What Trump Can Learn from Carter, The Best American President Israel Ever Had

President Biden declares he’s a Zionist and soon to be president once again Trump declares he’s Israel’s best friend, while it was President Truman who recognized the State of Israel in 1948.

Sadat, Carter and Begin at Camp David (Photo: American Embassy in Israel)

But the late President Jimmy Carter was the one who at Camp David in 1978 micromanaged the first peace agreement between Israel and its strongest Arab neighbor, Egypt, which guaranteed Israel’s survival and the start of its integration into the Middle East. Although Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann and Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan played an important role, and Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s readiness to sign an agreement and return all of Sinai, and of course Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s initiative were keys, but without Carter’s readiness to devote precious presidential hours to coaching the parties towards an agreement, it probably wouldn’t have happened.

That’s the type of American presidential leadership that we need to end the war and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to complete Israel’s integration into the region and to guarantee a secure, stable and peaceful life for all Israelis.

Peace, Not Apartheid?

Many Israelis were upset when Carter titled his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid”. However, is it possible to deny that the situation in the West Bank, with its dual legal system, full rights for Jewish settlers and a lack of equal rights for Palestinians with numerous restrictions, resembles the apartheid system that existed in South Africa? The first sentence of the current “fully right Israeli government” as it likes to call itself is that “the Jewish people have an exclusive right on all the land” between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. But what about the Palestinians who live on that land? That’s not a recipe for peace but rather for perpetual conflict.

In 2002 Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

War cannot prevent war

It’s definitely worth reading his acceptance speech for the Prize.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2002/carter/lecture/

Among other things, he said that “To suggest that war can prevent war is a base play on words and a despicable form of warmongering. The objective of any who sincerely believe in peace clearly must be to exhaust every honorable recourse in an effort to save the peace. The world has had ample evidence that war begets only conditions that beget further war.” Shades of the “total victory” slogan. George Orwell couldn’t have said it better.

Has Prime Minister Netanyahu exhausted every honorable recourse to end the war and achieve peace? Has he even considered peace to be a worthy goal for the Israeli people since he returned to office in 2022? Has President Biden emulated Carter’s dedication of precious presidential hours to try to end the war and achieve peace?

What Trump has to do to earn a Nobel Peace Prize

Incoming President Trump dreams of achieving a Nobel Prize for Peace. To be worthy of that, he has to end the current war in all of its manifestations and move forward towards a resolution of the conflict, for the sake of both Israelis and Palestinians. Israelis, Americans and Saudis all want “a deal” which will guarantee normal relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and solidify the alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis and all 22 states of the Arab League have declared that this is dependent upon the creation of a clear path to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. This can be achieved with the aid of mutually agreed upon land swaps of 4-5% which will enable 80% of the settlers to be within the sovereign State of Israel, including the post 1967 new Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Gush Etzion and the two big Haredi Ultra-Orthodox settlements of Beitar Elite and Modi’in Elite, neutralizing that problem. It’s all written in the Arab Peace Initiative that was declared at the Arab League Summit Conference in Beirut in 2002, that has been reaffirmed many times since then, backed by the entire Muslim world.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/empa/dv/1_arab-initiative-beirut_/1_arab-initiative-beirut_en.pdf

The Palestinians have even agreed to the concept of it being a demilitarized state with only internal police functions, to help guarantee Israel’s sense of security.

That’s the challenge that faces incoming President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Will they pick up Carter’s challenge of exhausting “every possible recourse” to achieve the peace? Will they be ready to push Netanyahu in the direction of accepting what is necessary to resolve the conflict? If incoming President Trump wants to be worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, the road forward is clear.

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Hillel Schenker is Co-Editor of Palestine-Israel Journal (www.pij.org). He is currently completing an activist-memoir whose working title is “From Utopia to Dystopia? Eye-Witness in Israel-Palestine”