Thanks to the late Jimmy Carter’s tenacity, Israel and Egypt were able to make peace in 1979. His intense personal involvement was unprecedented for an American president as he put the rest of his job on hold while he mastered the details, wrote endless drafts, massaged egos and prayed with three faiths.
That tenacity changed the history of the Middle East and marked the beginning of real efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. But it didn’t go far enough for the devout Southern Baptist and born-again Christian Sunday school teacher who died last Sunday at age 100. It was partially his own fault when that tenacity went too far for many in the pro-Israel community.
He was committed to protecting what his religion taught is the Holy Land, the Jewish state, but he felt just as strongly if not more so about the rights of the Palestinians who also inhabited the land and their right to their own homeland.
That put him on a collision course with Israel, much of American Jewry, and many in his own party. The problems began shortly after Carter became president in 1977 when he sought to convene a US-Soviet Middle East peace conference in Geneva to solve the entire conflict. That proposal is said to have been the catalyst for Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to seize the initiative and bypass Washington by personally going to Israel.
Sadat had just evicted the overbearing Soviets and wished to join the Western camp. He knew the road to Washington went through Jerusalem. He flew to Jerusalem on November 19, 1977, assured former prime Minister Golda Meir, who had rebuffed his earlier peace overtures, that she was mistaken in thinking his trip was a ruse for a surprise attack, and told the Israeli people “no more war.”
Negotiations stalled for nearly a year until Carter invited Sadat and then-Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin to the presidential retreat in Catoctin Mountain, Maryland. After 12 long and intense days of isolation, bickering, and bargaining they produced the Camp David Accords. Afterward, the Israeli and Egyptian leaders separately briefed members of the House and Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where I heard one lawmaker observe, “the three messiahs have come down from the mountain to deliver the word of God.”
It was a framework but not a peace treaty: That was to take another six months. But Carter was not satisfied. He had wanted Begin’s commitment to a long-term settlement freeze and “full autonomy” for Palestinians, which seemed more important to the US president than the Egyptian one. Carter spoke of a Palestinian “homeland” but not a state. That would not become the United States’ policy for nearly two decades.
Stuart Eizenstat, who had been Carter’s top domestic adviser, said the president “supported Palestinian rights believing that it would add to Israel’s security by having neighbors with a vested interest in their own future.”
Tension between Carter and Begin
Carter’s anger and frustration with Begin grew along with the number of settlements. He saw them as symbols of “apartheid” in a form “worse” than South Africa. Like all but one of his successors, Carter considered settlements obstacles to peace. He was right. That was the intention, especially under the Likud Party. Ariel Sharon, who was then in charge of settlement expansion, later showed me a planning map (I have it on my wall) for West Bank settlements, proudly explaining “There’s no place to draw lines” for any future Palestinian state.
MANY ISRAELIS, American Jews, and other friends of Israel became very disappointed with what they saw as Carter’s lopsided sympathy for the Palestinian cause at a time when the PLO and Yasser Arafat were showing the world they were more interested in destroying Israel and making peace with it. Some felt that Carter’s passion for human rights blinded him in that area, along with Begin’s lawyerly affinity for detail in the face of Sadat’s bold gestures.
Carter had a rocky relationship with many Democrats on Capitol Hill. “He gives us orders and doesn’t want to hear what we have to say,” one House leader told me after returning from an Oval Office leadership meeting.
The president bemoaned a “national malaise” at a time when the country yearned for reassurance and optimism following the dark days of Richard Nixon and Watergate. Ronald Reagan seemed to offer that, and it propelled him to a landslide victory that made Carter a one-term president.Carter was not an antisemite, but still managed to offend many American Jews with his harsh criticism of Israel, despite his record of achievements: He was the father of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, welcomed Iranian Jews, Christians, and Bahai’s fleeing the Islamic revolution, expanded military aid to Israel and helped weaken the Arab boycott of Israel.
He was in synch with the vast majority of American Jewry on nearly all issues – environment, human rights, civil rights, education, conservation, democracy, global peace, rights for Soviet Jews, Social Security and Medicare – but one: Israel.
Many had the impression that he cared more about the plight of the Palestinians than the safety of Israel, on which he seemed to heap most of the blame for the conflict. That attitude only hardened in his post-presidency years.
In 1980 Carter got a record low number of Jewish votes, 45%, down from 71% four years earlier; Ronald Regan took the largest share of Jewish votes of any Republican in the past century, at 39%.
CARTER NEVER healed the rift. In 2006, he wrote a book titled Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. Abe Foxman, then the head of the Anti-Defamation League, accused him of trying to “delegitimize Israel” and said, “He’s provoking, he’s outrageous, and he’s bigoted.”
Begin and Sadat won Nobel Peace Prizes for the Camp David Accords but not the man who brought them to the table. Carter, the catalyst for peace, deserved the prize as well, but he was left out on what was called a technicality. He had to wait 24 years to be recognized with the Peace Prize for his efforts to promote human rights, heath, peace, and to resolve conflicts around the world.
The search for Arab-Israeli peace has spread from Morocco to the Gulf States, and Saudi Arabia is poised to be the next and biggest prize. But the centerpiece of Carter’s vision – and nearest to his heart – remains remote, the Palestinian issue.
For that there is no leader on either side of the conflict today with the courage and vision of Begin, Sadat, and Carter to make the historic decisions and risks for peace, nor do any appear to be on the horizon.
If for no other reason than his historic contribution to peace in the Middle East, Jimmy Carter was a successful president.
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and a former legislative director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
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