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Factual Errors and Significant Omissions in Jimmy Carter’s “Palestine” Part II

4. By using the term “apartheid,” President Carter more than implies a comparison between the racist South African policy and Israeli Policies in the Territories.

There is No Analogy Between Policies Like Apartheid and Israeli Self-Defense

• Israeli policies in the Palestinian Territories such as construction of the security barrier and checkpoints cannot reasonably be analogized to apartheid. They were instituted as a passive defense against suicide bombing and other forms of terrorism that had become almost daily realities in Israel after September 2000. It is tragic that there are innocent Palestinians who suffer under a system of security barriers and checkpoints. However, instead of condemning Israelis for trying to protect themselves from the barbarity of suicide bombing, Palestinian terrorists must be held accountable for the consequences of their behavior.

Prior to the 2d Intifada Palestinians Moved Freely Inside the Territories and Israel

• Israel did not create checkpoints or the barrier to humiliate or harm Palestinians. Beginning on September 29, 2000, Israel had been under a constant siege of terrorist attacks. Terrorists began crossing over from the West Bank into Israel killing and maiming hundreds of innocent civilians in suicide attacks. They used ambulances to smuggle themselves and weapons into Israel, they hid explosive belts inside computers, musical instrument cases, and clothes chests. They exploited women and children by using them to execute terror attacks. Faced with the threats posed by these and other activities, Israel had no choice but to build and operate checkpoints and a security barrier designed to prevent terrorists from penetrating into Israel.

• Israel has repeatedly eased restrictions on Palestinians in the Territories whenever the violence temporarily subsides and only in response to renewed violence or credible threats has tightened them again.

Israelis Just Like Any Other People Have the Right to Protect Themselves

From Suicide Bombing And Other Forms of Terrorism

Without Being Accused of Being Racists

5. President Carter repeatedly mentions Security Council Resolution 242, which called for return of captured territories in exchange for peace, recognition, and secure borders, but gives the impression that it was Israel that violated this Resolution.

• Immediately after the Six Day War, Israel tried to open negotiations and exchange land for peace treaties with its Arab neighbors, normalization of relations and guarantee of navigation through the Straits of Tiran. But the League of Arab States (eight Arab heads of state) had a summit conference in Khartoum, Sudan, August 29 - September 1, 1967, where it adopted the dictum of the “Three NOs” with respect to Israel: NO peace with Israel, NO recognition of Israel and NO negotiations with Israel.

• In 1979 the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt established sovereignty and recognized borders. In exchange for peace with Egypt, Israel withdrew from the Sinai in 1982. It was Egypt that declined to re‑assume possession of the Gaza Strip, leaving it under Israeli control. When Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994 they also established legal and recognized borders Jordan also specifically ceded any right or claim to the West Bank and East Jerusalem at that time, leaving it under Israeli control.

• In the summer of 2000 at Camp David, Israeli P.M. Barak offered the Palestinians four clusters of territory on the West Bank. Yasser Arafat made no counteroffer, walked out of the Summit, and the Second Intifada began. Five months later, President Clinton crafted a final proposal whereby the Palestinians would get all of Gaza and 97 percent of contiguous West Bank territory, with East Jerusalem for a capital. The Palestinians rejected this offer as well, making the implementation of Resolution 242 impossible.

6. President Carter faults Israel for its administration of Christian and Muslim religious sites.

• In stark contrast to its neighbors, Israel has been scrupulous about allowing access to both Christian and Muslim holy sites, consistent of course, with security needs. Between 1948 and 1967 when Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Jordanians destroyed and desecrated Jewish religious sites and did not allow Jews to pray at the Western Wall. But within days after Israel gained control of East Jerusalem through the 6-Day War, Moshe Dayan gave control of the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock to the Waqf, the Muslim religious body that has the oversight of mosques and holy sites, in spite of the fact that the Temple Mount is also the site of the First and Second Temples -- Judaism’s holiest site.

Jimmy Carter’s Need to Distort the Facts is Disturbing

What Motivated the Former President to Repeatedly and Egregiously Misrepresent

the Relevant History and Facts and Blame Only Israel for the Violence in

the Middle East?