Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is a New York Times Best Seller book written by 39th President of the United States Jimmy Carter. It was published by Simon & Schuster in November 2006.
During his presidency, Carter hosted talks between Menachem …
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is a New York Times Best Seller book written by 39th President of the United States Jimmy Carter. It was published by Simon & Schuster in November 2006.
During his presidency, Carter hosted talks between Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt that led to the Egypt–Israel peace treaty. In this book Carter argues that Israel's continued control and construction of settlements have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Middle East. That perspective, coupled with Apartheid in the titular phrase Peace Not Apartheid (which many regard as a subtitle) and errors as well as misstatements in the book, sparked criticism. Carter has defended his book and countered that response to it "in the real world…has been overwhelmingly positive."
The documentary Man from Plains (2007) explores Carter's post–White House role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Critical response to Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid at the time of release was mixed. According to Julie Bosman, criticism of the book "has escalated to a full-scale furor," much of which has focused on Carter's use of the word "apartheid" in the subtitle. Some critics, including several leaders of the Democratic Party and of American Jewish organizations, have interpreted the subtitle as an allegation of Israeli apartheid, which they believe to be inflammatory and unsubstantiated. Tony Karon, Senior Editor at TIME.com and a former anti-Apartheid activist for the ANC, said: "Jimmy Carter had to write this book precisely because Palestinian life and history is not accorded equal value in American discourse, far from it. And his use of the word apartheid is not only morally valid; it is essential, because it shakes the moral stupor that allows many liberals to rationalize away the daily, grinding horror being inflicted on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza". Former President Bill Clinton wrote a brief letter to the chairman of the American Jewish Committee, thanking him for articles criticizing the book and citing his agreement with Dennis Ross's attempts to "straighten ... out" Carter's claims and conclusions about Clinton's own summer 2000 Camp David peace proposal.
Critics claim that Carter crossed the line into anti-Semitism. Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, initially accused Carter of "engaging in anti-Semitism" in the book; Foxman told James Traub later that he would not call the former president himself an "anti-Semite" or a "bigot". Ethan Bronner also asserted that Carter's "overstatement" in the book "hardly adds up to anti-Semitism."
Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel. Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
Listen to the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=U
