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Carter's
World No
matter what leaders the Palestinians might choose, how fervent American
interest might be or how great the hatred and bloodshed might become,
there remains one basic choice, and only the Israelis can make it: Do
we want permanent peace with all our neighbors, or do we want to retain
our settlements in the occupied territories of the Palestinians? Normal
people tend to think that a terrorist-sponsoring Palestine, a refusal
to recognize Israel's right to exist, American national interests, or
all-out war might have some impact on the Middle East peace process.
But no, says Carter: If only the Israelis would leave the settlements,
there would be peace. This is nonsense,
of course -- even apart from Carter's bizarre contention that the
settlements are the only important issue in the Middle East conflict.
If
it's so simple, one wonders, why didn't Carter solve this issue 25
years ago? After all, he explains, he discussed these same issues at
Camp David, when he was privileged to find himself at one of those rare
moments "when moderate leadership and sound judgment prevailed." The
answer, apparently, is Israeli intransigence -- a problem that has only
gotten worse, according to Carter:
Confident that our
support is unshakable, Israeli leaders eventually began to assert their
independence, and real American influence has reached its lowest ebb in
50 years. In the face of certain rebuffs, why would any American
president become deeply involved in a balanced mediating role? How
obnoxious, as if it is the Israelis who have failed to live up to their
agreements. And as if the Palestine Liberation Organization merits
political independence, but Israel does not. How does Carter feel about
French leaders asserting their independence? Not nearly as outraged, I
would think.
Norman Podhoretz once wrote that "All criticisms of
Israel based on a double standard, rooted as this is in the ancient
traditions of anti-Semitic propaganda, deserve to be stigmatized as
anti-Semitic." But the roots of Carter's double standard are somewhat
different. Israel is a liberal democracy, and therefore more open to
multilateral negotiation and compromise than, say, Yasser Arafat
(who himself constitutes the Palestinian government). And so all a
savvy diplomatic peacemaker like Carter (or James Baker, whom he
mentions in the piece) has left to do is pressure Israel into further
concessions. Demanding reforms from the Palestinians is just futile.
Pushing Israel to dismantle its towns in the West Bank is an achievable
diplomatic goal, much easier than getting the Palestinians to give up
terrorism. So settlements must be the obstacle to peace (and their
removal would constitute "peace" regardless of "how great the hatred
and bloodshed might become").
Carter resorts to a bit of
sophistry to make out his vision of the Middle East conflict. For one
thing, he writes that "U.N. Security Council Resolution 242...requires,
in effect, a withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories." That's
the language of Resolution 242: It mentions withdrawal from
"territories" not from "the territories" -- a distinction that
was intended precisely because the resolution also acknowledges
Israel's right to exist within "secure and recognized boundaries" and
therefore does not require the removal of all Israeli settlements. In
fact, as Eugene Rostow has written:
Resolution 242, which as
undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I
helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to
administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until "a just and
lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved. When such a peace is
made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces "from
territories" it occupied during the Six-Day War -- not from "the"
territories nor from "all" the territories, but from some of the
territories. But Carter later reinserts the "the" before
"occupied territories" and insists that Israel must abandon all its
settlements -- and doesn't consider the possibility that this is an
issue to be settled in negotiation.
In fact, Carter needs to
resort to the passive voice when he writes "It has been recognized that
Israeli settlements in the occupied territories were a violation of
international law" because that is not actually the position of the
U.S. government, which has contended that the settlements question is
an issue to be resolved in final-status negotions rather than a matter
of international law. Even beyond this, the West Bank and Gaza are
territories captured in self-defense (and therefore not illegally) from
countries (Jordan and Egypt) who had illegally occupied them by force
in 1948. And even though Israel's position is that it's not required to
abide by the laws of occupation, it does nonetheless.
So perhaps "it has been recognized" that Israel's settlements are
illegal (not to mention the idea that they are "the primary incitement
to violence among Palestinians," also dubious), but it has also been
recognized that they are not.
It's
especially revealing that Carter describes the conflict as "harsh
crackdowns from the Israeli military and abhorrent terrorist acts
perpetrated by Palestinians who claim to have no hope for freedom and
justice." So Israelis have no reason for their "harsh crackdowns," but
the Palestinians commit terrorist acts because they have no hope.
Carter inserts "who claim" in the sentence to distance himself from the
Palestinian terrorists, but it's clear he embraces their argument. Why
do the Palestinians have no hope, after all? Israeli intransigence.
What nonsense. Fortunately, the United States has a clearer idea of the key issue in the Middle East.
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