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apartheid
100-Year-Old Jimmy Carter Shows Us What Courage Looks Like on Israel-Palestine
As we celebrate and reflect on Carter’s life and legacy, let us amplify his call for the U.S. to be a genuine force for peace and justice around the world.
Oct 08, 2024
Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States who turned 100 this month, has built a legacy of courage and moral clarity over his many decades in public service, fighting tirelessly for peace and human dignity at home and around the world.
Now, as he nears the twilight of his life, we must take the time to reflect on one of his most courageous stances: his unwavering commitment to Palestinian dignity and self-determination.
In 1996, President Carter stood with us, the Palestinian people, as we voted for our leaders for the very first time. Though the Oslo peace process had failed to deliver the independent Palestinian state we had hoped for, Carter believed that the act of casting our ballots was still vital – that it was a chance to build a future rooted in peace and justice.
His presence in Palestine during that first election underscored our hopes for a brighter tomorrow, despite the heavy shadows of occupation and displacement.
What makes Jimmy Carter’s stance on Palestine unique is not only his moral courage, but the fact that he was once the most powerful man in the world.
In 2003, as the separation wall began to snake across the West Bank, I met President Carter once again at The Carter Center’s first-ever Human Rights Defenders Forum in Atlanta, Georgia.
There, I told him about the stark realities faced by Palestinians in the West Bank city of Qalqilia – 40,000 people encircled by concrete, with only one gate allowing them access to farms, medical care and the outside world. A single gate that opened and closed at the whim of Israeli soldiers, sometimes remaining shut for days at a time. As I updated him on the situation in Palestine, I called it what it is: apartheid, the separation of two peoples based on ethnicity, with one dominating the other through systemic injustice. Carter listened, intently and without judgement.
Just two years later, in 2005, he had the opportunity to see the reality for himself when he returned to Palestine to observe the presidential elections, in which I was the leading independent candidate against Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas.
During this time, President Carter witnessed firsthand how Israel, rather than building bridges to secure peace, was constructing walls – walls that cut deep into Palestinian land, walls that annex settlements and water resources, walls that isolate Palestinians into enclaves. He also witnessed how, after a meeting we had in Jerusalem, the Israeli security service arrested me for no reason other than preventing me from talking to Palestinian voters there. It was during this visit, I believe, that it became clear to him that Israel was not preparing for peace, but instead consolidating control in ways that would make a two-state solution impossible.
In 2006, Carter published Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, a book that shook the American political landscape. In it, he laid out a simple truth: without Palestinian freedom and dignity, there could be no peace. He made the case not as an enemy of Israel, but as someone deeply invested in its survival. Yet, for daring to speak this truth, Carter was vilified. He was accused of being anti-Semitic and ostracized by many in the US and even his Democratic Party. But Carter never wavered. He continued to speak the truth about the realities in Palestine – not out of malice for Israel, but from a deep belief in justice.
He understood that the only way Israel could truly thrive was through a just peace with the Palestinians. He recognized that the Palestinian people, who have lived under brutal occupation since 1967 and experienced repeated displacement since 1948, were entitled to the same rights and dignity as anyone else. He recognized in later writings that it was my 2003 account of the situation in Qalqilia that made him understand the reality of apartheid in Palestine.
What makes Jimmy Carter’s stance on Palestine unique is not only his moral courage, but the fact that he was once the most powerful man in the world. As U.S. president, he tried to open the road to lasting peace. He could not secure Palestinian self-determination during his one-term presidency between 1977 and 1981, yet he refused to stop trying. In the decades since leaving office, he has turned every stone, searched for every possibility to bring about a just peace for Palestinians and all the people of the Middle East.
As we celebrate and reflect on Carter’s life and legacy, let us amplify his call for the U.S. to be a genuine force for peace and justice around the world.
Now, as he enters his 100th year and tributes pour in to honor his many humanitarian achievements, we must not forget that he was one of the most important truth-tellers of our time. Carter was willing to see the brutality inflicted on the Palestinian people and refused to remain silent about it. That is a rare kind of courage, especially for a former U.S. president, that should be recognized and remembered.
The best way we can honor Jimmy Carter, his bravery and unwavering moral clarity is to carry forward his commitment to equal human rights for all people.
The Palestinian struggle for self-determination is not just a political issue – it is a moral one. As Carter always emphasized, the U.S. has a special responsibility. Without American political and military support, Israel would not have been able to continue its ruthless occupation and apartheid against Palestinians or to commit the genocide in Gaza.
As we celebrate and reflect on Carter’s life and legacy, let us amplify his call for the U.S. to be a genuine force for peace and justice around the world. Let us recognize, as Carter wanted, that peace in our Holy Land will only come when the rights and dignity of Palestinians are acknowledged and respected. Only then will we truly be able to honor his legacy and the values he stood for so bravely.
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War Criminal Netanyahu Deflects With False Charges of Antisemitism
Proclaiming Israel and its conduct above reproach by framing all criticism as antisemitism is mutually harmful to Jews and Palestinians.
Oct 02, 2024
Remember the summer of 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. That night in August when white nationalists marched through the campus of the University of Virginia in a rally dubbed Unite the Right carrying torches, with some carrying flags with the Nazi black swastika and some chanting the Nazi slogan “Blood and soil” and, also, “Jews will not replace us.” Manifest antisemitism at its core.
Remember also in October 2018 the mass murder at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh of 11 Jewish worshippers by a lone gunman filled with hatred toward Jews. That was also antisemitism at its core.
Remember also in October 2018 the mass murder at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh of 11 Jewish worshippers by a lone gunman filled with hatred toward Jews. That was also antisemitism at its core.
And centuries before there was when King Edward I ordered the expulsion of all Jews from England in 1290. Then there was the plague in the 14th century, the Black Death, propelling the story that Jews were the culprit by poisoning wells; a story some argue led to the “Medieval Holocaust.” These events are among others through history of Jews being persecuted.
Then there is May of this year when chief prosecutor Karim Khan of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza war. Charges Netanyahu in absolute fashion, and erroneously, characterized as antisemitic in his video statement responding to Khan’s announcement, saying:
Israel is waging a just war against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that perpetrated the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust... Mr. Khan takes his place among the great antisemites in modern times. He now stands alongside those infamous German judges who donned their robes and upheld laws that denied the Jewish people their most basic rights and enabled the Nazis to perpetrate the worst crime in history.
Quite an accusation in Prime Minister Netanyahu comparing Mr. Khan to enablers of the Holocaust. Quite an accusation given Netanyahu failed to mention Khan was also seeking the arrest of the three principal leaders of Hamas for war crimes and crimes against humanity primarily in the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
In interviews in September with BBC’s Nick Robinson and then with Newsweek, prosecutor Karim Khan discussed his actions as a necessary equal application of international law. In his interview with Newsweek, Khan said:
Throughout history, we see that international law has been applied in a haphazard manner. It has not been applied evenly. And we’re seeing simply now vividly the unequal application of the law, particularly because of where we are. The world is connected…that it must be that all life matters equally. And there are certain situations that have developed in which it seems to be that powerful people think it’s a law-free zone, and we have to show that law applies everywhere. It’s not something that you can take it or leave it. It’s not an à la carte menu. You have to accept law in its totality if we’re not going to have a Wild West developing or widening in which you can grab what you want and do what you want to anybody that’s less powerful than you.
Then Mr. Khan added:
And whether they’re the families in the kibbutzim that are mourning the people killed from the seventh of October, or that are so horrendously being kept today… or it’s Palestinians in the West Bank or in Gaza, they have the right, not as a charity, not as a favor to them, but they have a right to be seen by the law.
Now juxtaposition the perspective of equality articulated by Khan in his interview with Newsweek with how Prime Minister Netanyahu ended his speech on September 27 before the United Nations General Assembly. After framing Iran the pivotal enemy in the Middle East, Netanyahu concluded by portraying the U.N. itself as a “swamp of antisemitic bile.” For starters, he said this:
The singling out of the one and only Jewish state continues to be a moral stain on the United Nations. It has made this once-respected institution contemptible in the eyes of decent people everywhere. But for the Palestinians, this U.N. house of darkness is home court. They know that in this swamp of antisemitic bile, there’s an automatic majority willing to demonize the Jewish state for anything. In this anti-Israel flat-Earth society, any false charge, any outlandish allegation can muster a majority.
Then Netanyahu added:
And given the antisemitism at the U.N., it should surprise no one that the prosecutor at the ICC, one of the U.N.’s affiliated organs, is considering issuing arrest warrants against me and Israel’s defense minister, the democratically elected leaders of the democratic state of Israel.
The ICC prosecutor’s rush to judgment… is hard to explain by anything other than pure antisemitism.
Netanyahu’s persistent charge of antisemitism leveled against anyone who criticizes Israel leads to this conclusion: Accusations of antisemitism are just another weapon in Netanyahu’s, if not Israel’s, arsenal.
Netanyahu’s weaponization of accusations of antisemitism is a dangerous double-edged sword. It could weaken the legitimacy of efforts to eliminate demonstrable antisemitism and the bigoted and often violent hatred toward Jewish people. On the other hand, Netanyahu’s weaponization also may legitimate hatred toward Palestinians and toward those, even in the Jewish community, who support equality and self-determination for Palestinians. The latter is Netanyahu’s explicit purpose in his rhetoric; that is, portraying anyone who supports Palestinian equality as antisemitic.
Netanyahu’s weaponization of charges of antisemitism has no relationship to the working definition of antisemitism developed by member states in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the United States and Israel among them. This is the definition used by the U.S. State Department.
The IHRA delineated examples of behavior and activities considered antisemitic encompassed in its definition. Targeting Israel only because it represents a Jewish collectively was one. But as IHRA also states, “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”
ICC’s chief prosecutor Khan in his aforementioned interviews plainly states seeking the arrest of both Israel and Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity represents equity in application of international law.
Then also, remember the international criticism of apartheid in South Africa. Such rings similar to criticisms of the Middle East version of apartheid in Israel. Similar criticism; not antisemitic.
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Hawaii ACLU Demands End to US Complicity in 'Israeli Government's Genocide in Gaza'
"Residents of Hawaii are witness to the historical consequences of land dispossession, colonization, and cultural erasure, and have not turned a blind eye to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people on their land."
Sep 26, 2024
The ACLU of Hawaii's board of directors on Wednesday announced the passage of what's believed to be a first-of-its-kind resolution for the civil liberties group decrying U.S. complicity in "the Israeli government's genocide in Gaza, as well as Israel's crimes of apartheid and occupation in the West Bank" and demanding an immediate cease-fire.
"Residents of Hawaii are witness to the historical consequences of land dispossession, colonization, and cultural erasure, and have not turned a blind eye to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people on their land," the ACLU of Hawaii said in a statement. "Activists in Hawaii have been steadfast in their advocacy against the United States' complicity in Israeli actions, and for this reason and many more, the Hawaii State Legislature was the first in the United States to call for a permanent and immediate cease-fire."
The ACLU of Hawaii board's resolution, which was passed earlier this month, compares the assault on Gaza—for which Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice—and the illegal occupation of Palestine with past human rights crimes like South African apartheid and the Vietnam War.
The document also notes that "college students and professors on campus are being silenced and police have committed violence against such peaceful protesters," and that "federal legislation... provides the Israeli government with military aid while it is committing egregious human rights violations against Palestinian civilians, as well as American citizens residing in Palestine."
"Therefore, this action is in line with ACLU of Hawaii's mandate to protect civil liberties and civil rights," the publication adds. "Israel's war in Gaza cannot be divorced from civil rights in America."
The resolution states:
- We condemn the U.S. government's complicity in Israeli action.
- We resolve that critiquing the war on Gaza should not be an exception to constitutional protections.
- We oppose federal legislation that provides the Israeli government with military aid while it continues hostilities against the Palestinians.
- We support calling for a permanent cease-fire and the release of all hostages.
The vote on the resolution was unanimous.
"Why? Because we're the ACLU," board member Kenneth Lawson said in a video about the resolution. "We have to stand for something. And what is that? Justice. And we are opposed to violations of human rights."
Board member Monihsa Das Gupta said that "here in Hawaii, there is a long history of fighting occupation and militarization, so we have very strong allies and allyship with Kānaka Maoli," a reference to Indigenous Hawaiians.
Das Gupta highlighted the pilina, or connection, "between Palestinians who are struggling for their self-determination and the Kānaka Maoli and their allies here... raising our voices for deoccupation."
Lawson said: "What we're asking for is a cease-fire. This isn't about one side versus the other, this is about justice for human beings. Period."
"So, free the hostages, an immediate cease-fire right now to stop any military aid from the United States from going to Israel so we're not co-conspirators in this atrocity, so we're not co-conspirators in this genocide, and to stop any legislation that continues to support us being involved in the devastation of one group of people over another," he added.
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