Camp David's Failures: Jimmy Carter's Opposition to Israeli Apartheid Wasn't Enough to Secure Peace

The late President Jimmy Carter presided over a key landmark in the Arab-Israeli peace process, the 1979 Camp David Accords signed by Egypt and Israel. Carter's lifelong interest in resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict is an analog for his complicated legacy in foreign policy and human rights. As Seth Anziska, a professor of Jewish-Muslim relations at University College London, explains, while on one hand Carter believed that Israel's treatment of Palestinians constituted apartheid "far worse" than what he had seen in South Africa, on the other, his deep Christian faith made him fundamentally sympathetic to religious beliefs framing Israel as a Jewish homeland. "He was the first U.S. president to talk about the idea of a Palestinian homeland alongside his commitment to Israeli security," says Anziska, who argues that the failure of the Camp David Accords in promoting lasting peace lies in their "perpetuation of Palestinian statelessness."

[lesliegeddes]

I haven't heard all the speakers at Jimmy Carter's service but anyone speaking of his decades long advocacy for Palestinian rights and against Israel's apartheid and attacks against Palestinians, would have bern a honor and tribute to his life.

[l]

Imagine if Ralph was vice president withCarter, what a wonderful world thatwill be!!
Rip kind president❤

[Davidpath]

who will compensate the Palestinians prisoners who were sexually abused ?
In its legally mandated June 2024 investigative report, the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (CoI) concluded: "The frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated against Palestinians since 7 October across the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) indicate that specific forms of Sexual and gender-based violence are part of Israeli Security Forces (ISF) operating procedures.

[nuzialavi]

Thank you Democracy Now for the pertinent interviews.

[grahamebell]

Heartfelt Plea from a Mother

The dead children don’t affect us like they used to.

The images. The videos. They still disturb and horrify, but not like they did in the beginning. Not anywhere close. And, honestly, I hate it. I hate that that part of me has been stolen.

As much as I hated having my being tormented all day and having nightmares all night, I’d rather have that than this decreased sensitivity. People should not become desensitised to such horrors. People should not become accustomed to decapitated babies and small, mangled bodies. To corpses run over by tanks. To body parts carried in plastic bags by loved ones.

These things should jar you. They should rattle you to your core. But they don’t anymore. Not here.

I held onto it for as long as I could. It felt like a solemn duty, to hold on to that part of me that still screamed with an appropriate mixture of grief and outrage at the latest tiny shredded body. But desensitization sets in whether you want it to or not. That’s how they create soldiers, after all I hate that these depraved "genocide deniers" that have amputated that part of me, and I hate that I know it will never grow back. I have been permanently disfigured inside, mutated by atrocities, all the way to the safety in the so-called Western democracies .

And I hate that this is happening all around the world to everyone else who’s kept their gaze fixed on Gaza. All around the world humanity is being mutated. All around the world something sacred is being stolen from the hearts of good people. All around the world people are finding callouses where there used to be tenderness.

We want our tenderness back, god damn it. I want my tenderness back.

Give me back the nightmares. Give me back the tears. Give me back the dry retching over the toilet, and the shaking under the blankets. Give me back the collapsing onto the couch and not moving for several hours until my system can recover from what my eyes just saw.I’ll take it. I’ll take it all back again. Just give me back that soft, tender part of myself that has been withered to dust by a live-streamed genocide.

I will take good care of it. I will feed it good things. I’ll give it plenty of sunshine, cupping it delicately in my hands by the window. I will take it for walks, and let it rejoice at the children running and playing, with their parts all together and their insides on the inside.

Don’t leave us hardened and darkened like a soldier. Give me back that soft, sacred part of myself that weeps at the corpses of children, so I can behold the world gently again.

Before October 7th the constant mantra of the Western politicians and a compliant MSM was
ISRAEL HAS THE RIGHT TO EXIST

Despite there being no moral or legal justification for displacing the
Indigenous Palestinians population with this Racist ZIONIST CULT

The question after October 7th then became :- ISRAEL HAS THE RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF Despite no country however legitimate having the right to defend and APARTHEID RACIST STATE brutal state .

The question quickly became as deaths edged toward 40, 000 most women and children and are now well over 48, 000 with as many and possibly more beneath the rubble uncounted and uncountable :-

Does Zionist Israel deserve to Exist

Now the question is :-

Can the civilised world tolerate a state where there is no criminal act:
NO ACT OF DEPRAVITY to which that country will not stoop.

Since October 7th the whole world, NOT JUST THOSE COUNTRIES THAT NEVER RECOGNISED THE ILLEGAL ZIONIST STATE OF ISRAEL AND NEVER WILL, the whole world has come face to face with the RACIST GENOCIDAL MONSTER that was allowed to expel nearly 1 million peaceful Palestinians from THEIR LAND in 1948, massacring all those that refused to take to their heels

[Davidpath]

Due to an absence of safe zones in Gaza, Every new strike comes to aggravate the injuries of the survivors of previous strike or may be to take their life. Thousands of survivors families are witnessing the numbers of their members shrinking gradually because where they take refuge from a previous strike is where they will be hit again. can we imagine how big is

[annenunney]

And he was saying this a long time ago and nothing has change it has just got a lot worse I wonder who these people are in America that are stopping a Palestinian state

[SRKStar]

Ok I’ve decided he’s my favorite president.

[seedsowlife]

Thanks. Amy and all DN staff and supporters.

[batekrown]

thank you for all the carter coverage -- - our last prez who was a GOOD huMAN!

[onlytheplanetmatters]

Just want to say thanks to everyone at DN.

[timmoore]

The biggest mistake with Camp David agreement is it wasn't contingent on recognizing a Palestinian state.

[YJ-pwzp]

During Carter administration there was a surge of Jewish immigration from Soviet Union to USA
Thank you, Mr. Carter, for making my American life possible.

[nanbergau]

The US was already committed to supporting Indonesia...

I WAS THERE IN JAKARTA IN DEC 75 WHEN PRESIDENT FORD MET WITH PRESIDENT SUHARTO ON A 1 HOUR STOPOVER....

THE NEXT DAY INDONESIA INVADED EAST TIMOR

As a nation key to the US anti communist 'meddling' in SE Asia (domino theory scare) the US CONGRESS FUNDED and supported the Indonesian military - and savy Reagan era GOP PR strategists who helped Suharto promote his Smiling General antincommunist facade- also helped blackout all info about the autrocities and rapacious INDONESIAN corruption in Timor... and elsewhere in the archipeligo.

I was there !!! THIS WAS ...NOT... Carter's choice !!!

I was there !!! In Indonesia from 1980-2000 ... and during the referrendum...

If you want to blame someone go back to Eisenhower's warning about the US industrial-military complex / oligarchy !!! The same group that gave us deceptive weapons of mass destruction excuses and compliant media chasing other more myopic / superficial / self serving headlines

[MrRobster]

I remember when Carter's book came out. The Jewish interns at his library quit en-mass. That speaks volumes.

[coffeegirl]

Thank you for sharing this interview with Jimmy Carter. I am embarrassed to admit I had not completely forgotten about those peace talks back then. ( I was out of my teen years) I did not know much about what was going on in different countries( I am US) but I do certainly remember believing that this man President Jimmy Carter had a very sincere and respectful feelings for getting Egypt and Israel to come to an accord. If only there could be more people like him. ❤️

[itssanti]

Carter was by far the most coherent president in modern US history, incredibly undervalued, and that is not a coincidence.

[vaclavkubicek]

The ICJ clarification of July 19, 2024 states: 1 Israel must leave all illegally occupied territories (Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem...SYRIAN GOLAN HEIGHTS). 2 Israel and all supporters of the illegal occupation are obliged to pay reparations (USA, Germany, UK..)

[TinaAli-vs]

Thanks for sharing 👍 may he rest in peace 🙏 great humanity. What did Obama accomplish 🤔 free 🇵🇸 Palestine 🇵🇸 👏

[leviashanken]

This may sound trite at this point. But President Carter was incorrect that most Israelis never meet a Palestinian. As of 1991, when I left, many Palestinians worked in main parts of Israel, such as Jerusalem. I would see them on buses, walking around, and working at grocery stores, restaurants, hotels, etc. Always very friendly and on good terms with their employers. Very frustrated when they couldn't enter from the West Bank due to trouble. Gazans also worked in Israel, especially on the Kibbutzim that Hamas later attacked.
I'm just adding the day-to-day aspect; as usual its the politicians that make everything so impossible. But I wish Pres Carter had seen this aspect of 'normal life' there.