Jimmy unleashes the fury

The newest book to land on the nightstand is former President Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, his review and assessment of the Arab-Israel conflict beginning with his tenure up to the present day. I have perused the introduction but have not made much headway through the tome.

In today's Washington Post, Kenneth W. Stein, a professor at Emory University and former Carter Center scholar, offers the expected rebuke of Carter's conclusion about the occupation of Palestinian land by armed Israelis. Carter maintains that such occupation, a term that even Ariel Sharon has used, is not only counter-productive but unlawful. Stein voices the usual concerns about Israeli security, only he peppers his opinion with uncorroborated accusations about Carter's ethics and motivations. Criticism of Israel always demands a hefty toll and requires a thick skin.

The United Nation Security Council has issued no less than 65 resolutions, most of which have been been vetoed with the US' and Israel's sole dissenting votes, that take issue with Israel's handling of Palestine. To be sure, Palestinian leadership has been lacking, but their job has been made more impossible by the increasing bloodshed and economic strife these past six years. Material support of Mahmoud Abbas may do wonders for increasing Arab support of US interests elsewhere in the region.

We hear little of the US' role in the Levant these days, other than our Secretary of State cheering on the Israeli Army's push through southern Lebanon with some twisted reasoning that Iran backing Hezbollah somehow justifies the US' proxy military killing hundreds and displacing thousands of civilians and destroying a billion dollars worth of property. Other than that, we hear no serious movement, only passing presidential rhetoric, towards a two-state solution in Palestine and Israel.

Does this have relevance? You bet. No less pertinent body than the Iraq Study Group has re-iterated moderate Arab pleas for more positive intervention by the US to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. All rational quarters know that without peace and justice in Israel, there will never be hope for peace anywhere in the Arab or Persian spheres, and the geopolitical implications of an unstable southern Asia are indeed grave, to our economy and the welfare of the entire planet.

Predictable criticism will be forthcoming from Israel apologists who are concerned that justice in the Middle East is somehow zero-sum and who feel that any gains by the Palestinians will be at the expense of Israel's safety. Carter will certainly be vilified for his recent historical polemic, as he was as president for engaging the Palestinians and recognizing that severe injustices have been thrust upon them over the past 60 years. Carter's voice is a welcome respite from the inanities coming out of Washington these past six years, and arguably, it is in lockstep with the realist surmise of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

I'll finish Carter's tome one of these days in the not too distant future, and unfortunately I can wait because it's relevance is unlikely to wane anytime soon. I'm sure Carter suffers no delusion that he possesses the Rosetta stone to Middle East peace, but he certainly recognizes that stemming violence is always the first step to approaching reconciliation. Let's take the first step.