Palestine Peace Not Apartheid [ラフカット] [ハードカバー]

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The constant attempts to denigrate Carter's Presidency (as though the long lines at that shrine to American privilege, the gas pump, and our foreign presence preceding the Iranian hostage crisis were of the President's making and, moreover, of greater consequence than the Iraq debacle) are belied once again by this uncommon man's common sense and clarity of vision, which is mirrored by the measured lucidity of his prose. Someone had to write this book, and better it be Carter, with his personal, and largely effective, negotiations with the principal players in the desperate power struggles of the middle East, than anyone else.

Carter's staunch opposition to the invasion of Iraq is a matter he no longer talked about once the "mission" became reality. His efforts are directed toward future solutions, not righteous reminders of the past or self-justifications, lest he risk mirroring the very narrow, self-serving interests he seeks to confront and redress through proposals based on negotiated peace, mutual respect, shared rights and, above all, on genuine human and religious (including Judeo-Christian) values.

The negative reactions to the book, I'm afraid, prove its importance. Many Americans remained "passively" approving of the Iraq war--despite not just its blatant imperialist aggressiveness but its sheer irrationality and absurdity--because of the perception that somehow America's "holy war," with its pageantry of "shock and awe," was in the interests of Israel. Although Carter's warnings, criticisms, and prescriptions in "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" require as much of the Palestinians as the Israelis, the criticisms he has received come from narrow, defensive Americans who are incapable of rising to anything resembling an impartial, broad-based understanding of the "human community"--of the "family of man," as it was once called.

This is not a particularly hard-hitting account (its author is, after all, an ingenuous man of peace and good will). So the mean-spirited "hits" the book has been taking should in themselves be seen as a wake-up call--not just to Israelis and Palestinians but to Americans of every religion, ethnicity, class, and political stripe. If we "can't get along together," and if we can't model for the world a tradition-blind, color-blind melting pot instead of viewing that metallic vessel as a grenade, we can hardly pretend to be surprised the next time it blows up in our faces.

For a people that have experienced so much persecution, it seems improper to criticize Israel's actions. Jimmy Carter has highlighted uncomfortable issues for American Jews (I am also one) to address. It was an important step forward that a well respected personality such as Carter wrote this book. Israel's 'realpolitik' towards the Palestinians is morally unsupportable. Terror has many tactics; it can come from government policies & tanks as well as suicide bombers.
My view is that it is time for American Jews to take the 'blue' pill, wake up and see the reality as it is, not what they wanted or were told it is. It's not a comfortable process to put into question assumptions that were taught since childhood. But blind devotion to a state is dangerous.
As we have seen with the Iraq war, a hard-right government can do things that its people realize is wrong. As is happening now in the US, we need to speak out in favor of a dramatic new course for Israel that may improve the chances for peace. It is high time that American Jews stop giving Israel (their hard-right gov't) a blank check of support irrespective of their actions and begin to treat Israel as the separate state that it is. The extreme right is the enemy of all peace loving people.

I have just finished Jimmy's Carter's new book Palestine, Peace not Apartheid. It documents the truth about the Israeli expropriation of Palestine and brutalization of the Palestinian people. This is not new to anyone who has been paying attention and has the moral consciousness to care. What is unique about this book is its perspective. The story is told from the personal and naive view of a devote Christian, who has witnessed first hand the events and been a part of them. All the same facts are there, confiscations, jailing, group punishment, economic strangulation, systematic colonization, extraordinary PR, expulsions, killing, land theft, water theft, religious fanaticism, gradual take over of the whole country, etc., but the tone leaves the conclusions implicit, though inescapable. So if you want a measured gentle view of the theft of a country and expulsion of its people, this is your book.

Of course, the pro-Israel Lobby will not agree, as is evident from some of the other reviews.