Jimmy Carter, Israel, Lebanon and Palestine

Jimmy Carter, Israel, Lebanon and Palestine

I decided to publish this piece on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Territories after Jimmy Carter’s book, Peace Not Apartheid, recently was published. Many of the same criticisms of former President Carter are reminiscent of the attacks that any critic receives in regard to Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians of both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The drumbeat of attacks, that Carter foresaw, is very similar to attacks against American Jews and others who criticize Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Jimmy Carter got it right when he argued, in public appearances about the book, that an honest and open discussion of Israeli policy is possible anywhere in the world save the U.S. Parts of the American-Jewish lobby transform any criticism of Israel into a cynical discussion of anti-Semitism, which is ludicrous, since those same arguments are heard around the world and in Israel itself. The following article was slated for publication in the Rhode Island Jewish Voice and Herald, but ultimatley was not published. That article's focus was on this past summer's war between Israel and Lebanon. The article was a commentary about an article that appeared in the Jewish Voice and Herald by Yehuda Lev.

Yehuda Lev makes many cogent observations about the current war in Israel and Lebanon, but only touches the surface of a most significant issue when he states, “Even in Israel the racist National Union Party and the settler successors to the neo-fascist Meir Kahane, are ecstatic over what they see as vindication of their sectarian, expansionist ideology”(“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,” July 21). Perhaps Mr. Lev is onto something very significant.

Much of what has passed for support of and pride among Jews since the founding of Israel in 1948 has devolved into plain and simple cynicism against anyone in the U.S. who dares to criticize Israel. One of the first victims of the endless wars in the Middle East was not only truth, but also denigrating the “enemy” into something less than human and therefore not deserving the protections of international law guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions, the charter of the United Nations, and what has come to be known as the “just war” thesis developed by religionists over the past thousand years. Once a protection against the worst excesses of war, a “just war” is a now a complete fiction, however, given the lethality and technological sophistication of contemporary weaponry. Modern weapons are blind to civilians (among them countless children) whose mangled bodies these deadly devices routinely destroy without distinction, making a mockery of the most significant protection of noncombatants contained in the Geneva Conventions.

Besides being deadened to the endless cycle of an eye-for-an-eye that passes for foreign policy in the Middle East, most recently between Hezbollah and Israel, even a casual observer must realize how the dehumanization of Palestinians into less than equal beings has evolved. Such was the case of the transformation of Vietnamese into “gooks” during the Vietnam War; "Japs" during World War II; and "diaper heads" in Afghanistan. Such dehumanization soon expands to anyone residing in a particular country without distinction. The Nazis began their deadly march toward the Holocaust by first claiming that Jews were less than human using the bogus claims of eugenics to back up their insanity! How long after that slander did European Jews become the objects of the hate and terror of the Third Reich?

In countless conversations I’ve been part of, Palestinians have been immediately cast in similar hateful terms. Next comes the casting of Hamas as master terrorists bent on the destruction of Israel. It seems to me that Hamas was not only elected in a free vote in the Palestinian Territories, but that their radicalism is a reflection of the failed policies of both past Israeli and Palestinian political entities. Hamas could be engaged across a table through diplomacy, even if we reject much of their propaganda, but diplomacy is not the chosen means of negotiations of the Bush and Olmert administrations. In regard to Hezbollah and this past summer's war in Lebanon, much of the same analysis of failed policies can be cited for the unconscionable hostilities and their impact on both Israelis and Lebanese civilians!

Mr. Lev asks, “Who is profiting from this war?” He responds that Hamas and Hezbollah are the “big winners.” I think that the United States has also “profited” from this war, and in particular the bellicose Bush administration, whose only method in dealing with the complexities of world events is the use of the most lethal kind of force, and the support of that force through ample sales of arms. Diplomacy is unknown to the players in this administration, and truth their first casualty. Israel’s security has not increased in any measurable way since its alliance with the messianic fundamentalists of the Bush administration. No high level negotiations regarding the Middle East have taken place since the Bush administration came to power in 2001.

Israel’s attack against Lebanon and Hezbollah makes a mockery of the idea of proportionality in retaliating against Hezbollah’s attacks! It flies in the face of a rational approach to the self-defense of Israel.

The issue of what constitutes a Palestinian state has also fanned the flames of viciousness on the part of all parties for decades. Palestinians have the same right to a state as Israel, and to treatment that regards them as human beings with full human rights. The founding of Israel in 1948, and the expulsion of the vast majority of its Palestinian population, and decades of military and religious discrimination have created much of acidic hatred that fans the cycle of violence that has sapped all parties of their humanity. Israel has consistently treated Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip as less than human. Israel has refused to remove many settlements from the West Bank and has retaliated again and again with the disproportionate use of military force against their adversaries. How could anyone sane imagine anything other than intense unreasoned hatred arising from such a situation?

The great loser in this war will be Israel which has long since lost its historical memory of just how a whole population can be demonized by denying them the most basic regard for their humanity. With the great toll of civilian deaths in Israel and in Lebanon from this past summer’s war, both Israel and Lebanon become victims to the endless cycle of violence.

Attacking the humanity of Israel’s critics has become a cliché. Denying reality has become a significant part of that history. Rather than attacking Jewish critics of Israel as “self-hating Jews,” and others as being anti-Semitic, an emphasis needs to be made regarding the complexities of the Middle East that reinforces the high morality of Jewish culture and the consideration of all people of that region as worthy of decent and humane treatment. Diplomacy needs to replace militarism!