Jimmy Carter and Israel

Dear editor:

Our esteemed former president, Jimmy Carter has traveled to the Middle East in an effort to “solve” the conflict between the State of Israel and those living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Outwardly we have to think that his plans to insure the peaceful safety of Israel and a separate state for the Palestinians are sincere, but we question the true feelings of the man who has accused Israel of genocide. This from the man who’s brother (of Billie Beer fame) represented Arab countries even during the oil embargo of the 1970s. If he is so sure that Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history and is the homeland of the Palestinians, and Israel is guilty of occupying it, we have to ask the following questions:

When was it founded and by whom?
What were its borders?
What was its capital?
What were its major cities?
What constituted the basis of its economy?
What was its form of government?
Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat, excluding the Grand-Mufti who sat out World War II as a guest and supporter of Hitler?
Was Palestine ever recognized by another country?
What was the language of the country of Palestine?
What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?
What was the name of its currency?
And finally, since there is no such country today,…what caused its demise and when did it occur?

Please, Mr. Carter, avoid the temptation to trace the modern day Palestinians to the Biblical Philistines. That just isn’t so.

While we agree that there can be, and should be, a homeland for these people, we wonder why they have turned down every opportunity that has been presented to them. In 1937, the Peel Commission under the British Mandate ruling the holy land after the First World War offered a plan that gave over 70% of the territory to the Palestinians, less than 20% to the Jews and the balance to remain under English control, including Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Ramallah. The Jews accepted the plan and the Arabs categorically rejected it, demanding all of the land be placed under their control and that most of the Jewish population be “transferred” out of the country.

In 1947 the United Nations planned a partition of Palestine (for lack of a better word) giving the Arabs half of the land area, including all of Judea and Samaria (Jerusalem, Beersheba, Hebron, Bethlehem) and the West Bank. They turned it down, the Jews accepted it, Israel was born, and the Arab nations surrounding the new state attacked and tried to drive the Jews into the sea. What later followed was the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Except for Jordan and Egypt all the Arab nations are still at war with Israel.

I am all in favor of a homeland for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. I am all for a peaceful solution that guarantees safety for the State of Israel and a peaceful, fruitful life for the Palestinians. But Mr. Carter (and his friends in Hamas) is more of a one-sided hindrance than a help, and he refuses to recognize the fact that Israel is not an occupying power. He seems to want to ignore history and not solve the future.