posted
Mr Carter's book charters Middle East peacemaking since the 1970s Former US President Jimmy Carter says some Israeli restrictions imposed on Palestinians in the West Bank are worse than apartheid-era South Africa. In an interview broadcast on Israel Radio, Mr Carter focused on roads built exclusively for Jewish settlements.
In South Africa, blacks were not prevented from "using or even crossing" roads, as in the West Bank, he said.
Mr Carter is promoting his latest book on the Middle East conflict, which has been condemned by pro-Israeli groups.
Correspondents say the book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, blames all sides for not seizing the opportunity of the Camp David peace process in the late 1970s.
But Mr Carter is most critical of Israeli policies, and the book has provoked an outcry among pro-Israeli groups in the US.
Peace broker
"Israel does occupy this territory deep within the West Bank, and connects 200-or-so settlements... with a road, and then prohibits the Palestinians from using that road, or in many cases even crossing the road.
The greatest commitment in my life has been trying to bring peace to Israel
Jimmy Carter
"This perpetrates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even in South Africa," Mr Carter said.
He added that the book was intended to stimulate debate in the US - Israel's closest political ally - where he said Israeli policies are seldom questioned.
Jewish groups in the US have petitioned against his use of the word "apartheid" - the system which underpinned white minority rule - to describe Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
In other interviews, Mr Carter - whose Camp David summits helped end the decades-old conflict between Egypt and Israel - has rejected accusations of anti-Semitism which some critics have levelled at him.
"The greatest commitment in my life has been trying to bring peace to Israel," Mr Carter said last week.
But he said Israel would never have peace until it withdrew from the territories which it has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Posts: 1474 | From: in my own paradise | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
Most people pay attention to former US presidents, especially abroad. I can't wait to read his book.
Posts: 13440 | Registered: Feb 2006
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many American historians rate Jimmy Carter as the worst president since WWII. When he left office we had double diget inflation and interest rates. The country was a mess. He was a complete coward during the Iranian hostage crisis and embarrassed us all.
Posts: 904 | From: Texana | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
I have a serious problem with Jimmy Carter.
He says this nearly 30 years after the Camp David Accords. During the negiotiations he didn't demand that any Palestinian leader be present to speak on Palestinian's behalf.
Only now does he utter the word "apartheid". Only almost 30 years too late.
Posts: 3168 | From: If you don't like it, don't look or read it! | Registered: Oct 2006
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Thursday, December 14, 2006 Carter invite fizzles
By Farah Stockman and Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff
It seemed like a good idea: Have former President Jimmy Carter come to Brandeis University to talk about his controversial new book, "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."
But the idea ended -- as many things on Carter’s tumultuous nationwide book tour have -- in disagreement and controversy.
Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz said he agreed with a trustee’s suggestion to invite Carter last month, if Carter were willing to debate one of his most outspoken critics, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz.
Carter, president from 1977-1981, rejected the idea. To Carter, the episode was proof that many in the United States were unwilling to hear an alternative view on what he says is the most taboo foreign-policy issue in the United States -- Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
But others say it shows Carter himself is unwilling to debate his own best -- selling book, which has sparked allegations of errors and omissions, charges of anti-Israeli bias, and protesters at his book signings.
"President Carter said he wrote the book because he wanted to encourage more debate. Then why won’t he debate?" Dershowitz said.
Carter, who brokered the 1978 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, has said the goal of the book -- including its provocative title -- was to provoke dialogue and action.
"There is no debate in America about anything that would be critical of Israel," he said in an interview Wednesday night.
But a furor has erupted because of the use of the word apartheid, which seems to equate the oppression of Palestinians with that endured by black South Africans under that country’s now-defunct system of state -- mandated racial segregation.
Carter said: "Apartheid is the forced separation of two peoples in the same area and the forced subjugation of one to the other. No one can argue that that is not the situation in the Palestinian territories right now."
Others have praised the 39th president for raising important questions about the cost of the United States' unwavering support for Israel.
The effort to bring Carter to Brandeis began Nov. 14, when computer science professor Harry Mairson sent Carter a letter asking whether he would be interested in coming to talk. Mairson called the letter a "feeler," not an invitation.
Before accepting, Carter called his longtime friend and former adviser, Stuart Eizenstat, a member of Brandeis’s Board of Trustees, for advice. Eizenstat said he advised Carter not to accept because he did not know whether the professor had an agenda.
A member of Carter’s staff later asked whether Reinharz could extend an invitation, and Eizenstat said he approached Reinharz with an idea: invite Carter to debate Dershowitz, who had recently reviewed Carter’s book and who had previously expressed a desire to debate Carter several times.
Reinharz thought the debate was "a terrific idea," he said in a telephone interview.
Carter, however, was stunned by the proposal.
"I don’t want to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz," Carter said. ‘‘There is no need to for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."
Mairson received a written reply, dated Nov. 17, from Carter’s appointment secretary, saying that he would not visit the campus. http://www.boston.comPosts: 38 | Registered: Dec 2006
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