Carter Counteracts the Lobby

Those of us who have been paying attention and doing our homework know that the core cause of Muslim anti-American hatred, which became manifest on 9/11, is Israel's occupation of Palestine. (See previous blogs "Why They Hate Us" Parts 1-4, January 5-8, 2006) Of course, the Israel Lobby would have us believe that Muslims blow themselves up in order to convert us to Islam---hardly a persuasive form of religious advertising. Although the rest of the world is well aware of the tragic circumstances of the Palestinian people, Americans are kept in the dark by the Israel Lobby-controlled media, while the Lobby is busily re-writing history. In his new book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid," President Jimmy Carter sets the record straight. For instance, on page xiii. there is a hard-to-find map of the 1947 UN partition of Palestine. "A Jewish state was to include 55 percent of this territory, Jerusalem and Bethlehem were to be internationalized as holy sites, and the remainder of the land was to constitute an Arab state." (p. 57) Yet Israel today occupies all the land and won't even relinquish 22% (the 1967 border) for a Palestinian state. Another little known fact in the US is the fact that President Carter's 1978 peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel included Israel's promise to withdraw from occupied territory. "It is to be remembered that the Camp David Accords, signed by [Egypt's President] Sadat and [Israel's Prime Minister] Begin and officially ratified by both governments, reconfirmed a specific commitment to honor U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, which prohibit acquisition of land by force and call for Israel's withdrawal from occupied territories." (p. 48) Also, Carter debunks Lobby myths surrounding Palestinian President Arafat's peace negotiations in 2000. The Lobby's main talking point is that Arafat turned down a wonderful deal. Carter describes the offer "This honeycomb of [Israeli] settlements and their interconnecting conduits effectively divide the West Bank into at least two noncontiguous areas and multiple fragments, often uninhabitable or even unreachable.." (p.151) "There was no possibility that any Palestinian leader could accept such terms and survive, but official statements from Washington and Jerusalem were successful in placing the entire onus for the failure on YassirArafat." (p.152) "...it was later claimed that the Palestinians rejected a 'generous offer' [at Taba] put forward by Prime Minister Barak with Israel keeping only 5 percent of the West Bank. The fact is that no such offers were ever made." (p.152) Speaking with David Shuster (11/28/06) on MSNBC's "Hardball," President Carter said, "There is no doubt that within the occupied territories, Palestinian land, that there is a horrendous example of apartheid." "The persecution of the Palestinians now in the occupied territories, under occupied forces, is one of the worst examples of human rights deprivation that I know."

Israel is the Issue

Recently, Egyptian officials, conferring with Secretary of State Rice, issued a "plea to promote Palestinian statehood to calm the Mideast." (New York Times 10/22/06) Similarly, world leaders, meeting in Turkey, announced an Alliance of Civilizations Initiative whose aim is to resolve the conflict between the Muslim world and the West. The New York Times reported that at the meeting, the "Israel-Palestinian conflict is seen as the key source of division." (New York Times 11/14/06) In London the same day, British Prime Minister Tony Blair delivered a major foreign policy address: "Mr. Blair called a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians 'the core' of the broader effort for peace." (New York Times 11/14/06) The following day, the Iraq Study Group interviewed Prime Minister Blair by video link. According to a British official, "The prime minister told the panel that the key to the region's problems was a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians." (New York Times 11/15/06) On ABC's "The Week with George Stephanopoulos" (11/26/06) , King Abdullah II of Jordan, echoing these sentiments, stated, "We do want to concentrate ourselves on the core issues which we believe are the Palestinians and the Palestinian peace process because that is a must today." "The issue is we have not been able to deal with the core problems of the Middle East." "For the majority of us living in this part of the world, it has always been the Israeli/Palestinian, Israeli/Arab problem." "the priority I believe today in the long term is the Israeli/Palestinian one because it resonates beyond the borders of the Arab and Muslim world." "it is still the emotional core issue for our part of the world." "the emotional impact that the Israeli/Palestinian problem has on the ground can be translated to the insecurity and the frustrations throughout the Middle East and Arab world. For me, that is the priority."

The Great Debate, Part 4

Continuing his response to the question from the audience about 9/11, Professor Mearsheimer stated, "The whole subject of the relationship of our policy towards Israel and the Palestinians and how that influenced the events of 9/11 is a subject---as the woman indicated---that simply can't be discussed in the mainstream media in the United States." Ira Stoll (The New York Sun, 9/29/06) attempted to refute Mearsheimer's statement by writing, "He appeared to have forgotten the article that ran on September 20, 2001 on the op-ed of the largest circulation American newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, that began with the sentence: 'Is American support of Israel behind the hatred of this country that pervades the Arab world and that literally exploded into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11?' " Ira Stoll neglected to mention that this article was written by Norman Podhoretz. In his essay "Whose War?" ("The American Conservative" 3/24/03), Patrick Buchanan described Norman Podhoretz as "editor emeritus of 'Commentary,' whose magazine has for decades branded critics of Israel as anti-Semites." Not surprisingly, the title of Podhoretz's article is "Israel Isn't the Issue."