Organizing the Canada-Israel Alliance (Daniel Freeman-Maloy)
Canadian Dimension, November/December 2006 Issue
Under Paul Martin’s Liberals and Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, the Cana-dian government has rapidly shed any pretense at having an independent foreign policy. In Haiti, Canadian forces joined their U.S. and French counterparts in carrying out the coup d’ tat of 2004, overthrowing the elected Lavalas government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and instituting a foreign occupation of the country. In Afghanistan, similarly, thousands of Canadian troops are engaged in combat operations to defend the U.S.-led occupation and allow the U.S. military to focus its resources on Iraq. For years, escalating Canadian support for Israel has been part of this trend. In recent months, it has become more unabashed than ever.
The Canadian government, with the mainstream media in tow, is now providing full-out support to Israel in its U.S.-armed war against the people of Palestine and Lebanon. In the process with the active encouragement of a corporate advocacy apparatus closely linked to Israel and the United States it is shifting the tone of Canadian foreign policy further in the direction of aggressive, neoconservative militarism.
Prime Minister Paul Martin spelled out this increasingly overt identification with the Israeli state at the so-called United Jewish Communities (UJC) meeting of November, 2005: “Israel’s values are Canada’s values,” he declared.
The Harper government has taken this to its natural conclusion. In March, 2006, it made Canada the first of Israel’s allies to sanction the Palestinian Authority for the crime of holding a democratic election, justifying its contribution to this economic assault with off-hand references to Palestinian “terrorism.” As Israeli state violence escalated through the summer, claiming hundreds of Palestinian and more than a thousand Lebanese lives (not to mention the wholesale destruction of critical civilian infrastructure), Canadian diplomacy echoed Chief of Defense Staff General Rick Hillier’s tone.
Some of the crudest performances were provided by Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in his descriptions of Hizbu’llah, an organization whose resistance to Israel western perceptions notwithstanding is supported by some 87 per cent of the Lebanese people, and whose combat record is incomparably cleaner than that of the Israeli military. For MacKay, this Lebanese party is “a terrorist army intent on death and destruction,” a group of “cold-blooded killers” “a cancer on lebanon.” Our Israeli allies, in contrast, can kill and destroy without ever jeopardizing their status as a “democracy” operating in “self-defense.”
As Canadian policy degenerates into overt alliance with Israel, a growing challenge from social movements is providing grounds for sober optimism. The landmark decision of CUPE Ontario to join the Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign has generated crucial momentum, helping to bring discussion of Israel as an apartheid state into the mainstream. The series of large demonstrations against the Canadian-Israeli alliance this past summer, the planned October 6 to 8 BDS organizing conference in Toronto, and the improving relationship between the Palestine solidarity movement and the broader anti-war movement all point to the potential for this challenge to strengthen and grow.
That said, efforts to create a base of popular understanding of Israel as an apartheid state, and to shift Canadian policy accordingly, face the challenge of overcoming the vigorous efforts of Canadian advocates for the U.S.-Israeli alliance. Given the impact of this advocacy, it is worth paying attention to the organizations and alliances that drive it.
Shared Values, Shared Systems of Organization
When Paul Martin declared that, “Israel’s values are Canada’s values,” he was speaking to a crowd of self-described “Israel advocates” that included prominent corporate leaders from across North America. Peter Mackay, for his part, made his most extreme comments about Hizbu’llah right around the time he attended an “Israel Crisis Response” information session hosted in Toronto by the same corporate networks.
This is hardly incidental. The networks at work around these issues are both active and influential in shaping Canadian foreign policy. The most important to pay attention to are those institutions associated with what is known as the United Israel Appeal Federations Canada (UIAFC).
To be sure, these networks do not operate in a vacuum. Irving Abella, a past president of UIAFC’s Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) and co-founder in 2003 of a university faculty “Israel advocacy” organization in Toronto, once remarked, “Domestic interest groups succeed only when the policies for which they are lobbying are those seen by the government as in the country’s best interests” or, put differently, when their interests are made to converge with the government’s political agenda and class orientation. Strategically and institutionally, UIAFC is geared towards doing precisely that.
In UIAFC literature this strategy is referred to as the “shared values” model for advocacy. According to this approach, similarities between Canadian and Israeli policy are highlighted and built upon. Advocacy for a Canadian-Israeli alliance is part of a push for tightening relations with the United States framed in terms of the so-called “war on terror.” Given UIAFC’s composition, embedding its pro-Israel agenda in an alliance with Canadian establishment interests and the United States comes all too naturally.
In its present form, UIAFC is the product of a 1998 merger between a pair of connected, corporate-dominated systems: United Israel Appeal (UIA) Canada and the Canadian region of the Council of Jewish Federations (CJF). The UIA has been the primary instrum-ent for Zionist fundraising in Canada since the early 1920s. It is directed by the Jerusalem-based Keren Hayesod (”Foundation Fund”), and is fundamentally oriented towards bolstering Israeli power. It does so with a strong base of support within the Canadian corporate establishment, Jewish and WASP alike, this base having become particularly solid in the last few decades.
The CJF, for its part, is directly integrated into the U.S. establishment. Its member organizations, which control and drive UIA campaigning, have roots in the local federations that historically represented the Canadian Jewish community’s urban corporate establishment. These were once grouped together in an independent Council of Jewish Welfare Funds, but underwent major changes in the 1970s. On the one hand, they used their financial power to impose themselves as the umbrella organization for all local mainstream Jewish organizations, forming such organizations as Toronto’s United Jewish Appeal (UJA) Federation and Montreal’s Combined Jewish Appeal (CJA). On the other, they merged directly with the U.S. Council of Jewish Federations. Today, the Canadian federation system remains dominated by corporate power, and functions as one component part of a U.S.-dominated framework organized into the regional categories “West,” “Southeast,” “Northeast,” “Central” and “Canada.” It was the 2005 annual meeting of all of these regions, hosted in Toronto, which occasioned Paul Martin’s declaration of support for UIAFC’s mantra of Canadian-Israeli “shared values.”
The UIA/Federation system has long been using its financial power to tighten control over mainstream Canadian Jewish organization. At the centre of its agenda has been support for Israel. After 1948, when Zionist forces took effective control of 78 per cent of historic Palestine declaring it the State of Israel and ethnically cleansing some 700,000 of its indigenous inhabitants the federations became intensely involved in fundraising for Israeli state-building. This support was redoubled after 1967, when Israel occupied the remaining 22 per cent of Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza Strip). It held entirely firm through the 1980s, as Israeli forces attacked Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and repressed rebellion within the West Bank and Gaza.
However, it was not until recently that this system, now organized as UIAFC, came to assert the decisive influence over Canadian foreign policy we are presently witnessing.
AIPAC North
The context for this reorganization was set by the consolidation of power into UIAFC following the UIA/CJF merger, and the changing situation it faced with respect to Israel-Palestine.
In 2000, the Palestinian population of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip once again rose in revolt, beginning what became the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The uprising and the brutal Israeli repression that met it echoed internationally. Within the Canadian state, UIAFC viewed “growing anti-Israel agitation at universities” with great concern. Signs that Palestine solidarity was spreading to different social sectors as represented, for example, by the 2002 call for a boycott of Israeli products made by the Centrale des syndicates du Qu bec (CSQ) was seen as particularly ominous.
Indeed, UIAFC’s advocates had much to defend. In the early 1990s, for instance, the Canadian government with U.S. encouragement initiated negotiations with Israel for a preferential trade pact. This was a spin-off from the momentum of the emerging North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and it culminated in the signing of the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreemnt (CIFTA) in 1997. Canadian policy was steadily drifting towards increasing support for Israel, and the threat that Palestine solidarity movements could organize a viable challenge to this was taken very seriously.
Towards the end of 2002, UIAFC brought together a meeting of the Jewish community’s leading tycoons to mount a response. These included a range of powerhouses from within the federation system from CanWest Global CEO Israel Asper to Gerry Schwartz, CEO of Onex; from NHC Communications Inc. CEO Sylvain Abitbol to Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo/Chapters Books. In the coming months, approximately twenty of corporate Canada’s leading Israel advocates were brought together to co-ordinate a policy offensive under UIAFC’s auspices. This corporate board formally established itself as the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA).
The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) and Canada-Israel Committee (CIC) simultaneously had their budgets doubled and their leaderships put under the direct oversight of CIJA’s tycoons. Campus Hillels and allied organizations, for their part, were brought together and flooded with funds through a CIJA instrument called the National Jewish Campus Life (NJCL) initiative.
Meanwhile, the style and structure of the U.S. federation system’s American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was brought north of the border. AIP-AC functions through a system of political action committees, or “PACs.” For Canada, a Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy Public Affairs Committee, CIJA-PAC, was formed. As Canadian Jewish News reporter Paul Lun- gen explained, “AIPAC plays an advisory and mentoring role for CIJA-PAC.” From 2003 on, CIJA-PAC’s leadership attended each annual AIPAC conference. But was different from its mentor, its reliance on the “charitable” dollars from the feder-ation fundraising campaigns prohibiting it from participation in partisan politics.
Direct Involvement in Party Politics
In 2005, this changed. In May of that year, according to the Canadian Jewish News, AIPAC’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., “included a one-day event … aimed at helping Canadian and European communities develop the kind of grassroots organizational strength that AIPAC has shown over the years.” As early as 2004, CIJA officials had already said that the “ultimate goal” of the Canadian PAC should be “to act as a partisan entity that would support candidates.” Some months after the May, 2005 AIPAC tutorial, just in time for the Canadian federal elections, CIJA-PAC was disbanded to make way for an organization more suited to this work.
This organization was founded in November, 2005, as the Canadian Jewish Political Action Committee (CJPAC). It is worth recalling the unprecedented cross-partisan support for Israel on display in the elections of early 2006. Historically, the corporate base associated with UIAFC has been dominated by Liberal partisanship. CIJA’s Gerrry Schwartz, to cite one prominent example, was a key financial backer and adviser to Paul Martin. In late 2004, when the Martin government voted against key resolutions affirming Palestinian rights at the United Nations, Globe & Mail columnist John Ibbitson attributed the changing diplomacy to the combined influence of President Bush’s visit to Ottawa and Schwartz’s CIJA-related advocacy.
Circumstances have now shifted to provide the Tories with an opportunity to win over this base, and this is being actively pursued. In late July, for example, Conservative Party executive director Michael Donison sent out a fundraising appeal to prospective donors with a reminder that, since “not everyone is grateful” for Canadian support for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, “I must turn to you to ask you for your support.”
UIAFC, for its part, is playing this up. Early into the invasion of Lebanon, CIJA issued a press release in which Schwartz praised the Harper government’s “great courage” in playing a “leadership role” in international pro-Israel diplomacy. Some days later, a range of UIAFC notables took the occasion of the Conservative caucus meeting in Cornwall to take out an advertisement in a Cornwall paper, again praising Conservative foreign policy. Toward the end of July, the pressure for the Liberals to fall in line mounted, with the emcee of a UIAFC “Stand with Israel” rally proclaiming his new allegiance to the federal Tories, and with Heather Reisman publicly following suit.
UIAFC’s advocacy apparatus has too strong a base in the Canadian establishment, and is too thoroughly supported from the United States and Israel for its work to be stopped entirely. Its success is quite over-extended, however, and we cannot allow the networks behind it to continue to operate unopposed.
Comment by Ted, writing from on November 2nd, 2006 at 1:53 pm:
The root of the problem is the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.
A state established for the benefit (”safe haven”?)of the people of one religion is exclusionary and therefor discriminatory.
On June 8,1967 Israeli air and naval forces attacked the USS Liberty killing 34 and wounding 173 US sailors. It was NOT a mistake.
Since that time the USA has supplied Israel with money, weapons and diplomatic support without question. Why?
The region’s energy resouces, geopolitics and to a certain extent the Israei lobby.
There will be no independent, viable Palestinian state with control of its own borders.
There is now in the government in a position of some authority a man named Lieberman who is a “racist”.
He is Minister for “strategic affairs”.
At this time Gaza and the West Bank are under a military attack and economic blockade since Palestinians elected the wrong party in January.It’s barbarism.
This is all a logical conclusion for a state founded on “ethnic cleasning”.
Comment by Claude Gelinas, writing from Canada on November 15th, 2006 at 12:35 pm:
The way Israel is carrying it’s diplomacy with its neighbors is -strongly- contested domestically (all over Israel) so I fail to see how Canada, a democracy, can unilaterally become “pro-Israel” when that very state doesn’t even have that kind of support at home!
Canada needs to implement a strong policy of peace wherever it intervenes. Right now, Canada is all about weapons, killings, death and the “war on terror”… for me, it just doesn’t feel right.
Comment by Jonathan, writing from Canada on November 15th, 2006 at 8:04 pm:
As a Jewish leftist I find this article highly offensive. Indeed it borders on classic anti-Jewish stereoptyping; everything from alleged Jewish power and influence to Jewish control and money are themes here throughout and it should make us all sick.
Canadian Dimension ought to consider and assess why it would print such a piece.
Comment by Paul Malouf, writing from Canada on November 16th, 2006 at 9:40 am:
A letter for Peace in the Middle East
TO: Jewish People Policy Planning Institute and friends
David Harris, American Jewish Committee;
Howard Kohr AIPAC;
Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League;
Morley Levine from Hadassah;
Dennis Ross, former Clinton special envoy to the Middle East;
Irwin Cotler former Canadian justice minister;
Jehuda Reinharz Brandeis University President;
Israel Maimon Israeli Cabinet Secretary representing the Israeli government;
Yitzhak Molcho, who was formerly Benjamin Netanyahu’s political advisor.
Jewish People Policy Planning Institute was represented by:
Dr. Yehezkel Dror,
Avinoam Bar-Yosef Institute Director General and
Avi Gil former Israeli Foreign Ministry director general.
I am troubled by the continuing conflicts in the Middle East. The unneccessary United States’ war in Iraq, the failed proxy war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, along with the continuing conflict in the Palestinian Territories and the Bush White House “no dialogue” stance with Syria and Iran have flooded the Middle East with blood.
An article in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper by Shmuel Rosner on Nov 4 is entitled “Kissinger powwows with Jewish leaders on Iranian threat to Israel”. The article states that in a meeting last week in New York, one of a series of meetings on planning the future of the Jewish people, former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger took part. Kissinger had accepted an invitation from the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute to be one of a group of leaders tasked with setting strategic goals for improving the situation of the Jewish people. Last week’s discussion centered on the Iranian threat to Israel.
A second article in Haaretz on Nov 4 is entitled “Report: 6 Arab countries announce plans for nuclear programs”. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), six Arab states have announced plans to embark on programs to develop civilian nuclear energy programs: Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates. The report states that the move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear program, may signal an upcoming rapid spread of nuclear reactors in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Bush White House failed Middle East policy have only strenghtened Iran. Moreover, it could be argued that an attack on Iran will convince these aforementioned 6 states to pursue civilian nuclear energy programs more rapidly. A strike against Iran, would only mean more long term nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and North Africa.
Moreover I would suggest:
(1) Exclude Henry Kissinger and his geopolitical concepts. The advise from Henry Kissinger and his “geopolitical visions”(Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, now Bush’s advisor in Iraq) is not in the best interests of the people of Israel, Lebanon, and the middle East. Unless of course the concept of torture and perpetual war is envisioned. Kissinger told Bush and Cheney that: “Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.”
Vietnam: During nearly two decades of fighting, approximately 2-3 million Vietnamese were killed. America lost 58,000 soldiers. Even former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, hinted that he made mistakes in Vietnam in his book, “The Fog Of War.”
Cambodia: His geopolitical policies led to the rise in power of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot’s killing fields where 20 percent of Cambodia’s population—-nearly 2 million people—- were tortured and executed.
(2) Reject President Bush’s Middle East policy vision. It is misguided and doomed. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have bungled the Middle East portfolio. Even the US Army Times have called for the removal of Rumsfeld. Chaos will haunt Israel.
(3) Refuse US Christian evangelicals thinking of racist intolerance and perpetual war. The irony of the alliance between Christian Zionists and Jewish Zionists is that the one ideology promotes the ultimate destruction of the other. Christian Zionists have pushed the militarist policies of both Israel and the U.S. in an effort to secure the Holy Land in preparation for the coming of the “promised land.” As part of this strategy, the U.S. occupation of Iraq is deemed absolutely necessary.
(4) Reject Avigdor Lieberman ideology of hatred and division. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has appointed Avigdor Lieberman, from the hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu party, as deputy prime minister. Lieberman would be responsible for “strategic threats,” such as Iran’s nuclear ambitions. A former bar bouncer, Lieberman is detested for his strong-arm tactics. He has grown into a potent political force, in large part because of his popularity with Israel’s sizable community of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. He has called for stripping Israeli Arabs of citizenship, executing lawmakers for talking to Hamas and bombing Palestinian population centers.
Concurrently I would call for the following:
(5) Call for President Bush to stand down U.S. military execises in the Persian Gulf. There is a massive concentration of US naval power in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Two US naval strike groups are deployed: USS Enterprise, and USS Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group. The naval strike groups have been assigned to fighting the “global war on terrorism.”
(6) Call for Iran to stop it’s ongoing war games. Dubbed “The Great Prophet 2,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) tried new generation of anti-helicopter weapons and other military hardware during the ongoing military maneuvers.
(7) Call for China and Russia to cancel plans for 2007 war games. Codenamed Peace Mission Rubezh 2007, the war games will be staged in Chebarkul in the Russian Urals. Participating countries include: Russia, China, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
A First Step Recommendation:
Olmert should accept the Saudi plan as a first step to a negotiated settlement. Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert must negotiate a peace treaty between Israel and the Arab world. He can use the Saudi plan. It calls for a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab world, based on a complete Israeli withdrawal from lands it captured in the 1967 Mideast war, namely the West Bank, Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and Golan Heights.The Saudi initiative was adopted at an Arab League summit in Beirut, Lebanon, in March 2002. For the first time, it offered Israel normal relations with the entire Arab world in exchange for a complete withdrawal from captured territory.
Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert must be an independent thinker with bold initiatives towards peace. As Benjamin B. Ferencz advocates “Law. Not war.”
Stop feeding the circle of hatred, killing and violence. Peace is the only option. Egypt and Israel live in peace. Jordan and Israel live in peace. Israel and Lebanon can live in peace. Israel and the Middle East can live in peace.
I hope that each of you use your influence and help the cause of a negotiated peace as the only long term viable way to stop the madness in the Middle East.
Comment by Caleb Brightmore, writing from Canada on November 18th, 2006 at 1:29 am:
You leftists are the new Nazis.
Comment by Noel Sundby, writing from Canada on November 25th, 2006 at 12:33 am:
I’m shocked and sickened that my fellow Canadians could realy believe this kind of hate propaganda toward the Jewish people. You should be ashamed of yoursleves. The Furer himself couldn’t demonize Jews any more effectivly. I have relatives who served in the 2 world wars and some never made it home. The things they conveyed to me about their experiences at the Nazi horror camps witnesed first hand at the end of WW11, made an impresion on me and I am offended and outraged by this lack of respect for what they fought and died for. This garbage may be politicaly correct in your circles as it was once in Germany and history will prove me correct. The State of Isreal is a few square miles of a few million people surronded by millions of square miles of Muslem countries filled with countless millions of people. Why do the Muslems not let them have their piece of desert?
Canadians are even less entitled to the land taken from the Natives, however Native peoples are not slaughtering innocent civilans with suicide bombers or launching thousands of rockets into family dwellings causing a rain of constant death maimming and terror. Yet you guys conviniantly fail to mention the most haneous and evil crimes immaginable taking place as we speak, in Israel by groups known by the names Hammas and Hizbu’llah the very ones Daniel Freeman-Maloy is supporting in his dialouge. You sir are in my opinion a facsist and a bigot. The U.S., Canada, and Israel are not forces of evil in this world. Don’t believe me? why are you here then and not living in Saudi Arabia or Iran? Your flat out hatred of western freedom and culture floors me. If you want to criticise a government so bad there are many more above ours that qualify and the Palistinians for starters are a good start. Our Govenments are simply trying to do the right thing in violent and unstable region and I hope that we would do our past proud by not giving in to the political cowardness that seems to permiate the media and liberal attitudes of many well intended but clueless people here at home. Well, That’s my 2 cents.
Comment by Paul Malouf, writing from Canada on November 28th, 2006 at 3:18 pm:
Jimmy Carter Interview
CNN Larry King Live
November 27, 2006
(…)
KING: Now let’s move to your book, “Palestine, Peace not Apartheid,” published by Simon and Schuster. This must be book number 600.
(…)
KING: Anyway, Alan Dershowitz writing about this book Mr. Dershowitz has written strong books defending Israel, blasts this book and he says your use of the loaded word “apartheid” suggesting an analogy to the hated policies of South Africa is especially outrageous. What’s the analogy? Why use the word apartheid?
CARTER: Well, he has to go to the first word in the title, which is “Palestine,” not Israel. He should go to the second word in the title, which is “peace.” And then the last two words is “not apartheid.” I never have alleged in the book or otherwise that Israel, as a nation, was guilty of apartheid.
But there is a clear distinction between the policies within the nation of Israel and within the occupied territories that Israel controls and the oppression of the Palestinians by Israeli forces in the occupied territories is horrendous. And it’s not something that has been acknowledged or even discussed in this country. The basic purpose of… KING: Why not?
CARTER: I don’t know why not. You never hear anything about what is happening to the Palestinians by the Israelis. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the worst cases of oppression that I know of now in the world. The Palestinians’ land has been taken away from them. They now have an encapsulating or an imprisonment wall being built around what’s left of the little tiny part of the holy land that is in the West Bank.
In the Gaza, from which Israel is now withdrawing, Gaza is surrounded by a high wall. There’s only two openings in it, one into Israel which is mostly closed, the other one into Egypt. The people there are encapsulated.
And, the deprivation of basic human rights among the Palestinians is really horrendous and this is a fact that’s known throughout the world. It’s debated heavily and constantly in Israel. Every time I’m there the debates is going on. It is not debated at all in this country.
And, I believe that the purpose of this book, as I know, is to bring permanent peace to Israel living within its recognized borders, modified with good faith negotiations between the Palestinians for land swaps. That’s the only avenue that will bring Israel peace.
KING: But, again, referring to Dershowitz, he says: “Palestinian terrorism is missing from Carter’s entire historical account,” true?
CARTER: No, it’s not. He obviously hasn’t read the book. I point out very horrible instances of Palestinian terrorism. But I also point out that in the last — since August of 2004 that Hamas has not been guilty of an act of terrorism that cost an Israeli life. And, the terrible acts of violence on both sides are a very great concern of mine.
For instance, since the second intifada started, there have been about 4,000 Israelis — Palestinians killed, about 1,000 Israelis killed. Seven hundred Palestinian children have died. About 120 Israeli children have died. These are all horrible acts and this constant killing of each other needs to be stopped.
Since Israel went into Gaza 400 Palestinians have died, three Israeli soldiers have been killed. Four other Israelis have been killed by rockets. All of those deaths are tragic but there has been violence on both sides.
And what we need now is a recognition that Israel will comply with international law with the resolutions passed by the United Nations, approved by the United States and Israel requiring Israel to withdraw from occupied territories.
To comply with Israel’s with me and President Sadat at Camp David when Menachem Begin, the prime minister of Israel agreed, “We will withdraw our military and political forces from the West Bank. We’ll give them full autonomy. We’ll comply with U.N. resolution 242,” which requires Israel to withdraw from occupied territories. That has now been violated.
(…)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Concerning your book, Nancy Pelosi, the incoming speaker of the House said: “It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously.”
CARTER: Well, I didn’t refer to Israel, to repeat myself, and I made it plain in my book that the apartheid as now being practiced in the West Bank is based not on racism or ethnic divisions. It’s based on (INAUDIBLE) for Palestinian land by a minority of Israelis and this has been the problem for a long time.
And, I don’t think there’s any way that Israel will ever have what all of us want, what I’ve worked for, for 30 years, and that is peace until Israel is willing to withdraw from the occupied territories and let the Palestinians have their own land side-by-side, as is specified, by the way, in the international quartet’s roadmap for peace, which calls for Israel to withdraw from occupied territories.
KING: Mr. President, didn’t President Clinton have that all worked out and wasn’t it Arafat that backed off?
CARTER: No. As a matter of fact, Clinton — 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 were 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 of the Palestinians but was the best effort he could make in the time that he had left in his term.
KING: We have an e-mail from Julie in Palo Alto. “The United States and Israel seem to be the ones you love to hate worldwide. Why do you think that is so and why are they always linked together?”
CARTER: Well, I think the United States and Israel have been linked together ever since long before I was president and they were certainly linked together when I was president. I was the one that negotiated a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. Egypt had been the attacker of Israel four times in the previous 25 years before I became president and we concluded a peace treaty between Israel and our most formidable opponent in 1979 in April, not a word of which has ever been violated. So, I’ve devoted a good portion of my adult life trying to bring peace to Israel, which I admire very much.
And I think what’s happening in the West Bank and in the occupied territories is completely contrary to the basic principles of the Israeli religion and completely contrary to the basic principles of Israel as a nation when it was founded.
It’s a crime what is being done to the Palestinians by the occupying forces and that’s what I tried to describe in the book. And everything in the book, I might say, is completely accurate.
KING: Richard Cohen in “The Washington Post” wrote the following. I want your reaction. “The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It’s an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslim (and Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are now seeing. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.”
CARTER: I don’t agree with that, if you’re asking me if I do agree.
KING: Yes.
CARTER: I think it was a notable and heroic thing for the international community with practical unanimity, except for the Arab countries, to ordain the right of Israel to be a nation and I think that one of the greatest steps that Harry Truman made was to recognize Israel immediately.
And then when Israel was attacked and went through a series of wars in 1967, the delineation of Israel was established. Seventy- seven percent of the holy land was given to Israel. Only 22 percent went into the West Bank. And the agreement was that Israel would not invade and occupy and colonize the property owned by the Palestinians.
Israel violated that international law and the international quartet’s roadmap and other agreements. And, as soon as Israel quits violating that and withdraws to its legal borders, then Israel will have I think a fruitful and peaceful life in harmony with its neighbors.
KING: Are you optimistic about that?
CARTER: It depends. You know in the last six years, contrary to every other thing we’ve known since Israel was founded, there has not been a single day of good faith negotiation between Israel and her neighbors, despite the fact that the Palestinians have produced with full approval for Israel and the United States the person that they wanted to represent the Palestinians, that is Mahmoud Abbas who is known as Abu Mazen.
When Arafat was still president, Abu Mazen was made the prime minister, at the choice of U.S. and Israel, so he could negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians. Later when Arafat died, Abu Mazen became the president of the Palestinians and still he has not been permitted to negotiate a single day in good faith in a substantive way with Israeli leaders.
That’s something that’s missing is any effort on the part of the international community, particularly the United States, to bring these two sides together for good faith talks, as all previous presidents, including President Clinton, have tried to do.
KING: The book is “Palestine, Peace not Apartheid.” Coming up, former President Carter’s take on the midterm elections; a little later his predictions for 2008. Your phone calls on the questions of this book as well and some more on the book too. It’s just ahead on LARRY KING LIVE.
(…)
KING: Do you think it will continue to be as pro-Israel as this past Congress?
CARTER: I would guess so, Larry. It’s almost inconceivable for any members of the House and Senate to take any position that would be critical of Israel.
That’s one reason I wrote my book, is just to precipitate some controversy, to use your word, or provocation, that is to provoke debate on the issue and to let the people of America know that there are two sides to many issues in the Middle East, and that in order ever to have peace for Israel, Israel will have to comply with international law. But I don’t think it’s likely at all that Democrats will be any more critical for the policies of Israel than were the Republicans.
KING: Back to Mr. Dirshowitz (ph) on your book. He deals with the tone of your book. He says “it’s obvious that Carter doesn’t like Israel or Israelis. He lectured Golda Meir on Israel’s secular nature, he admits he didn’t like Menachem Begin. He has little good to say about any Israelis except those few who agree with him. He apparently got along swimmingly with secular Syrian mass murderer Hafiz al-Assad. He and his wife Rosalynn had a fine time fine with equally secular Yasser Arafat, a man with the blood of hundreds of Americans and Israelis on his hands.”
How would you respond?
CARTER: That’s ridiculous. You know, I think it’s a waste of my time and yours to quote Professor Dirshowitz. He’s so obviously biased, Larry, and it’s not worth my time to waste it on commenting on him.
I had very good friends in Israel. I said in the book that my number one friend in Israel was Eva Weissman (ph), who negotiated with me at Camp David. Moshe Dian (ph) was also there with me. I got along well with Prime Minister Begin. In fact, he was the one that made it possible for me to have the greatest success politically of my life, and that is to bring peace between Israel and Egypt. And obviously I was friendly with Sadat, as well. So, I still have great friends in Israel. And for him to say that I hate Israel, I hate Israelis, I hate Jews and so forth is ridiculous.
KING: Since you negotiated one of the most successful peace treaties in history, the treaty between Israel and Egypt, which has never been broken, right?
CARTER: That’s correct. Not a single word has ever been violated since April of 1979.
KING: How did you get this rap of anti-Israel then?
CARTER: You mean from Dirshowitz?
KING: No, let’s put Dirshowitz aside.
CARTER: You’d have a hard time finding others that think that. You know, when I write a book of this kind, with admittedly a provocative title — and I use the word provocative not in a negative sense, but just to provoke debate and to provoke discussion.
And now we’re in an absolute doldrums concerning peace in the Middle East. As I said couple of times on your program already, for six years we’ve not had one day — one effort to negotiate peace. I think it’s time to get become on the peace track. And I think this book will provoke some discussions and will educate a lot of people about what’s going on in the West Bank now. And it has the clearest possible avenue proscribed in this book for peace in Israel and harmony with its next door neighbors.
KING: Why has that been impossible up to now?
CARTER: The debate?
KING: No, not to have a debate.
CARTER: Yes?
KING: President Clinton said that situation is the hardest he’s ever had to deal with, harder than Britain and Ireland.
CARTER: Well, it probably is. But, you know, there have been two clear successes. One was when I negotiated between Begin and Sadat and they both agreed to exactly the same document. They both submitted that document with their signature on it to their own parliaments. And their own governments approved it, in Israel with a vote of 85 percent in the Knesset.
And then later the Norwegians negotiated an agreement between Rabin — Peres on one side and Arafat on the other, for which all three of them got the Nobel Peace Prize. And they proscribed it — the withdrawal from the occupied territory.
So, there have been previous agreements worked out based on U.N. Resolution 242 and the others, with which the Israeli leaders and their government agreed. So it’s not a hopeless case. And I hope that we’ll make another effort. In both those cases, there were strong interlocutors or mediators, I in one case and the Norwegians in the other. And that’s what we need now.
I think if the United States won’t take that role on, then maybe the entire group of the so-called International Quartet, the United States, Russia, the United Nations, and the United — and the European Union — those four have written a road map which President Bush has endorsed enthusiastically. And if they can implement their terms — by the way, on which the Palestinians have accepted 100 percent and the Israelis have rejected almost entirely — if the road map terms are accepted, then we can have peace in the Middle East.
(…)
Comment by Noel Sundby, writing from Canada on January 7th, 2007 at 9:06 pm:
I wouldn’t accept a deal that would dismantle Israeli soverenty if I were Israel either. The same problem exists in this so called “roadmap” as in most others and that is the Palistinian so called right of return. Funny how that’s brushed aside so easily by Carter an most so called experts. I suggest reading Allan Dershewiz “The Case For Israel”. Carter should stick to peanuts and building houses.
Comment by Ted Andrews, writing from on February 28th, 2007 at 10:13 am:
I suggest reading Michael Neumann’s “The case against Isreal”.