Former president Carter has broken the taboo and given an honest assessment for Americans of the Arab-Israeli conflict, writes Ibrahim Nafie Former president Jimmy Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, represents a qualitative leap in the way the Palestinian cause and the Arab-Israeli conflict is approached in the US. In the 265 pages of his book, Carter offers an impartial perspective on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, relating the truth about peace negotiations that first began during his tenure in 1978. In chapter 16, entitled "The Wall as Prison", Carter asks whether the status quo, enforced by Israel with US support, encourages Israelis to strive for peace or propose unilateral solutions. He concludes the latter. Through the wall that Israel is building on occupied Palestinian territory, Israel is creating Palestinian ghettoes much like those created by the apartheid regime in South Africa. Carter rejects the Israeli claim that the objective of the wall is security, saying that if it were indeed aimed to prevent Palestinians from executing attacks in Israel, it would have been constructed on the Green Line. The fact is that the wall divides Palestinian villages, tears apart families, and deprives many thousands of Palestinians of their farms and orchards. Carter doesn't stop at a blanket condemnation: he delves into the detail. The prison-like wall, he notes, cut off one third of the water resources of Qalqiliya, home to 45,000 Palestinians. The same is true of Bethlehem, with its population of 170,000. Carter notes that the American judge on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) -- the only judge to vote against the court's ruling that the wall was illegal -- reiterated the right of Palestinians to self- determination, as a people under occupation. Carter adds that while the ICJ recognised Israel's right to build checkpoints to protect its population, it stipulated that they should be on Israeli territory or on a recognised border. Under international humanitarian law, and on multiple counts, the court ruled the wall illegal. According to Carter, not only is Israel's wall illegal, it is a racist act that is an obstacle to political efforts towards a just, comprehensive, permanent settlement in the Middle East. Indeed, the very existence of the wall pushes the Israeli government towards unilateral solutions, which have nothing to do with peace. Carter's book also addresses Israel's destructive war, waged with US support, on Lebanon in July and August. Carter believes that Israel's war, allegedly launched as a response to Hizbullah's capture of two of its soldiers, did not target that organisation so much as all of Lebanon, killing some 1,000 innocent civilians and leaving 1.4 million homeless. Despite the pleas of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora, Washington supported Israel's aggression on Lebanon, intentionally blocking all international efforts to produce a UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire. Carter believes that the unjustified war only increased the influence of Hizbullah around the Arab and Islamic world -- indeed, even among Lebanese Christians. Carter also condemns how Israel exploited international concern with the war in Lebanon to wage a campaign of destruction and death in the Gaza Strip. During the 33 days of the Lebanon war, 200 Palestinians were killed, among them 44 children. Carter concludes that Israel's war on Lebanon and its simultaneous campaign in Gaza weakened pro-peace forces on the Arab side and allowed militant forces to gain new ground and wider public support. Carter holds the Bush administration responsible for Israel's war and for weakening peace forces in the region, as well as for increasing hatred of the US in the Arab and Islamic worlds. Carter later elucidates what he sees as the basic conditions for a political settlement in the region that can lead to a permanent peace. He includes guarantees of Israel's security through Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist in secure, recognised borders. In turn, Israel must settle on defining its limits within pre-June 1967 borders; any change in these borders must be made through negotiations and in line with the principle of equity. Finally, it is necessary to respect the sovereignty of the region's countries within their recognised borders. What Carter expects from Arab countries is already enshrined in the initiative proposed at the Beirut summit in 2002. All that remains is for the US administration to heed Carter's counsel and defer to his experience.
