May 18 , 2012

Jimmy Carter Exposes Oppression & Apartheid

The latest book -‘Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid’- of former President, Jimmy Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, the architect of Camp David accords, with a personal interest in the holy land (being a bible teacher), and whose knowledge of its people and problems gained through several visits, intense studies and personal monitoring of all elections since early 1970s, excoriates the segregation imposed on the Palestinians in West Bank.

The pro-Israel lobbies in the US have created a well-orchestrated din of condemnation of Carter’s critique of the Middle East issue. I could not avoid gaining this impression while researching the reactions to the book. He has been labeled an anti-Semite, a biased Christian, and even a liar.

In an op-ed piece carried on December 8, 2006, by the L.A. Times and some other papers, he deplores the fact that while the issue of Palestine is intensely debated in Israel itself and almost all other countries, it is regarded as a taboo by the US media. He explains, “For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restrains on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and the absence of any significant contrary voices.”

One recalls here the findings of Prof. John Mearsheimer of Chicago University and Stephen Walt of Harvard University in their combined research paper on ‘The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy’.

“The centerpiece of US Middle East Policy”, they contend, “is the intimate relationship with Israel…the U.S. commitment to Israel is due primarily to the activities of the Israel lobby.” Prominent publishers were unwilling to accept the two professors’ research work for publication, for fear of annoying the Israeli lobbies of the US.

Similarly, media coverage was almost negligible of the report of the UN-sponsored group called the Alliance of Civilization, comprising 19 eminent academics, intellectuals and prominent officials from as many countries. They had to find ways to bridge the growing divide between Muslim and Western societies. Their consensus was that the conflict over Israel and the Palestinian territories was the central driver in global tensions. While the Jewish lobbies have been playing up Huntington’s thesis on the inevitability of a clash of civilization, this UN report challenges its validity and recommends, inter alia, that the international community prepare a white paper to analyze the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and convene an international conference to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process lying dormant for several years.

A survey by the prestigious PEW Center some time back had found that Muslim opinions about the West had worsened drastically with the Israel-Palestinian issue having become the principal fault line in the World.

Mr. Carter too pleads, like the UN report, for the renewal of the peace process and the Roadmap. A high-minded and scrupulous person, Carter has been consistent in advocating the settlement of all disputes through dialogues and abhors the route of war, which has already proved to be counterproductive in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

“The current US policy”, he wrote in his best-selling earlier work ‘Our Endangered Values’, “is threatening the effectiveness of international agreements that have been laboriously negotiated by almost all previous Presidents.” He contends that the policy of preemptive war negates international laws that we have pledged to honor. The Iraq war may have reduced the imminent threat to Israel but it is serving as an incentive to potential anti-US Jehadists by providing them with a cause. He deplores in the above-mentioned book that the US, which used to be seen as an ideal society and state in the Muslim countries is now going down in popularity. A survey carried out a few years back showed approval ratings were a mere 2 percent in Egypt, 4% in Saudi Arabia, 11 percent in Morocco, 14 percent in the UAE and 15% in Jordan.

The last two chapters of his book on Palestine carry the crux of his message. In chapter 16 “The Wall as a Prison” he contends that, in their search for security against suicide bombers’ infiltrations, Israeli leaders “are imposing a system of partial withdrawal, encapsulation, and apartheid on Muslim and Christian citizens of the occupied territories.” In July 2004, the International Court of Justice determined that “the Israeli government’s construction of the segregation wall in the occupied Palestine West Bank was illegal”.

Responding to the objections on his use of the term Apartheid to describe the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians in their own land, Mr. Carter explained in an interview with CBS: “It is based on a minority of Israelis occupying, confiscating and colonizing land that belongs to the Palestinians. When Israel does occupy this territory deep within the West Bank and connects 200 or so settlements to each other with a road and prohibits the Palestinians from using that road -in many cases even crossing the road- this perpetrates even worse instances of apartheid than we witnessed in South Africa.”

Perhaps it is not generally known that two separate road networks exist in the West Bank: one for the exclusive use of Jewish settlers, and the other for Palestinian natives. Palestinians are not allowed to drive their own cars in much of the West Bank while the Jewish settlers come and go freely in their own cars without having to pause at roadblocks that hold up the natives.

Persons of Palestinian origin are routinely barred from entering or residing in the West Bank; but Israeli and non Israeli Jews can come and go and even live in that area at their will. Although one-fifth of the population of Israel comprises Palestinians, Israel is called the state of the Jewish people.

Mr. Carter identifies the following two hurdles standing in the way of durable peace in the Middle East:

“1. Some Israelis believe they have the right to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land and try to justify the sustained subjugation and persecution of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinians: and

“2. Some Palestinians react by honoring suicide bombers as martyrs to be rewarded in heaven and consider the killing of Israelis as victories.”

For an abiding solution of the problem, he has the following suggestions to make:

a. The security of Israel must be guaranteed by all Arab and other neighbors.

b Israel must acknowledge its permanent legal boundary as laid down in UN resolution #242 and-its borders must be those that prevailed from its inception to the war in 1967.

c. The sovereignty of all Middle East nations and the sanctity of international borders must be honored.

Carter mentions two interrelated factors that have contributed to the perpetuation of violence and regional upheaval: “The condoning of illegal Israeli

actions from a submissive White House and US congress during recent years, and the deference with which other international leaders permit this unofficial policy in the Middle East to prevail.” The US has exercised more than 40 times its veto power in the UN almost always in support of Israel!

At the moment, the tendentious lobbies with the deepest pockets have succeeded in creating a furor over President Carter’s book. But, future generations will rank him with the founding fathers and other successive leaders of this great nation whose cumulative contributions have worked towards making it the sole super power now. (Repeated)