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By Rabbi Andrew Straus and Rabbi Bonnie Sharfman
January 4, 2007
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Dear President Carter,
Thank you for meeting with us, for your letter to the Jewish Community dated December 15 and for being generous with your time and attention.
We share a passionate desire to help bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians. We agree on the need for a two state solution, a goal supported by the Israeli government and the vast majority of Israelis. Despite ongoing terrorism, successive Israeli governments have worked toward that goal. In June 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, with the assistance of President Bill Clinton, made a credible offer that would have resulted in a Palestinian state. Yassir Arafat not only rejected that proposal but unleashed a new wave of suicide bombers and authorized the purchase of a literal boatload of arms (the Karina-A) for use by Palestinian terrorists against Israeli civilians.
The impression we received from both our discussion and your book is that your view of Israel is shaped by her most radical and extreme political voices -- the small minority rejecting a two-state solution and believing in the concept of a "Greater Israel." At the same time, you see the Palestinians only through the perspective of moderates who support a Jewish and Palestinian state living side by side and agree on the need for territorial compromise.
You seem not to acknowledge the steps Israel has taken for peace or the fact that the Israeli government and electorate have rejected radicalism and maintained their commitment to a two state solution. Tragically, you fail to understand or accept that the Palestinians have rejected moderation and undercut peace efforts by electing a Hamas-led government that refuses to accept Israel's existence. The voices of Palestinian moderates -- and sometimes their lives -- are silenced. Why do you not express outrage at their treatment?
While we appreciate your condemnation of acts of terrorism against Israeli citizens, we believe you did not go far enough. There is simply no justification for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers or the continuing rocket barrages aimed at Israeli towns, acts inconsistent with any peace process. We do not understand why you do not condemn as a major impediment to peace the failure of responsible Palestinian political leaders to control the most radical elements in Gaza and the West Bank or why you do not hold the Palestinians at least partially responsible for the failure of the peace process to advance over the past five years.
While we agree that living conditions on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are distressing (many rabbis and other Jewish communal leaders, ourselves included, are proud supporters of Rabbis for Human Rights and organizations such as B'tzelem that work on behalf of human rights for all), we understand that the Palestinians and their leaders, as well as other Arab governments, have played a key role in creating that unfortunate reality. Through corruption and the misuse of government funds and resources for the arming of terrorists, Palestinian leaders have failed the people that desperately need the infrastructure improvements and economic development those funds could have provided.
As a defensive measure against suicide bombers funded and supported by the Palestinian leadership, Israel built a separation barrier; in areas where it has been constructed, the entry of suicide bombers has been largely prevented. It was with a sense of regret that Israel constructed that barrier; its leaders and people look forward to a time of peace when this and all barriers may be removed.
It is clear that we differ in our understanding of why the peace process has stalled and how the conditions in the West Bank and Gaza came to be. We also differ on language describing the conflict. Continued use of the term "colonization" in reference to Israel is regrettable; your clarification notwithstanding, using the label "apartheid"(in reference to Israel's involvement in the West Bank and Gaza) in order to stimulate discussion is inflammatory, inaccurate, and irresponsible.
Nonetheless, we remain hopeful. We believe the door to peace is open and there are many committed to working toward a fair resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. We appreciate the work the Carter Center has done in monitoring elections in the Palestinian territories and in continuing the work you began in negotiating the peace between Israel and Egypt. You have played a vital and constructive role in the past. In our meeting, we pledged to work together toward the realization of our shared vision of two peoples living side by side in a true and lasting peace during your lifetime.
One of the greatest principles to which we can aspire is the teaching from our Torah, your Bible: "Love your neighbor as yourself." From the Koran we learn "You mankind: We have created you from a single pair of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that you might come to know and cherish one another (not to despise one another)." We are rabbis, not politicians. Our vision is rooted in the ideal of the children of Abraham living together in peace through the teaching of peace. Hope lies in the future. The work starts now.
L'shalom - With hope for peace,
Rabbi Andrew Straus
Rabbi Bonnie Sharfman
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