Jimmy Carter Quotes

Commenting on Israel's right to exist:

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the base on which the Great Jewish Temple was erected. The temple was destroyed by the Romans. Hundreds of years later the Muslims built a mosque which the Prophet Muhammud himself is believed to have transported to. One side of the Temple Mount is the Wailing Wall, the holiest place on Earth for Orthodox Jews. When the Arabs controlled Jerusalem, they would not allow any Jews to pray at the Wailing Wall. When the Israelis gained control of the holy city they were more reasonable. They ceded day to day control of the Temple Mount—the top and the Mosque—to the Muslims and since then Jews have prayed at the side of the Mount and Muslims on the top. However there has been some friction about the archeology of the interior of the Mount itself. And some Muslims resent the fact that Israel controls the security and access to one of their holiest Mosques, and that in the event of some transgression in the Mount, Israeli civil law controls and not Islamic religious law—Sharia. Some permanent agreement will have to be made if there is to be an overall peace.

A major issue amongst Israeli’s is to how they should relate to those hostile Islamic nations in their area who claim they are at war with Israel or the Jewish People. This position in effect says that the oratory of those Islamic groups that claim that they are in a war—a holy war even—should be taken at their word and treated as a wartime enemy and Israel should actively attempt to kill and destroy them.

This resolution has never been rescinded. Some Arab states have abandoned this resolution and negotiated peace and recognition such as Egypt. The majority of the Arab States did and do not want peace with Israel. They did and do not want to recognize Israel and they did and do not want to negotiate. But they often blame Israel for being intransigent in the peace process. Many Arabs want a peace treaty and want to negotiate but the extreme rejectionists generally dominate Arab politics.

A minority of Jewish Israelis do not recognize the United Nations 1949 partition boundaries of the land creating modern Israel. They believe that God gave all the land to the Jewish people—as described in the Bible. Therefore, to them, the West Bank is a part of Israel. No Israeli government has ever maintained that position. However some governments which depend on settler and ultra-Orthodox support do not publicly disavow the position. Palestinians, look with alarm, on this view and the constant attempts at encroachment on West Bank land that the settlers attempt. Like the extremist Palestinians who want to sabotage any two-state solution, there is a minority of Israelis who do the same. These two groups made the peace process very difficult as their adherents are not only very passionate about their views, but have political influence out of proportion to their relatively small number of voters.

The Palestinians were split between supporters of Hamas and Fatah. The former was a terrorist organization which refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist and whose charter called for the killing of all Jews. The latter, accepted the right of Israel to exist and was committed to peace and coexistence with the Jewish state. They had fought a civil war and Hamas controlled Gaza with well over 1 million people which they seized for force and killed of forced out Fatah Representatives. Fatah was the elected ruling party of the West Bank, the larger and more populous of the Palestinian territories. There was little chance of any peace given that split. However, Israel which had undergone over 7000 rockets fired upon them by Hamas, stated that they refused to negotiate with the Palestinians as long as the Hamas terrorists were a part of the control of the potential Palestinian state. They would only discuss a 2 state solution if Hamas agreed that they accepted the right of Israel to exist in their general territory as a Jewish State, Hamas would accept and follow previous agreements made with the Palestinians, and Hamas would give up terrorism and the objective of killing Jews. So either Hamas would have to change its policies or Israel would negotiate with an organization that claimed it would never accept the existence of that country as a Jewish state. Al-Masri thought that the agreement he had mediated, was a necessary first step and was constructive for all the parties.