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Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

Author: Jimmy Carter
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
$27.00 Cloth (264 p.)
ISBN: 9780743285025
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Reviewed by David White, Customer Service Bibliographer

I asked to review Jimmy Carter's new book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid with some trepidation. The vehement reaction to both the book - and to its author - was startling. This was, after all, a man perhaps more famous and well thought of after his Presidency than he was during it. His work through the Carter Center on monitoring elections in fragile democracies, working on third world medical issues, and with building homes for those in need with Habitat for Humanity have brought him to the point where his opinion counts and garners respect. So the rapid and fervent reaction to the book - or at least to its title - sparked a deep interest in me to read the book, but also a hesitancy to review it. With such inflamed passions, how could I review it either favorably or not without touching those same sensitive nerves?

The book is primarily a memoir and a history. Carter was so wrapped up in the Middle East peace process before, during and even after his Presidency, that his memoir takes us through a chronological order - focusing on the period from 1973 forward. He discusses the players, the agreements and the problems in general terms, but with enough first-hand detail to get a real feel for the background. Chapters on each US President's contributions are interspersed with chapters on other Arab countries in the area, recollections of first visits to the area and more detailed looks at various agreements between Israel and the Palestinians or other Arab states.

It is only in the final few, short chapters that Carter pulls together his case of how Israel's responses and actions are not helping in the movement towards peace in the Middle East. Criticism from American Jews says the book contains factual errors. Many, if not all the detractors object to the idea that Israel has committed human rights abuses against the Palestinians. If that was all that was in these chapters, perhaps some of the criticisms against Carter and the book would be valid. But Carter doesn't leave the Palestinians blameless. Both sides need to make changes - to make concessions if there is any hope for peace.

After reading the book I tend to agree with the assessment by some that those who condemn the book are not condemning the content so much as the use of the word "apartheid", even though Carter makes it clear that he doesn't feel it is a racist apartheid, but one centered on land acquisition. The nightly news televises forced segregation, a lack of voting rights, and economic devastation of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. You can quibble over words, but Carter is a prominent voice that is trying to show that Israel - along with the Palestinians - has to make fundamental changes in their behavior for there to be any hope of a resolution to this seemingly endless problem. And apparently many people don't like this concept. Proving Carter's point, instead of engaging in meaningful dialog, these critics attack the word, attack the book, and attack the messenger.

Included in the book are seven appendixes, containing the text of U.N. Resolutions 242, 338 and 465; the Camp David Accords of 1978; the Framework for Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1978; the Arab Peace Proposal from 2002; and Israel's Response to the Roadmap of May 25, 2003.

This book is highly recommended for all libraries.