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Charles Jacobs is President of The David Project, and a columnist for the Boston Jewish Advocate.
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By Charles Jacobs
February 4, 2007
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It was not a stellar moment in Jewish history.
Jimmy Carter, whose book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" is an international billboard against Israel, got a standing ovation at Brandeis. To a huge, mostly Jewish audience, Carter explained "apartheid" referred to the condition of Palestinians in the territories, not in Israel proper. He stands by the title, this little confusion notwithstanding, because it was meant to provoke "dialogue," he told the overflow crowd at Brandeis.
But at Brandeis, dialogue was not in the works. It was not allowed. Only pre-screened questions -- and no rebuttals to any of his answers -- were permitted. No one was able to effectively challenge anything Carter said.
The Jews in Boston were thrilled -- or so the press reported -- that Carter apologized for writing in his book that the Palestinians should cease their terror attacks only after the Israelis made concessions he deemed suitable.
No, he said, he was against terror. The sentence was a "stupid mistake," his publisher would remove it from any next editions. Nice. Thank you.
As Alan Dershowitz pointed out, there are really two Carters -- the one who speaks to Jews at Brandeis and the one on Al-Jazeera, Arab TV, who enunciates his opinions about terror in a way that might not get Jewish applause.
"I don't consider ... I wasn't equating the Palestinian missiles with terrorism." That is, when the Palestinians fire rockets at Jewish homes, schools, civilian areas, missiles meant to kill Jewish men, women and children, this is not terror. Missiles fired, it should be noted, after Israel took every Jew, even the dead ones, out of Gaza. So then what, according to Mr. Carter, is "terror?"
Here's what Carter told an Arab audience, on Arab TV: "... When the Palestinians commit terrorist acts, and I mean when a person blows himself up within a bus full of civilians, or when the target of the operation is women and children -- such acts create a rejection of the Palestinians among those who care about them. It turns the world away from sympathy and support for the Palestinian people. That's why I said that acts of terrorism like I just described are suicidal for the popularity and support for the Palestinian cause."
Not that it is immoral; it just gets bad press. No "Thou Shalt Not Kill (Jews)!" from this religious man.
Carter was able to pull off a PR coup in the heart of Jewish Brandeis mostly because the community was handcuffed by the anti-dialogue rules adopted for the event, which blinded them to the real Carter.
Dershowitz's rebuttal, permitted only after Carter left the stage and poorly covered in the press, suggests what academic dialogue could be. Carter was against the Clinton/Barak Camp David offer of a Palestinian state. So Dershowitz asked Carter a great question: Did you advise Arafat to reject what many thought would be a real peace deal? That question appeared on YouTube, and got thousands of "hits." It awaits an answer.
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