiations as serious and described the gaps as narrow. But time ran out when Israel’s dovish government under Prime Minister Ehud Barak was ousted in elections by the hawkish Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon — in no small part due to the beginning of the second intifada that Arafat made little attempt to stop after Sharon visited the sensitive Al-Aksa Mosque area of the Temple Mount.

Carter, on the other hand, several times cited a Truman Institute poll that, he said, showed huge majorities of Palestinians and Israelis backed a peace based on Israeli withdrawal to the Green Line, “with modifications.”

The December poll actually reported a majority on each side simply favored a “comprehensive agreement” over an interim agreement. Support for the peace plan Carter touted was much less.

Perhaps nothing has inflamed Jewish public opinion against Carter’s book —which remains on the New York Times bestseller list — than its title. In interviews with students before the event, many knew little more about the tome than its name. But Carter staunchly defended his use of the word “apartheid.”

“I realize [it] has caused great concern in the Jewish community,” Carter said. He stressed—and said the title made clear—that the term applied only to Israeli policies of “separation and domination” in the occupied territories, not to Israel proper. The policy was “not based on race” but on Israel’s determination to control a hostile population while occupying its territory, he added. Therefore, the title “should give no aid or comfort to those who try to equate Zionism with racism,” he said.

Carter pointed, among other things, to an estimated 500 military checkpoints for Palestinians traveling in the West Bank while Israelis speed through the territory on a “spider web” of roads built for their exclusive use. He cited prominent Israeli public figures and institutions that have used the word to describe Israel’s policies “in much harsher terms than I,” such as former cabinet minister Shulamit Aloni, the newspaper Haaretz and the human rights group B’tselem. He pointed to Israel’s appropriation of scarce West Bank water resources for itself, along with “choice hilltops” and other valuable land for settlements.

But asked by one student if, as a diplomatic matter, his title did not merely inflame public opinion and thus make an agreement harder to advance, he replied, “Yes, I can certainly see that as a possibility. … I’m deeply concerned about the possible consequences.” But he added, there have in any event been no peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians for more than five years — thanks, in part to U.S. abdication.

“I chose the title knowing it would provoke people,” he said. “But in the long run it has advanced the discussion and highlighted the lack of peace for Israel and lack of relief for Palestinians,” said Carter.

“I’ve been hurt — and so has my family — by some of the reaction,” Carter said. “It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever been called a liar. A bigot. An anti-Semite. A coward. A plagiarist.”

He paused after each epithet. “This has hurt,” he said.

He cited some of his prominent Jewish friends and colleagues, such as Stuart Eizenstat and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. “I don’t think they would agree” with the epithets, he said.

But the Camp David experience and its aftermath seemed a key to understanding his judgment laying the bulk of responsibility for the failure to achieve peace on Israel. It was in those negotiations, he said, that Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin agreed to grant the Palestinians “full autonomy” — Begin’s insisted on inserting “full,” he said — specifically including Israel’s “military and economic withdrawal” from the occupied territories. Instead, Israel proceeded to establish new settlements, breaking a pledge from Begin to freeze such expansions, he said.