• Carter emphasizes that "Christian and Muslim Arabs had continued to live in this same land since Roman times," but he ignores the fact that Jews have lived in Hebron, Tzfat, Jerusalem, and other cities for even longer. Nor does he discuss the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries since 1948.
So Dershowitz takes issue with Carter's focus, but how is that an error, and why is Carter's failure to talk about what Dershowitz would rather he talk about an oversight? Is he unhappy that Carter isn't simply being a pro-Israeli mouthpiece? Yep, I do believe that's it exactly.
• Carter repeatedly claims that the Palestinians have long supported a two-state solution and the Israelis have always opposed it. Yet he makes no mention of the fact that in 1938 the Peel Commission proposed a two-state solution with Israel receiving a mere sliver of its ancient homeland and the Palestinians receiving the bulk of the land. The Jews accepted and the Palestinians rejected this proposal, because Arab leaders cared more about there being no Jewish state on Muslim holy land than about having a Palestinian state of their own.
Which is like saying that Native Americans would have opposed China coming in and giving what would become Massachussetts to England the day the Pilgrims stepped off the boats. Of
course the Arabs objected to having their land given away from under them, and they had every fucking
right to!
• He barely mentions Israel's acceptance, and the Palestinian rejection, of the U.N.'s division of the mandate in 1948.
And Mr. Dershowitz fails to mention the White Paper and Israel's terrorist response to it.
Carter repeatedly mentions Security Council Resolution 242, which called for return of captured territories in exchange for peace, recognition and secure boundaries, but he ignores the fact that Israel accepted and all the Arab nations and the Palestinians rejected this resolution. The Arabs met in Khartum and issued their three famous "no's": "No peace, no recognition, no negotiation" but you wouldn't know that from reading the history according to Carter.
If these three "No's" are famous, why would he bother mentioning the famously obvious?
• Carter faults Israel for its "air strike that destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor" without mentioning that Iraq had threatened to attack Israel with nuclear weapons if they succeeded in building a bomb.
And Mr. Dershowitz fails to cite any source whatsoever to reinforce this claim.
• Carter faults Israel for its administration of Christian and Muslim religious sites, when in fact Israel is scrupulous about ensuring every religion the right to worship as they please--consistant, of course, with security needs.
In an age when Americans en masse are discovering what is "consistant(sp!) with security needs", Mr. Dershowitz would have been better advised to avoid employing that phrase in his critique.
He fails to mention that between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Hashemites destroyed and desecrated Jewish religious sites and prevented Jews from praying at the Western Wall. He also never mentions Egypt's brutal occupation of Gaza between 1949 and 1967.
Because those are not the subject he has chosen. Again, Mr. Dershowitz apparently desires the ability to dictate the views expressed by others.
• Carter blames Israel, and exonerates Arafat, for the Palestinian refusal to accept statehood on 95% of the West Bank and all of Gaza pursuant to the Clinton-Barak offers of Camp David and Taba in 2000-2001. He accepts the Palestinian revisionist history, rejects the eye-witness accounts of President Clinton and Dennis Ross and ignores Saudi Prince Bandar's accusation that Arafat's rejection of the proposal was "a crime" and that Arafat's account "was not truthful"--except, apparently, to Carter. The fact that Carter chooses to believe Yasir Arafat over Bill Clinton speaks volumes.
The fact that Mr. Dershowitz finds fault with Carter's choice in whom to believe rather than in why he has come to his own conclusion speaks louder.
• Carter's description of the recent Lebanon war is misleading. He begins by asserting that Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. "Captured" suggest a military apprehension subject to the usual prisoner of war status.
If Hezbollah is not a military, then
all casualties Israel inflicted were civilian casualties.
The soldiers were kidnapped, and have not been heard from--not even a sign of life.
Then Israel should have provided assistance to recognized Lebanese military or police forces in a secondary role in resolving what would then have been an internal matter with international significance.
The rocket attacks that preceded Israel's invasion are largely ignored, as is the fact that Hezbollah fired its rockets from civilian population centers.
But, Mr. Dershowitz, I thought you just claimed that Hezbollah could not engage in military actions, thus inferring that Hezbollah are themselves civilians? Why, then, infer a distinction between Hezbollah and civilians here?
• Carter gives virtually no credit to Israel's superb legal system, falsely asserting (without any citation) that "confessions extracted through torture are admissible in Israeli courts," that prisoners are "executed" and that the "accusers" act "as judges." Even Israel's most severe critics acknowledge the fairness of the Israeli Supreme Court, but not Carter.
And it's interesting to note that -- much as you chastise Carter for doing -- you fail to cite even one of these "most severe critics" who do so acknowledge.
• Carter even blames Israel for the "exodus of Christians from the Holy Land," totally ignoring the Islamization of the area by Hamas and the comparable exodus of Christian Arabs from Lebanon as a result of the increasing influence of Hezbollah and the repeated assassination of Christian leaders by Syria.
I'm just guessing, here, but I think the area was already pretty well Islamicized before Palestine was wrested from the British and carved out from under Arab families by Israel.
No, obviously Mr. Dershowitz wants what all pro-Israel fanboys want: for the other side to be either silenced or dismissed out of hand.
