Jimmy Carter's Point

What's not to understand?

The clear fact is that Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighboring occupied territories and permit the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights. With land swaps, this "green line" can be modified through negotiations to let a substantial number of Israeli settlers remain in their subsidized homes east of the internationally recognized border. The premise of exchanging Arab territory for peace has been acceptable for several decades to a majority of Israelis but not to a minority of the more conservative leaders, who are unfortunately supported by most of the vocal American Jewish community.

These same premises, of course, will have to be accepted by any government that represents the Palestinians. A March 2006 poll by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah found 73 percent approval among citizens in the occupied territories, and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed support for talks between President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and pledged to end Hamas's rejectionist position if a negotiated agreement is approved by the Palestinian people.

UPDATE:

Here's Powerline on Carter's essay:

Not to mention Jimmuh's omissions. He can't bring himself to call for the cessation of the tragic murder of Israelis by the terrorist groups operating as political parties within the PA, or to recognize the object of those parties as the causal factor in what he describes as "the tragic persecution of the Palestinians." Jimmuh's refusal to acknowledge the causal relationship between Arab murder and Israeli self-defense provides powerful evidence on which to base "allegations" that Jimmuh is hostile to Israel, or not committed to its survival in the same sense that he is committed to enabling Palestinian Arabs to achieve their homicidal objectives without impediment.

Methinks Powerline reads the NY Times too much. The NYT and other US media have a habit of creating a causal relation between Palestinian terror and Israeli response, when it is often the case that an Israeli attack precipitates a Palestinian response. People who are blind to the Israel-Palestine dispute usually put things in individualized, causal terms. All you can see then are stone-throwers.

But this causal tit-for-tat storyline is sandbox foreign affairs. Any intelligent attempt to discuss Palestine-Israel has to address the Palestinians' situation. Terrorism is, of course, a tactic, a means. Attacking the tactic misses the point, though it proves satisfying to those who view foreign affairs in terms of sensational events. Actually addressing terroristic tactics in Palestine entails addressing the real concerns of the groups terrorists ostensibly represent. In the case of al Qaeda, a fringe group with a radical ideology uses terroristic tactics to try to achieve some objectives that are plausible (e.g., overthrowing the Saudi authoritarian and theocratic state) and some that are implausible (e.g., installing a different radical Islamist regime in Saudi Arabia) to a Western mind. In the case of Hamas, some hold an ideology of the elimination of Israel, while others seek to free Palestine from Israeli oppression. When we talk about terrorism, the tactic, whether practiced by Palestinian or by Israel, we simply have to address the objectives of terrorism: what is the goal that is sought? In the case of Israel-Palestine, it is largely land, refugees, and security.

Anyone who knows anything about the Palestinian situation knows that Israel - as state policy - has encroached illegally on Palestinian lands, oppresses Palestinians, and terrorizes them daily. Many Israelis themselves seek to change the state policy. Many Palestinians also seek to change the tactics of the Palestinian effort. The point is that reducing the dispute to one that is one-sided in causality, and applies "terrorism" to one side while using the term "self-defense" on the other for rather similar tactics, is taking an ideological position themselves.

Fortunately, Carter is speaking to the reality of Israel-Palestine and ultimately what must be done to resolve the dispute. Powerline simply tries to inflame it.