Dershowitz vs. Carter — 2009 edition
I just got off a conference call arranged by The Israel Project titled “Confronting False and Misleading Assertions By former President Jimmy Carter on the Middle East.” The panelists — Alan Dershowitz, former Clinton aide Lanny Davis, and Ken Stein, Carter’s former colleague at the Carter Center — emphasized Carter’s penchant for selective history, adjusting his message to his audience, and asserting insider knowledge of the Middle East available to no other interlocutor. They also began the call by defending Israel against the familiar charges leveled at it during the Gaza operation: disproportionality, collective punishment, and indiscriminate targeting of civilians.
What wasn’t clear was what their specific beef was with Carter’s latest book or his recent round of interviews. Here’s the question I asked:
I’ve seen two interviews with Carter about his new book, and in both he stresses the themes of Israel’s withdrawal to the 1967 borders, the Arabs’ recognition of the Jewish state, no right of return to Israel by Palestinians — basically the same positions supported by Israel’s ruling Kadima party and the Obama administration. I understood the objections to his previous book [Palestine Peace Not Apartheid], starting with its title and extending to the distortions it contained. But what is it about his current message that you find objectionable?
Here’s Dershowitz’s answer:
I find myself completely agreeing with Carter’s result – two states, yes; negotiated agreements, yes. I agree with him that President Obama sending George Mitchell (as Mideast envoy) is a good thing. I also agree that settlements on the West Bank have to end. I don’t find disageement with Jimmy Carter’s end game.
However, I have considerable disagreement with how he proposes to get there. My most serious criticism is that he has become a barrier to peace by supporting essentially Hamas over Israel.
Dershowitz went on to say that Carter does not acknowledge Hamas’ “tactics”; e.g. using civilians as shields or provoking Israel into deadly retaliation (with the Palestinians doing most of the dying and Hamas using their deaths for propaganda purposes). By not holding Hamas accountable, said Dershowitz, “he makes peace much much more difficult to achieve.”
As for the two-state solution, Dershowitz says:
I wish it were as inevitable as some of my friends think it is — I don’t think anymore that is as inevitable as it once was. [Carter] makes it harder for peace to be achieved by siding with Hamas and against Israel and becoming part of that chorus of condemnation against Israel.
And Davis had this to say:
In the entire interview with Larry King last night, [Carter] never once said that Hamas is an announced terrorist organization that intentionally aims rockets to kill civilians or intends to destroy Israel … and uses civilian shields behind which they launch rockets.
I wasn’t offered a follow-up, but it seems to me, using the old parshanut principle of “what’s bothering Rashi?”, that the speakers’ concern, and that of The Israel Project, is that Carter and his ilk will somehow legitimize the notion that Hamas must be dealt with even before it meets the demands, set forth by Israel and the United States, that it renounce violence and accept Israel’s right to exist. The speakers on the phone call were especially put out by Carter’s assertions that Hamas is willing to abide by any peace agreement reached by the Palestinian leadership and ratified by a referendum of the Palestinian people (variously defined by Carter, according to Stein, and for some reason only related to Carter and not other negotiators).
So look for this as the next talking points battle among pro-Israel activists: Can Hamas earn a place at the table without changing its stripes? You can start here. (Scroll down to “Myth 2: In Gaza, it is possible to work with the Palestinian Authority and avoid Hamas.”)
JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 