Since the release of his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid", Jimmy Carter has been called everything from ignorant and unscholastic to simply anti-Semitic.
His book is an indictment of Israel's policies towards Palestinians, but it done from the position of how to save the Jewish state, to ensure its legitimacy. If the Occupation continues, it will eventually lead to apartheid, i.e., the Jewish minority ruling a Palestinian majority in the West Bank and Gaza strip (Ariel Sharon's unilateral retreat from Gaza was done with this very salient but rarely discussed fact in mind).
In an editorial published today, prominent Israeli Knesset member Yossi Beilin dares to say what no major American politician will:
if we are to read Carter’s book for what it is, I think we would find in it an impassioned personal narrative of an American former president who is reflecting on the direction in which Israel and Palestine may be going if they fail to reach agreement soon. Somewhere down the line — and symbolically speaking, that line may be crossed the day that a minority of Jews will rule a majority of Palestinians west of the Jordan River — the destructive nature of occupation will turn Israel into a pariah state, not unlike South Africa under apartheid.
In this sense, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” is a stark warning to both Israelis and Palestinians of the choice they must make. That choice is between peace and apartheid, for the absence of one may well mean the other. Carter’s choice is clearly peace, and, for all its disquieting language, the book he has written is sustained by the hope that we choose peace, as well.
America largely views itself as a Judeo-Christian nation--which is a specious claim in itself--and especially in a time where we feel highly threatened by the Muslim world (although, it should be noted, that we are self-perpetuating that threat), the Israeli/American bond remains strong. But it is a blood bond, not just one of shared roots, and while I for one would not deny Israel its pre-1967 borders, the current relationship between Israel and America is ultimately terrible for the safety of both, and the existence of Israel as a Jewish State.
Jimmy Carter has been pounded by the American press, his own Party, the Zionist Left, and the Christian Right. The intensity of the reaction to the elder statesman's book should be viewed as proportional to the task of truly 'fixing' Israel-Palestine.
For one, the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington categorically supports Israel's 'Right to Defend herself' which is, against all sense, carte blanche. They support Israel's right to suicide, and quite literally, as the Evangelical Christian Right supports Israel because they believe Jewish control of all of Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, is a prerequisite for Armageddon, and the Second Coming of Jesus. When this time comes, only Christians are admitted into heaven. Thus the Zionist lobby's alliance with the pro-Israel Christian Right is, in all senses of the term, an unholy alliance. This alliance has enviable influence in both the Democratic and Republican parties.
The condemnation that Carter has received because of "Peace not Apartheid" is due to (1) his untouchability as an elder statesman, and (2) the fact that, against that claim that Carter is calling for the destruction of Israel and/or is an anti-Semite, President Carter is in fact the greatest friend the Jewish people have in America. He is trying to save Israel, just as a true friend lets you know when you've gone horribly off-track.
Do not let the hysterically uncritical masses sway you--they are hastening the end of Zionism as a historically legitimate enterprise, and it will partially be because the American people failed to hear an uncomfortable and necessary truth.
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