[THS] Haaretz & Guardian: Israel is boycotting Jimmy Carter

[Peter Webster]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19744.htm

Our Debt to Jimmy Carter

By Haaretz Editorial

15/04/08 "Haaretz" -- -- The government of Israel is boycotting Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, during his visit here this week. Ehud Olmert, who has not managed to achieve any peace agreement during his public life, and who even tried to undermine negotiations in the past, "could not find the time" to meet the American president who is a signatory to the peace agreement with Egypt. President Shimon Peres agreed to meet Carter, but made sure that he let it be known that he reprimanded his guest for wishing to meet with Khaled Meshal, as if the achievements of the Carter Center fall short of those of the Peres Centre for Peace. Carter, who himself said he set out to achieve peace between Israel and Egypt from the day he assumed office, worked incessantly toward that goal and two years after becoming president succeeded - was declared persona non grata by Israel.

The boycott will not be remembered as a glorious moment in this government's history. Jimmy Carter has dedicated his life to humanitarian missions, to peace, to promoting democratic elections, and to better understanding between enemies throughout the world. Recently, he was involved in organizing the democratic elections in Nepal, following which a government will be set up that will include Maoist guerrillas who have laid down their arms. But Israelis have not liked him since he wrote the book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."

Israel is not ready for such comparisons, even though the situation begs it. It is doubtful whether it is possible to complain when an outside observer, especially a former U.S. president who is well versed in international affairs, sees in the system of separate roads for Jews and Arabs, the lack of freedom of movement, Israel's control over Palestinian lands and their confiscation, and especially the continued settlement activity, which contravenes all promises Israel made and signed, a matter that cannot be accepted. The interim political situation in the territories has crystallized into a kind of apartheid that has been ongoing for 40 years. In Europe there is talk of the establishment of a binational state in order to overcome this anomaly. In the peace agreement with Egypt, 30 years ago, Israel agreed to "full autonomy" for the occupied territories, not to settle there.

These promises have been forgotten by Israel, but Carter remembers.

Whether Carter's approach to conflict resolution is considered by the Israeli government as appropriate or defeatist, no one can take away from the former U.S. president his international standing, nor the fact that he brought Israel and Egypt to a signed peace that has since held. Carter's method, which says that it is necessary to talk with every one, has still not proven to be any less successful than the method that calls for boycotts and air strikes. In terms of results, at the end of the day, Carter beats out any of those who ostracize him. For the peace agreement with Egypt, he deserves the respect reserved for royalty for the rest of his life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19743.htm

Israel’s Senior Politicians and Security Service Snub Carter Visit

By Rory McCarthy

15/04/08 "The Guardian" -- -Jimmy Carter faced a cold reception in Israel yesterday where senior political leaders avoided meeting him and the Israeli secret service declined to help the American agents guarding him.The former US president was at the start of a Middle East tour, in which he is expected to meet on Friday the exiled head of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, Khaled Meshal. The proposed meeting has brought criticism in Israel.

On Sunday, Carter met the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, who told him that meeting Meshal was “a very big mistake”. He has no meetings scheduled with Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, or foreign and defence ministers. Carter will meet the trade and industry minister. Asked about the lack of high-level meetings, he told Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper: “I’m disappointed but not distressed.”

The Israeli security service Shin Bet declined to meet the head of Carter’s US secret service detail or provide assistance. One US source told Reuters the snub was “unprecedented”. An Israeli security source told the news agency no request for help had been made, though Carter’s delegation insisted it had. The authorities also refused permission for him to meet Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian activist regarded by some as a future leader, who is in an Israeli jail for murder.

The reception given to Carter, who helped negotiate 1979’s Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt, is unusual and stems not only from his proposed meeting with the Hamas leader but also from the anger caused within Israel by his 2006 book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. It was not the book’s criticisms of the Israeli occupation that created controversy; it was that such a senior US political figure had questioned Israeli policy.

Carter has held other meetings on his Israeli visit, including with the parents of an Israeli soldier captured near Gaza two years ago and with Yossi Beilin, a leftwing politician. Yesterday, Carter travelled to Sderot, a southern Israeli town frequently targeted by rockets fired by militants in Gaza. “I think it’s a despicable crime for any deliberate effort to be made to kill innocent civilians, and my hope is there will be a ceasefire soon,” Carter said.

In the meeting with Meshal, Carter says he intends to test the Hamas leader’s support for the Arab peace initiative, a Saudi proposal under which the Arab world would give Israel diplomatic recognition in return for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Although Israel has not rejected the proposal, it has not embraced it either and continues to refuse to talk to Hamas, which won the Palestinian election two years ago.

“I think there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with its next-door neighbours, the Palestinians, Hamas will have to be included in the process,” Carter told the US television network ABC News.

In an interview this month with the Palestinian newspaper al-Ayyam, Meshal appeared to accept a two-state solution, though he refused to recognise Israel. He talked of a return to the 2006 Prisoners’ Document, in which Hamas agreed that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of rivals Fatah, should be in charge of negotiations with Israel.

© 2008 The Guardian