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By Bruce S. Ticker
December 3, 2006
Former President Jimmy Carter is confused or a baldfaced liar, unless Dennis Ross's 840-page book on the Middle East peace process is a work of fiction.
Since the 2000 Camp David summit, the conventional wisdom has been that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat wrecked the 14-day gathering between himself, President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who endorsed Clinton's proposal to create an independent Palestinian state.
Not in Carter's state of mind. He told Larry King on Monday, Nov. 27, that both the Israelis and the Arabs rebuffed all of Clinton's proposals at Camp David and down the line until Clinton left office. Carter's claim is sharply contradicted in "The Missing Peace," Ross's detailed chronicle of his experiences as the United States' Middle East envoy. He was at Camp David for all 14 torturous days. Carter wasn't.
Carter enraged Jews and other supporters of Israel by writing a book with the insulting title: "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." The contents of the book, which went on sale Nov. 14, are picked apart by the usual pack of critics like Alan Dershowitz and Morton Klein. The analyses I have read claim that Carter attacks Israel's role in the 60-year conflict with a wide range of distortions and contradictions. One must wonder if Arafat ghost-wrote this book before he died.
The former president managed to shock those who did not even read his book when he revised the history of the Camp David summit during his appearance on Larry King's nightly interview show. From the transcript:
"President Clinton did a great job the last term, the last part of his term in trying to bring peace to Israel. He made some very interesting proposals, none of which was accepted either by the Israelis or the Palestinians. I describe that in my book and what President Clinton proposed was not acceptable to either Israel or the Palestinians but was the best effort he could make in the time that he had left in his time."
My jaw dropped when I heard Carter say this. That was not my recollection. I had already read half of Ross's book and turned to the 62-page chapter recounting the summit at Camp David. Ross served as chief Middle East negotiator for both Clinton and the elder President Bush during a 12-year period. He presents his recollections in a straightforward manner and there is nothing self-serving in his book.
Barak voiced general approval of Clinton's three-part proposal on the first day of the summit. Page 655: "Barak listened to the President's presentation and was willing to accept the parameters, provided they were modified. He ran through the parameters he wanted. On borders, the Palestinians believe the western border must be based on the 1967 lines, Israel wants modifications to accommodate 80 percent of the settlers; on the eastern border, the Palestinians believe there must be no limitation on their border with Jordan, Israel believes its security needs must be met and that it should retain a narrow strip of land along the entire length of the Jordan River (meaning Israel would interpose itself between the new state of Palestine and Jordan)."
On the eighth day, Clinton related to Ross the gist of his one-on-one meeting with Barak, page 688: "He said, This is very sensitive, but I got a lot from Barak. Barak had finally presented his bottom lines, but he wanted the President to present these to Arafat as points he (the President) would try to get from Barak. On territory, he would go up to nine percent annexation in the West Bank with a 1 percent swap opposite Gaza; the Palestinians would get 85 percent of the border with Jordan.
"On Jerusalem, he would accept our idea of the Muslim and Christian Quarters being under Palestinian sovereignty, and seven out of eight or nine of the outer neighborhoods being under Palestinian sovereignty; the inner neighborhoods would have planning and zoning, security, and law enforcement powers. On the Haram, Arafat would get custodianship. On security, Israeli needs would be met, there would be an international presence, and Israel would have control of the Jordan Valley for fewer than 12 years. Finally, on refugees, there would be a satisfactory solution for both sides." Haram was a reference to the al-Aqsa Mosque.
Does this sound as if Clinton's proposals, as Carter puts it, were "not acceptable" to Barak? Ross's immediate response to Clinton: "He wants a deal."
Of the ninth day, Ross writes: "The summit was about to collapse. The President had made his best effort, and now so had Barak. Arafat had said no to everything."
For the final day, "The President was very keen to help Barak, feeling that if we could shore him up politically now, we could keep the process alive. This was uppermost in the President's mind when he spoke to the press at the White House. He went well beyond his press statement, explaining what Barak had done, how he was motivated by Israeli security needs throughout, how it took great courage to adopt positions, especially on Jerusalem, that were difficult but ultimately visionary in meeting Israeli needs and making peace possible. He had enormous respect for what Barak had done, and the Israeli public could be proud of their Prime Minister, a statesman and a leader."
It is ghastly that any former president would contradict such a fundamental certainty of recent history, and it is all the more astonishing that Carter would do this. His success in guiding the peace process between Israel and Egypt leaves him with an honorable legacy. To save his reputation, he would be wise to disavow this particular book and any outrageous statements he issued and replace it with a more factual and evenhanded book.
And, come up with a more enlightening title.
Views expressed by the author do not
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