[Simon Wiesenthal Center] Criticizes President Carter's Bias Towards Israel

[furman]

http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/s/content.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=253162&ct=3281275

December 4, 2006

SWC Criticizes President Carter's Bias Towards Israel

(emphasis on original)

President Jimmy Carter achieved a historic breakthrough in 1979 that brought peace between Egypt and Israel, but since then he has emerged as a harsh critic of Israel. In his latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, he abandons all objectivity and unabashedly acts as a virtual spokesman for the Palestinian cause.

<snip>

President Carter consistently refers to polls in Israel that overwhelmingly favor a Two-State solution between Israel and the Palestinians. That is absolutely true. But what he doesn't say is that those polls are predicated on the cessation of Palestinian terrorism and the recognition of the legitimate right of Israel as a democratic and Jewish state. Palestinian terrorism continues to be a daily reality that Israelis must thwart. Hamas, which was elected to run the Palestinian Authority refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist and promotes the hatred of Jews and Judaism.

<snip>

When President Carter was in the White House, the United States could have lifted all embargoes against Cuba - a tiny island country 90 miles from Miami - but fearful of Soviet influence that could endanger the security of the United States, that embargo correctly continued. What hypocrisy for President Carter to now insist that Israel, surrounded by enemies and confronted with the daily threat of direct terror attacks on its sovereign soil, is not entitled to those same national security considerations to protect the lives of her citizens.

<snip>

President Carter blames Israel "occupation" for the failure to achieve a breakthrough in the Middle East. But his blind spot does not allow him to see what many others have long recognized, that when then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak went to Camp David and offered Yasser Arafat 95% of the West Bank, 100% of Gaza and part of the Old City of Jerusalem, along with $30 billion in compensation for Palestinian refugees, it was Arafat who rejected this guaranteed Palestinian state, instead choosing to launch the bloody Intifada.

There is no Israeli Apartheid policy and President Carter knows it.

How tragic that he has chosen to focus only on Israel's real and imagined faults. The true reason there is no peace in the Middle East is not because of any wall, it's because of Palestinian terrorism and fanaticism. Until the Palestinian people repudiate their fanatics in favor of a course of moderation there will never be peace in the Middle East.

[Tom Joad]

1. The Wiesenthal Center is biased against the Palestinian people.

It is much worse than apartheid, and they know it.

Just today:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3336785,00.html
17 homes, deemed "illegal" by Israel destroyed by the military.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Selatius]

2. What came first? The chicken or the egg?

Exchange a chicken for occupation and an egg for a suicide bomber, and the result is the answer doesn't matter because it won't make a difference on the ground.

The only thing we can do is look forward, and the simple fact of the matter is that I don't think the Likudniks or the Hamas whackjobs are going to give up their incestuous relationship of feeding off each other's militancy.

Likud and anybody attempting to justify colonialism in the West Bank are going to cry "defeatist" at anybody who seriously considers removing those settlements as apart of a comprehensive settlement of the 30+ year occupation, and Hamas won't stop shooting Qassams at Israel no matter if there is a truce or not.

[softwarevotingtrail]

3. It's all the OTHER guy's fault .... wah wah wah

Until BOTH the Palestinians AND ISRAEL assume responsibility for their individual shortcomings and past sins and work toward a common vision of peace together there will never be peace in the Middle East.

[Douglas Carpenter]

4. The Myth of the Generous Offer: Distorting the Camp David negotiations

And this is the offer Israel made at Camp David in 2000:

The Myth of the Generous Offer
Distorting the Camp David negotiations -- link: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1113

By Seth Ackerman

"The annexations and security arrangements would divide the West Bank into three disconnected cantons. In exchange for taking fertile West Bank lands that happen to contain most of the region’s scarce water aquifers, Israel offered to give up a piece of its own territory in the Negev Desert--about one-tenth the size of the land it would annex--including a former toxic waste dump.

Because of the geographic placement of Israel’s proposed West Bank annexations, Palestinians living in their new “independent state” would be forced to cross Israeli territory every time they traveled or shipped goods from one section of the West Bank to another, and Israel could close those routes at will. Israel would also retain a network of so-called “bypass roads” that would crisscross the Palestinian state while remaining sovereign Israeli territory, further dividing the West Bank.

Israel was also to have kept "security control" for an indefinite period of time over the Jordan Valley, the strip of territory that forms the border between the West Bank and neighboring Jordan. Palestine would not have free access to its own international borders with Jordan and Egypt--putting Palestinian trade, and therefore its economy, at the mercy of the Israeli military.

Had Arafat agreed to these arrangements, the Palestinians would have permanently locked in place many of the worst aspects of the very occupation they were trying to bring to an end. For at Camp David, Israel also demanded that Arafat sign an "end-of-conflict" agreement stating that the decades-old war between Israel and the Palestinians was over and waiving all further claims against Israel"

snip:"In April 2002, the countries of the Arab League--from moderate Jordan to hardline Iraq--unanimously agreed on a Saudi peace plan centering around full peace, recognition and normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders as well as a "just resolution" to the refugee issue. Palestinian negotiator Nabil Sha'ath declared himself "delighted" with the plan. "The proposal constitutes the best terms of reference for our political struggle," he told the Jordan Times (3/28/02)."

read full article:

The Myth of the Generous Offer
Distorting the Camp David negotiations -- By Seth Ackerman

link to full article:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1113

[furman]

6. This is incomplete and revisionist history

Mr. Ackerman's article is an example of how Palestinians distort facts for their propaganda campaign.

To refute the mainstream opinion of what happened at Camp David and Taba, one must contradict people
like President Clinton and Dennis Ross, the chief U.S. negotiator during the talks and author of The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace.

I suggest you read this well-sourced article offering a more accurate portrayal of history.


Camp David 2000
http://www.peacewithrealism.org/pdc/campdave.htm

One important goal of Palestinian disinformation is the rewriting of history. By saying often enough that things happened one way when they really happened another, one turns history into a propaganda tool.

<snip>

Another important one is the Camp David negotiations of 2000. It is commonly known that Yasser Arafat turned down a well-considered offer proposed by President Clinton and accepted by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak that would have created a Palestinian state. Instead of making any counter-proposal, the Palestinians launched a wave of violence that grew into a bloody terrorist war lasting now almost five years.

The great lie - The revisionist version of events - is that Arafat was justified in rejecting the proposal because it would have left him with an unviable state of disconnected "cantons" or "bantustans." This distortion of history has become a popular myth, repeated by many Palestinian sources and on many pro-Palestinian web sites. It exists today on the FAQ of the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department:

Why did the Palestinians reject the Camp David Peace Proposal?

For a true and lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, there must be two viable and independent states living as equal neighbors. Israel's Camp David proposal, which was never set forth in writing, denied the Palestinian state viability and independence by dividing Palestinian territory into four separate cantons entirely surrounded, and therefore controlled, by Israel.(3)

As will soon be demonstrated, this statement falsifies history. The reason for the falsification is clear: it is to hold the Palestinians blameless for the terrorist violence that has brutalized the Israeli civilian population over the past several years. Many of those who promote this idea would like people to believe that the Palestinians had no choice but to resort to violence, having exhausted negotiations as an option.

<snip>

The truth is that an early Israeli proposal might have been construed to specify cantons, but was far from the final proposal Israel made. However, this is the only Camp David map the Palestinians display, which constitutes a clear and blatant misrepresentation of what Israel actually offered. (One might very reasonably ask: If it was so obvious the final Israeli offer deserved rejection, then why the need to distort it?)

As negotiations progressed, the Palestinians would bargain in a manner the Israelis found troublesome. Instead of presenting proposals of their own in response to what the Israelis offered, the Palestinians, especially Arafat, would hang back and wait for Israel to make successively better offers. To be sure, the Israelis engaged in their share of foot-dragging and attempts at manipulation, par for the course in any complex negotiations. Nevertheless, the Palestinians' pattern emerged as a distinctive and consistent strategy. They would pocket Israeli concessions, wait a while, then use those concessions as a new point of departure without having produced any counter-offer. Or they might just belittle the Israeli concession and, without offering anything in return, demand the Israelis come up with something more "reasonable." In effect, they had the Israelis negotiating against themselves. Even Robert Malley, an apologist for the Palestinians, admitted these Palestinian methods and gave them a descriptive name: "Palestinian salami tactics."(8)

<snip>

[Douglas Carpenter]

7. former Israeli Foreign Minister Schlomo Ben-Ami has said that he would have rejected

the camp David offer if he had been Palestinian:

and he was a leading Israeli negotiator at Camp David:

"SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Yes, yes. Okay, the last third part of the book, as Dr. Finkelstein says, there is the diplomat, and this same diplomat still behaves in a way as a historian when he says in this book that Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well. This is something I put in the book. But Taba is the problem"

http://www.democracynow.org/finkelstein-benami.shtml

also from: Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy
by Shlomo Ben-Ami

link:

http://www.amazon.com/Scars-War-Wounds-Peace-Israeli-Arab/dp/0195181581/sr=1-1/qid=1165440413/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8701952-4352901?ie=UTF8&s=books

_____________________

however there is a possibility that a settlement came reasonably close to fruition at Taba, Egypt in January 2001. Nonetheless it would be incorrect to characterize the Palestinians as having rejected the offer at Taba since the talks ended early with the Israeli elections coming up in a couple of weeks and no final Israeli government backed offer was actually made. Mr. Barak, Israeli Prime Minister at the time, made it a point to publicly distance himself from the Taba proposals.

[msmcghee]

9. Your quote is disingenuous and misleading.

I looked at it with an open mind but was soon disappointed. The full quote including the part you omitted was,

SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Yes, yes. Okay, the last third part of the book, as Dr. Finkelstein says, there is the diplomat, and this same diplomat still behaves in a way as a historian when he says in this book that Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well. This is something I put in the book. But Taba is the problem. The Clinton parameters are the problem, because the Clinton parameters, in my view —

When he was referring to Camp David he was comparing the offers made by Israel at that point in the negotiations. He then points out that the offers made by Israel by the time of the Taba stages, which were an extension of the same Oslo Accords that Camp David was, were truly a missed opportunity. When he says, "But Taba is the Problem" - he is saying that the Taba problem was the real missed opportunity by Arafat. Your selective quote hides that entirely and tries to make the opposite meaning out of it. This is made abundantly clear in the following part of his cut-off statement.

The rest of that segement of the interview:

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Maybe you could explain to them what that is. I don't think most people will know the Clinton parameters.

SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Well, the Clinton parameters say the following. They say that on the territorial issue, the Palestinians will get 100% of Gaza, 97% of the West Bank, plus safe passage from Gaza to the West Bank to make the state viable. There will be a land swap. The 97%, which I mentioned, takes into account the land swap, where they will get 3% on this side, within the state of Israel, so we will have the blocks of settlements and they will be able to settle refugees on this side of the border.

About Jerusalem, it says what is Jewish is Israeli, and what is Palestinian is — sorry, and what is Arab is Palestinian. It includes full-fledged sovereignty for the Palestinians on Temple Mount, on the Haram al-Sharif, no sovereignty, no Jewish sovereignty on the Haram al-Sharif, which was at the time and continues to be a major, major problem for Israelis and Jews, that these things mean to them a lot. And then, with the question of refugees, it says that the refugees will return to historic Palestine, to historical Palestine, and that Israel will maintain its sovereign right of admission. That is, it will have to absorb a number of refugees but with restrictions that need to be negotiated between the parties. But the bulk of the refugees will be allowed to return to the state of Palestine. This is the essence of the Clinton parameters.

What Dr. Finkelstein said here about international law, I want to make it clear, it is important, it is vital for a civilized community of nations to have an axis of principles based on international law, around which to run the affairs of our chaotic world. It is very important. It is vital, etc. But at the same time, when you go into political issues, and you need to settle differences, historical differences, differences that have to do with political rights, security concerns, historical memories, etc., it is almost impossible to do things on the basis of international law, but rather, on something that is as close as possible to the requirements of international law. The very fact that, as Dr. Finkelstein rightly says, the Palestinians were ready to make this or that concession is the reflection of them understanding that there is no viability, there is no possibility really to reach an agreement that says let us apply automatically and rigidly the requirements of international law.

So we need to find a way. I believe, I really believe, that at Camp David, we failed to find that way. I say it very clearly in the book. It is my conviction that through the Clinton parameters, that were not the sudden whim of a lame-duck president — they were the point of equilibrium between the negotiating positions of the parties at that particular moment, and the President sort of looked for a way between the two positions and presented these parameters. They could be fine-tuned, obviously. We tried to fine tune them in Taba. We made some progress. But eventually, because of a number of reasons, among them the political qualitative time that was missing, both for the Americans and for the Israelis, and because of the consideration of Arafat that he really believed that he can get a better deal. I think that he will not get a better deal. The conditions are not there. I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future. So he lost the opportunity of having a deal that is imperfect, inevitably imperfect, will always be imperfect, because this is the way peace processes are done all over, and he sent his nation into the wilderness of war and back in the time machine to the core of the conflict. This is what we face today.

In fact, the rest of the interview pretty much destroys the whole "Canton" myth and much of the rest of the Palestinian fictions re: the negotiations repeated endlessly in this forum by you and others.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. I would suggest listening to the entirety of the debate and

taking a look at former Foreign Minister Ben-Ami's book.

He makes it quite clear that he does not fault the Palestinians for rejecting the Camp David offer. He does however fault the Palestinian team for not moving quicker after the release of the Clinton Parameters on December 23, 2000 - well after the Camp David Talks had ended. I admitted above that a peace agreement became possible at the Taba talks in January 2001 which was after the release of the Clinton Parameters on December 23rd, 2000.

Again with the Israeli talks just days away, the talks ended early without a formal offer from either side being made.


http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area=palestinian&ID=SP18401

[msmcghee]

12. This sub-thread started with a statement by you . .

. . that the generous offer at Camp David was a myth. You try to hide the fact that Israel kept offering more and ended up much further than what was offered at camp David.

That's part of the Palestinian propaganda to justify their walking away from the negotiations. They still talk of Camp David, 85% of the WB and the "Four Cantons". They don't mention Taba too much - as if the huge concessions made by Israel that eliminated the Cantons and gave them much more territory never happened. Those same misleading and historically inaccurate talking points are often quoted in this forum.

Taba, with Clinton's help, went well beyond the offers that were negotiated at Camp David - which by the end of that stage had already eliminated the Cantons. Any interest by Arafat at Taba would have been cause by all Parties to establish those agreements in writing as a workable framework to finalize as soon as practical. Arafat rejected them outright - and then later tried to establish them as a new starting point for further Israeli concessions - which he knew would not fly.

[Douglas Carpenter]

13. The Palestinians did not walk away from the Taba talks.

The Camp David talks were not acceptable. A leading Israeli negotiator and former Israeli Foreign Minister agrees.

But whatever may have occured at Taba in January 2001 after the release of the Clinton Parameters on December 23, 2000 may very well have been a step in the right direction. Under different circumstances it might have resulted in a peace agreement. I have stated a number of times on different discussions that Taba showed promise. The Geneva Accord is essentially an extention of Taba. I think the Geneva accord offers a realistic possibility of achieving what was missed between December 2000 and Janurary 2001.

Unfortunatley Mr. Sharon had already stated that he would not feel bound by an agreement reached at that state and Mr. Barak later distanced himself from the Taba offers.

"The Taba talks are one of the most significant and least remembered events of the "peace process." While so far in 2002 (1/1/02-5/31/02), Camp David has been mentioned in conjunction with Israel 35 times on broadcast network news shows, Taba has come up only four times--never on any of the nightly newscasts. In February 2002, Israel's leading newspaper, Ha'aretz (2/14/02), published for the first time the text of the European Union's official notes of the Taba talks, which were confirmed in their essential points by negotiators from both sides.

"Anyone who reads the European Union account of the Taba talks," Ha'aretz noted in its introduction, "will find it hard to believe that only 13 months ago, Israel and the Palestinians were so close to a peace agreement." At Taba, Israel dropped its demand to control Palestine's borders and the Jordan Valley. The Palestinians, for the first time, made detailed counterproposals--in other words, counteroffers--showing which changes to the 1967 borders they would be willing to accept. The Israeli map that has emerged from the talks shows a fully contiguous West Bank, though with a very narrow middle and a strange gerrymandered western border to accommodate annexed settlements.

In the end, however, all this proved too much for Israel's Labor prime minister. On January 28, Barak unilaterally broke off the negotiations. "The pressure of Israeli public opinion against the talks could not be resisted," Ben-Ami said (New York Times, 7/26/01)."

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1113

[Violet_Crumble]

19. Thanks for posting that...

I've posted this a few times in the I/P forum, but a really good bit of reading on the failure of Camp David is Visions in Collision: What Happened at Camp David and Taba? Definately not comfortable reading for anyone who prefers their blame so that it's only heaped on one side as this analysis shares blame among the Palestinians, Israel and the US...

[Douglas Carpenter]

24. thank you for that neutral and dispassionate article that attempts

to look at the matter from all sides and attempts to fairly critique all sides.

It is indeed rare to find very much--even scholarly writing--on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict which is not either pro-Palestinian or Pro-Israeli. It is quite refreshing actually.

43 pages of pdf file is a bit of a long read but I do hope that everyone on all sides takes the time to read it thoughtfully and carefully.

Visions in Collisions: What Happened at Camp David and Taba
by Dr. Jeremy Pressman

link:

http://www.samed-syr.org/CampDavidAndTaba.pdf


here is a link which includes the very impressive academic credentials of the author who is currently Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut specializing in Middle Eastern Affairs:

http://anacreon.clas.uconn.edu/~pressman/cvdept.htm

[Violet_Crumble]

27. It's one that needs to be printed out & read...

I got given a hard copy of it when I was studying, and I'm going to read it again this morning coz it's Been a long time since i last read it. when it comes to discussiions of camp david and taba, imo this is essential reading...

[Douglas Carpenter]

25. Text: "Moratinos Document" - The peace that nearly was at Taba

Here are the Eurepean Union notes regarding the Taba Talks -- orgininally published in Haaretz on 14 February 2002 in the article:

Text: "Moratinos Document" - The peace that nearly was at Taba
By Akiva Eldar

Ha'aretz 14 February 2002

link:

http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/papers/moratinos.html

[Douglas Carpenter]

28. I should add the opening words by the Author of the Haaretz article

Moratinos Document" - The peace that nearly was at Taba

"In the current reality of terror attacks and bombing raids, it is hard to remember that Israel and the Palestinians were close to a final-status agreement at Taba only 13 months ago."

By Akiva Eldar

Ha'aretz
14 February 2002

link: http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/papers/moratinos.html

"The daily chronicle of exchanges of fire between IDF soldiers and Palestinian fighters, F-16 bombing raids and missile firings, terror attacks and assassinations, has turned negotiations on a final-status agreement into a distant memory. Anyone who reads the European Union's account of the Taba talks, prepared by EU envoy Miguel Moratinos and published here for the first time, will find it hard to believe that only 13 months ago, Israel and the Palestinians were so close to a peace agreement. This document, whose main points have been approved by the Taba negotiators as an accurate description of the discussions, casts additional doubts on the prevailing assumption that Ehud Barak "exposed Yasser Arafat's true face." It is true that on most of the issues discussed during that wintry week of negotiations, sizable gaps remain. Yet almost every line is redolent of the effort to find a compromise that would be acceptable to both sides. It is hard to escape the thought that if the negotiations at Camp David six months earlier had been conducted with equal seriousness, the intifada might never have erupted. And perhaps, if Barak had not waited until the final weeks before the election, and had instead sent his senior representatives to that southern hotel earlier, the violence might never have broken out.

The "Moratinos Document," as it is called by the Taba negotiators, is a summary of the opening stages of negotiations that took place in good faith. The main difference between Taba and Camp David is that in the United States, Israel presented its offers, but the Palestinians merely responded with criticism. At the Egyptian resort of Taba, however, the Palestinian delegation also presented its proposals. Ideas were exchanged and plans and even maps were presented. Based on the progress achieved between Camp David and Taba, it is possible that the next meeting between Barak's and Arafat's envoys, or perhaps the one after that, would have ended in a peace agreement."

link to full article and the full text of the summary of the Eurepean Union notes:

http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/papers/moratinos.html

[Violet_Crumble]

16. That's a suggestion I strongly back...

Though those whose minds will not be budged from placing all blame on whichever side they're not cheerleading for have no need for listening to and reading anything that doesn't fall into their narrow-minded world views :(

[msmcghee]

17. And just what view would that be . .

. . that yr offering here? Or is it just reading advice?

[Violet_Crumble]

18. Try reading the post again...slowly...n/t

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Violet_Crumble]

26. Hey, that's a great line.

Apparently it's fine to post that as a reply to posts, so let's see some more!

[Violet_Crumble]

8. Just curious, but have you read the book?

This isn't aimed at you alone, but I'm getting the feeling quite a few people in these Jimmy Carter threads haven't even bothered reading it before they make up their minds about it. While I have a lot of admiration for Carter and hope the next US president is even half as good as he was, I wouldn't normally put any book of his on my Must Read list. But coz of the carrying on about his book, I'm making a point of getting a copy and reading it before passing any judgement....

[Tom Joad]

14. Got a copy. Probaby give away a few too.

[Violet_Crumble]

15. I'm not sure if it's released here yet...

..but i'm hitting the bookstores at lunchtime to find out...

[Scurrilous]

23. Palestine Peace Not Apartheid (Hardcover):

http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285026

[Englander]

21. Good question.

What are the chances that those writers of the various Carter-bashing articles have actually
read the book, or are basing their formed opinions on anything that appears in the book?

Here's an excerpt;

Excerpt: Carter's 'Palestine Peace Not Apartheid'

http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/Books/story?id=2680021&page=1

[Violet_Crumble]

22. I saw similar reviews of Fisk's last book...

..but I'd read the book before I saw the reviews and knew straight off they were totally inaccurate garbage...

thanks for the link to the excerpt. I went home crook from work this morning and didn't get a chance to go out book-hunting yet...

[bemildred]

11. "Against". "Bias against Israel" it should be written.

Just saying. While it seems to me that anyone is free to hold the opinion that Mr Carter is biased against Israel, the case seems far from proven. What does seem clear is that he and Mr Tutu are "biased" against certain policies of the Israeli government in the OPT. I would have some concern about attempts to impose naive solutions to the problem, but I doubt that Mr Carter, whatever his faults, is an ingenue. In other regards, I think they ought to have their say, the constipated nature of the "debate" on this subject is one of it's most noticeable features.

[Stockholm]

29. SW center is of its rockers

calling Carter biased against Israel.