Introducing Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid


Zahir Ebrahim
March 26, 2007


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Document ID: PHBFZE20070326 URL:  http://www.humanbeingsfirst.org Discussion Space:  http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com

[A shorter version of this analysis appears in the footnotes of the essay "The endless trail of red herrings"]


I excitedly purchased the distinguished former American president Jimmy Carter's new book "Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid" and put it on my bookshelf to read the moment I got the chance. Alas, this book will now surely always sit there gathering dust and unread, because before I could get to it, I read the following account in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about this book that greatly disturbed me. A new red herring has been cleverly introduced into the discourse space, albeit enlarging it somewhat, but not sufficiently for me to waste my time chasing down yet another distinguished red herring. Please permit me to humbly elaborate briefly. A more detailed analysis of the subject matter may be gleaned in my essay "The endless trail of red herrings".

I have humbly constructed an "Open Letter to President Jimmy Carter" seeking his compelling and erudite elaboration on the questions raised here. I pray that he generously responds to this rather ordinary plebeian's plea for clarification so that I can be freed to take his book off my bookshelf to read as excitedly as when I first purchased it. Else it shall await a "Robert Jackson" (as noted in my "Open Letter to Amnesty International, USA"), perhaps long after my short sojourn in this world is over, but surely, he shall come! That is the hope, and indeed the prayer of all peoples who have ever experienced the largesses and munificences of any pirate, and any emperor!

Before I delve into the account of the Israeli newspaper, please allow me to call upon the great Christian Saint who explained the "pirate and emperor" metaphor for the benefit of all humanity in the 4th century AD, in the following way:

“When the King asked him what he meant by infesting the sea, the pirate defiantly replied: 'the same as you do when you infest the whole world; but because I do it with a little ship I am called a robber, and because you do it with a great fleet, you are an emperor.' ” (St. Augustine in his magnum opus “The City of God against the Pagans”, Page 148).


Well let's witness where the former American President Jimmy Carter stands on pirates and emperors. In his speech at George Washington University, as reported by the Associated Press and carried by Israeli newspaper Haaretz at  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/834962.html, he noted:

'He said he was not accusing Israel of racism nor referring to its treatment of Arabs within the country. "I defined apartheid very carefully as the forced segregation by one people of another on their own land," he said. ...

On the West Bank, Carter said, Palestinians were victims of oppression, their homes and land confiscated to make way for subsidized Israeli settlers.

"The life of Palestinians is almost intolerable," he said. "And even though Israel agreed to give up Gaza and remove Jewish settlers from the territory, there is no freedom for the people of Gaza and no access to the outside world."

"They have no real freedom of all," Carter said.

By apartheid, Carter said he meant the forced segregation of one people by another. He said Israel's policies in the territories are contrary to the tenets of the Jewish faith.

"There will be no peace until Israel agrees to withdraw from all occupied Palestinian territory," he said, while leaving room for some land swaps that would permit Jews to remain on part of the West Bank in exchange for other Israeli-held land to be taken over by Palestinians.

"Withdrawal would dramatically reduce any threat to Israel," he said.'


The distinguished former President noted the definition of "all occupied Palestinian territory" very carefully suggesting that 'he was not accusing Israel of racism nor referring to its treatment of Arabs within the country. "I defined apartheid very carefully as the forced segregation by one people of another on their own land," he said'.

This might be forgivable oversight of failing memory for today's younger generation or even lack of geography knowledge for an ordinary American, but for a 39th former president of a lone superpower nation who is also a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and who dares to speak out serendipitously in favor of a beleaguered peoples, but only goes part of the way as if some enormous invisible barrier is blocking him, it is entirely inexplicable, and very troublesome.

Perhaps despite being a president who once had all the secrets of the State (and the world) at his finger tips, he hadn't rightly been informed by the '14 members of the Carter Center's advisory board' who resigned to protest his book, or by the 'Jewish groups and some fellow Democrats' from whom he 'drew fire', of the Jews own history of laments of the type disclosed in this essay, including this very poignant one:

"The state of Israel founded in 1948 following a war which the Israelis call the War of Independence, and the Palestinians call the Nakba - the catastrophe. A haunted, persecuted people sought to find a shelter and a state for itself, and did so at a horrible price to another people. During the war of 1948, more than half of the Palestinian population at the time - 1,380,000 people - were driven off their homeland by the Israeli army. Though Israel officially claimed that a majority of refugees fled and were not expelled, it still refused to allow them to return, as a UN resolution demanded shortly after 1948 war. Thus, the Israeli land was obtained through ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants. This is not a process unfamiliar in history. Israel's actions remain incomparable to the massive ethnic cleansing of Native Americans by the settlers and government of the United states. Had Israel stopped there, in 1948, I could probably live with it. As an Israeli, I grew up believing that this primal sin our state was founded on may be forgiven one day, because the founder's generation was driven by the faith that this was the only way to save the Jewish people from the danger of another holocaust." (Tanya Reinhart: “Israel/Palestine - How to End the War of 1948”, excerpt from very first page)


It is incredulously bizarre that President Carter should so circumspectly state that 'He said he was not accusing Israel of racism nor referring to its treatment of Arabs within the country.' Not possessing the distinguished credentials of being a former President of the lone superpower country in the universe, and not having won any Nobel Peace prizes either, I must confess I cannot understand the tepidity or wisdom of President Carter. As a mere plebeian, I must rather straightforwardly ask him and the reader, why? Why is Jimmy Carter not accusing Israel of racism, nor referring to her treatment of Arabs within the country?


Please continue reading at  http://www.humanbeingsfirst.org URL:  http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2007/03/introducing-palestine-peacenotapartheid.html


Thank you.

Zahir.