Abrams vs. Carter
Elliott Abrams is taking exception to Jimmy Carter's prescription for progress in the Middle East.
In an op-ed in the Washington Post over the weekend, Carter -- just back from a Middle East trip with "The Elders" -- said freezing settlements was "the key" to a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians:
During the past 16 months I have visited the Middle East four times and met with leaders in Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza. I was in Damascus when President Obama made his historic speech in Cairo, which raised high hopes among the more-optimistic Israelis and Palestinians, who recognize that his insistence on a total freeze of settlement expansion is the key to any acceptable peace agreement or any positive responses toward Israel from Arab nations. ...
We found a growing sense of concern and despair among those who observe, as we did, that settlement expansion is continuing apace, rapidly encroaching into Palestinian villages, hilltops, grazing lands, farming areas and olive groves. There are more than 200 of these settlements in the West Bank.
An even more disturbing expansion is taking place in Palestinian East Jerusalem. Three months ago I visited a family who had lived for four generations in their small, recently condemned home. They were laboring to destroy it themselves to avoid much higher costs if Israeli contractors carried out the demolition order. On Aug. 27, we Elders took a gift of food to 18 members of the Hanoun family, recently evicted from their home of 65 years. The Hanouns, including six children, are living on the street, while Israeli settlers have moved into their confiscated dwelling.
Daily, headlines in Jerusalem newspapers say that certain areas and types of construction would be excluded from the settlement freeze and that it would, at best, have a limited duration. Increasingly desperate Palestinians see little prospect of their plight being alleviated; political, business and academic leaders are making contingency plans should President Obama's efforts fail.
Former Bush administration official Abrams responds in Tuesday's Post that Carter is ignoring reality:
Carter claims that the expansion of Israeli settlements is "rapidly" taking Palestinian land. Yet four years ago Israel gave up the Gaza Strip and all the settlements there (plus four small West Bank settlements); moreover, Carter presents no data suggesting that Israel's West Bank settlements are actually expanding physically. Their population is growing, but new construction is almost all "up and in," meaning that the impact on Palestinians is limited -- and that the picture Carter paints of a rapidly disappearing Palestine is inaccurate.
Most inaccurate of all, and most bizarre, is Carter's claim that "a total freeze of settlement expansion is the key" to a peace agreement. Not a halt to terrorism, not the building of Palestinian institutions, not the rule of law in the West Bank, not the end of Hamas rule in Gaza -- no, the sole "key" is Israeli settlements. Such a conclusion fits with Carter's general approach, in which there are no real Palestinians, just victims of Israel. The century of struggle between moderate and radical Palestinians, and the victories of terrorists from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat, are forgotten; the Hamas coup in Gaza is unmentioned; indeed the words "Hamas" and "terrorism" do not appear in Carter's column. Instead of appealing for support for the serious and practical work of institution-building that the Palestinian Authority has begun, Carter fantasizes about a "nonviolent civil rights struggle" that bears no relationship to the terrorist violence that has plagued Palestinian society, and killed Israelis, for decades. Carter's portrait demonizes Israelis and, not coincidentally, it infantilizes Palestinians, who are accorded no real responsibility for their fate or future. If this is "the Elders' view of the Middle East," we and our friends in that region are fortunate that this group of former officials is no longer in power.
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Additionally, the demand that Israel do this or that when the Muslims have initiated pre-requisite regarding land return that includes land that was never “theirs” in the first place...and in some cases includes land that originally was Israeli as per the UN declaration...example the Mount of Olives where Jews had burial sites and Synogogues that were destroyed. In some cases, like the Mount were never Muslim but were to be considered International land but taken over by Jordan and isolated from the Jews even though they included the holiest of holy Jewish sites, including the Western Wall.
I guess this means nothing to Carter. He’s still trying to make up for all his errors during his Presidency...the errors that made Iran our enemy because he was a diplomatic idiot.
If somebody is mentioning “shmucks”, look at Carter, the Elders and their friends
a la David Ehrens. Carter was and remained a Jew-hater and Abrams is one of
the most decent men and a real friend of Israel.
The settlements “issue” is simply b.s. It is, at best, an issue of tertiary importance.
First, there has to be recognition. Not as a “reward”, but as a precondition to any further negotiations. The Palestinians have got to recognize Israel as the home of the Jewish people. This should be considered no more controversial or remarkable than Russian recognizing Poland as a Polish state, or Turkey recognizing Greece as a Greek state (which were both contentious issues in their day, by the way).
Abbas says that it is “not his job” to define the character of Israel, but this is transparent sophistry. The Palestinian Charter very much makes it the business of Palestinians to define the character of Israel in the negative - i.e., as being illegitimate. Arafat himself promised to amend the Palestinian Charter accordingly back at Oslo in ‘93, but predictably, he reneged.
If this is not corrected, any settlement reached between Israel and the PA will be completely worthless. When the PA starts another intifada, flouting whatever agreement was made, they will be able to argue that they cannot be held to the terms of an agreement with an illegitimate entity.
Once there is recognition, then two political entities that recognize the legitimacy of the other can set mutually recognized borders between them. THEN, it can be determined what settlements are “illegal” and which are not.
None of this is ever going to happen, of course. The PA is the direct descendant of the PLO, which was formed with the express purpose of destroying Israel. The only “peace” they are interested in is one that allows them to build their state on the wreckage of an existing state, Israel. As long as the PA refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Israel and her supporters should refuse to recognize the PA as the legitimate representatives of Palestinian national aspirations. Following from this, given that Jordan - part of the original Mandate of Palestine - has a majority Palestinian population in any event, it should be Jordan that should be treated as the true Palestinian homeland.
Why not? After all, isn’t the principle of ‘majority rule’ the main argument advanced for Palestinian sovereignty over the West Bank? So then, why is this very same principle to be utterly ignored right next door in Jordan? Because we might “offend” the Jordanian monarchy? The same government that produces border guards that shoot Jewish schoolgirls? The same U.S. “ally” who tacitly supported Saddam back in ‘91, and even when they let us use one of their air bases in ‘03, couldn’t gaurantee the safety of our airmen from sniper fire? Who is a major source of the “foreign fighters” we are always hearing about in Iraq and Afghanistan? Some “friends” they are....
There is only going to be something resembling a lasting peace when: 1. The U.S. treats and supports Israel like the ally she is - on a par with say, South Korea - rather than caving into the Saudi-backed Arabists and treating her like a “problem”, as is the case with Obama today to a greater degree than ever before. 2. The Hashemite monarchy is induced to accept a ceremonial role, and a democratic Palestinian state is allowed to emerge in that country. 3. The West Bank is divided between Israel and Palestinian Jordan, but remains a demilitarized zone a la Sinai. 4. Gaza returns to Egyptian control; they created the mess there, they can clean it up.
Some might object to my program outlined above by saying that “Jordan doesn’t want to do this” or “Egypt doesn’t want to do that”...Well, it seems there is no shortage of advice out there askiing - nay, DEMANDING - that the U.S. pressure Israel into doing all sorts of things THEY don’t want to do (and shouldn’t be asked to do; e.g., giving up East Jerusalem). Funny how this principle of “tough love” among allies we see often invoked of late with respect to the American-Israeli relatiionship is never applied to the U.S. - Arab relationship.
A View of the Elders’ View of the Middle East
Jonathan Feldstein
It’s the ultimate of ironies sitting in Jerusalem reading Jimmy Carter’s latest anti-Israel scourge, “The Elders’ View of the Middle East,” and on the same day, in the same newspaper (the Jerusalem Post), a front page report of a Gaza based, Al Qaida affiliated terrorist admitting that they attempted to assassinate Carter and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
It’s one thing for Carter to use the pulpit of Op Ed pages of the world to espouse his bias against Israel. It’s quite another when he resorts to lies, as is his all too frequent MO, to distort reality which ultimately promotes terrorism and brings the Middle East further from peace.
Carter states that Gaza is a “walled in ghetto.” Really? What vivid imagery. He must be referring to the walled in ghettos that kept Jews apart from their neighbors, or as a means to kill them easier, that was the standard for centuries. Where’s the wall? A border fence exists to keep would be Palestinian terrorist infiltrators from crossing into Israel via land, despite their proclivity to fire thousands of rockets above the ground and tunnel under ground on both sides of the border. And while Carter decries preventing things like fertilizer from crossing the border from Israel into Gaza, things that can be used to create more explosives, he seemed to overlook the fact that these Palestinian tunnels from Gaza have been used both to smuggle weapons and other illicit materials, as well as to traffic in humans and also to kidnap Israelis. Perhaps the “Elders” blinked and missed this.
Carter cries for the Palestinians of Gaza who “cannot produce their own food” but he and the “Elders” must have missed it when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leaving behind numerous greenhouses and the infrastructure not just to produce food, but the foundation of an independent economy. And he and the “Elders” probably did not see these because the Palestinians rioted, looted, and burned these greenhouses that were paid for by foreign donors, and ungraciously destroyed them leaving no trace in the wake of Israel’s leaving them behind intact.
Cater and the “Elders” viewed Israeli news headlines that spoke of the conditions of freezing growth of existing communities and neighborhoods over the Green Line, and he is critical of the terms being proposed. But, as the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. Carter and the “Elders” must have been elsewhere or otherwise occupied a few weeks earlier trying to solve other world problems when the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah sat in Bethlehem and renewed their demands which simply echoed voices of terrorists past, including “armed struggle,” aka suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism. Of course, had Carter, and presumably the rest of the “Elders,” seen this they’d not have blinked because Carter even endorsed Palestinian terrorism himself in a recent books by suggesting that Palestinians only had to end their armed struggle after Israel capitulated to all their demands.
Another statement which goes beyond Carter’s tendency to twist reality and omit critical facts is his statement that it is “obviously the goal of Israeli leaders” to create one state. It’s almost comical to know which “Israeli leaders” Carter and the “Elders” saw who stated this because Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have adopted a two state solution, as have recent past Prime Ministers Olmert, Barak, Peres and Rabin. Perhaps Carter and the “Elders” had an intimate meeting with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who lies unconscious in a Tel Aviv hospital. Perhaps, when asking Sharon if he supports a two state solution, they must have seen him blink once, and interpreted it as his support for a one state solution.
Not to be outdone, fellow “Elder” Desmond Tutu had the audacity to suggest that what he viewed was that the Palestinians have become the second victims of the Holocaust. In addition to being a gross affront to the memory of six million Jews who were mass murdered by the Nazis and their followers, Tutu’s observation suggests that Israel only has legitimacy because of the Holocaust. ‘Poor Palestinians,’ he suggests. ‘If only the Jews were not murdered in the Holocaust, you’d all be living peacefully in your own Judenrein country because the Jews would have stayed in Europe.’ How ironic. How offensive.
For a few years two decades ago, I had the opportunity as a student at Emory University to hear Carter lecture many times. His anti Israel bias was clear then and has grown faster than the interest rates the US suffered under his one term presidency.
He ends his article with an observation about a Palestinian and Israel community which have worked hand in hand to protect their shared valley. His suggestion is that if only everyone would follow this model, we’d have peace.
I’d suggest Carter and the “Elders” consider two other facts. First, is that as long as there are fanatic hate bent terrorist groups and people who support their ideology, like the very group that just admitted to having tried to assassinate Carter himself, there can be no peace. It’s not about territory for them; it’s about accepting Jewish sovereignty, or presence at all, in what they view as their land. Second, Carter and the “Elders” would do well to stop blaming the victims, and be honest about the facts. Short of that, Carter and the “Elders” views’ just come across as a new Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and that just leads to more hatred, terror and brings us further from peace for which we pray.
Considering the endless stream of Jew hating lies and slander which flow ad nauseaum from DE, if he wants to see a real shmuck he should simply look in the mirror! Anti-Semites like Carter and DE are truly bottomfeeding pond scum!
Jimmy Carter is irrelevant. His perceptions are his realities, and they are wrong. There was a time in the history of Jewish survival that some of them began worrying more about the freedom, happiness, and well-being of others in the belief that by doing so, the world would extend that same benefit to the Jews. Some of them became socialists, or communists, and believed that once the masses gained power, the Jews would no longer be singled out for abuse. Stalin put the lie to that notion. And, Marx—the quintessential self-hating Jew—set the stage for it by his own vilification of Judaism and Jews. Jews once were liberals, disproportionately standing shoulder-to-shoulder with African Americans in pursuit of their rights and freedoms. But only by insisting on Jews’ own rights and freedoms are they able to be of help. Insisting upon the freedom of others while ignoring the double-standard by which the world views Israel will eventually leave Israel and Jews like the cobbler’s children - barefoot in a world of other people whose feet are well covered.
What Carter Missed in the Middle East - Elliot Abrams
Washington Post 08 September 09
In an op-ed on Sunday ["The Elders’ View of the Middle East"], former president Jimmy Carter, speaking on behalf of a self-appointed group of “Elders,” described a rapacious Israel facing long-suffering, blameless Palestinians, who are contemplating a “nonviolent civil rights struggle” in which “their examples would be Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.”
http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-carter-missed-in-middle-east.html#links
also: http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com/2009/09/despair-indeed.html#links
President Carter has not learned a single lesson yet. He is the primary cause of upheaval in the current Middle East. His misguided and naiive policies gave rise to the Mullahs in Iran and their support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizbollah. Despite many books written and proven documentation of negative and harmful effects of his policies in the Middle East, he continues to push for his failed and misguided agenda, I guess some never learn.
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David
09/08/09 09:54 AM
Abrams certainly has his neoconservative bona fides, being a member of the AJC, the Heritage foundation, the Project for a New American Century, various Contra groups, and all—not to mention his criminal convictions for deceiving Congress and being an all-round shmuck. I guess we can echo Abram’s snide remark that the Elders are no longer in power with our own gratitude that Abrams isn’t either.