On Jimmy Carter's False Apartheid Analogy

On Jimmy Carter's False Apartheid Analogy

By Gil Troy

Jimmy Carter has appeared on “Meet the Press,” Larry King, Charlie Rose, and elsewhere making his latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, a best-seller. Apparently, Carter’s publisher postponed the publication date until mid-November so as not to distract Democrats with a campaign controversy about their ex-President’s anti-Israel prejudices. By alleging that Israel practices Apartheid, Jimmy Carter’s title reflects a sloppy and nasty form of historical analogizing seeking to delegitimze Israel and Zionism, perpetuated by pro-Palestinian groups on campuses and elsewhere.


Carter has defended his title, by using “Apartheid” as a synonym for “apartness” and saying the division is economic not racial. But he has repeated the South African analogy to drive home his rhetorical point. Using the “Apartheid” label without seeking to impute racism, would be akin to calling Carter a redneck and claiming it only has to do with his tanning habits. If Carter is so innocent as to be unaware of the resonance that term has, he is not the expert on the Middle East or world affairs he purports to be.

(snip)

Injecting “racism” into the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is absurd. It is a sloppy attempt to slander Israel with the accusation du jour, a statement as trendy and historical as equating Zionism with European colonialism, another folly given Jews’ historic ties to the land of Israel. Since the Nazi attempt to annihilate Jews as a “race,” the Jewish world has recoiled against defining Jews as a “race.” Zionism talks about Judaism, the Jewish people, the Jewish state. The Arab-Israeli conflict is a nationalist clash with religious overtones. The rainbow of colors among Israelis and Palestinians, with black Ethiopian Jews, and white Christian Palestinians, proves that both national communities are diverse.

(snip)

By accusing Israel of practicing Apartheid, Jimmy Carter has endorsed the latest Arab attempt to demonize Israel. In a world organized by nation states, singling out Jewish nationalism, meaning Zionism, as racist was so ridiculous even the United Nations ultimately rescinded its 1974 resolution. Applying the Apartheid label tries to ostracize Israel by misrepresenting some of the difficult decisions Israel has felt forced to make in fighting Palestinian terror. Israel’s opponents are trying to transfer onto Israel the civilized world’s justifiable contempt for South African oppression. This charge is particularly ironic coming from so many Arab states, which perpetuate discriminatory citizenship policies against Christians, women, and even other Arabs from different regions.

No country is perfect or above criticism. But the one-sided zeal of critics like Carter, singling out Israel in inflammatory ways, raises doubts about the critics more than the criticized. Many seem all too eager for Israel to fail, happily pouncing on any Israeli mistake, while blindly ignoring crimes others perpetuate systematically, especially Israel’s Arab neighbors.

(snip)

http://hnn.us/articles/32916.html

And I feel so sick to my skin every time I see it here, sneaking, hiding, pretending to righteousness. It makes me feel a frightened stranger in my native land.

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I'm afraid I'll come out on President Carter's side.

along with the guest labor and immigration practices and walled ghettos. The term ought to have been introduced to the discussion long ago.

And to counter the invasion, occupation, rape, plundering, and humiliation that gone on over the last 40 years by saying "but they hate us" is absolutely pathetic.

So is Jimmy Carter masquerading as a Democrat. He smashed the Democratic party wide open with his Palestine obsession.

It seems he is bring light to an issue that is not discussed often enough in this country.


Democratic Party wide open? You mean the likes of LIEberman??

Where have you been? By the way, Lieberman isn't a Democrat anymore, or have you forgotten.

The point I would make is that Israel still receives too much foreign aid. The Palestinians are still living in dirt poor conditions......

I think that means you hear what you want to hear and believe what you want to believe.

Everybody gets aid from us---even Palestinians. We send billions of dollars to foreign countries everywhere. Israel at least pays us back which is more than I can say about some third-world recipients of US generosity. Not that we mind; we should be generous to those less fortunate.

Israel is just as entitled to foreign aid from the US as anybody else.

I am assuming you have done the calculations on the percapita figures of aid to Israelis vs Palestinians right? Oh and don't forget those wonderful Missile Systems, Apache Helicopters, M1 Tanks, F-18 fighters, etc...etc.....

instead of the atrocities it's describing is unbelievably callous. It shows either ignorance or utter disregard for what's gone on the last forty years.

And to continue the analogy, it is very reminiscent of how Afrikaners justified their policies.

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...what happens when the Babylonian descendants want their homeland back? I guess we could give them part of Iraq. No one would mind that, right?

One can come to a reasonable conclusion that the analogy is apt ....

Perhaps calling it far-fetched brings a level of comfort to some ?

I seem to recall Carter making an extraordinary effort to find a peaceful solution to the ME debacle ....

That makes him MORE Democratically-oriented ... NOT less .....

Norman Finkelstein vs. Gil Troy On Jimmy Carter's Controversial Book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid"

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/08/1414201

<snip>

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, the question, it seems to me, is whether or not the term “apartheid” is appropriate in this context. I'm not going to -- for the moment, I’m not going to make an argument either way. The question I would raise is, if the term is, as it’s often been said recently, if the term is anti-Semitic or contrary to the interests of Jews, however you want to put it, how do you account for the fact that so many mainstream figures and organizations in Israeli life themselves use the term apartheid to characterize the Israeli occupation in the West Bank of Gaza?

You take the case of B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. In May 2002, they put out a report entitled "Land Grab." It’s a substantial report. It’s not throwing around slogans and terms. The report’s about 150 pages, based on quite in-depth research. They conclude in their report that Israel has established a regime in the Occupied Territories, which is, as they put it, reminiscent of the South African apartheid regime. This past year, B’Tselem put out another report entitled "Forbidden Roads," on what they call the “Road Regime” in the Occupied Territories. Again, they concluded that this is reminiscent of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

You take the case of Ha’aretz, Israel's leading newspaper, or most influential newspaper. And in their editorials, they routinely refer to the apartheid-like regime in the Occupied Territories.

So, for the moment, I would like to focus on the question: why is it illegitimate to use the term? Why is it anti-Semitic to use the term here, whereas in Israel just yesterday, Shulamit Aloni, the former Cabinet Minister for Education under Rabin, she says, “Everybody here knows it's apartheid,” so why is it illegitimate for a former American president to use a term which is a commonplace? I'm not saying everyone agrees it's apartheid in Israel, but it's certainly part of the mainstream discourse. Why are you in the United States disqualified from participating in what in Israel is part of the mainstream discourse?

I also think Israel practices apartheid. If anyone calls me anti-Semitic for saying so, I'm going to give them this information.

There are quite a few articles written about Carter's book. I guess he's getting the debate he wanted.