The British newspaper the Guardian reports today that Jimmy Carter, who has been in Israel and just met with top Hamas officials in Gaza, said of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent speech: “My opinion is he raised many new obstacles to peace that had not existed under previous prime ministers. … He still apparently insists on expansion of existing settlements, he demands that the Palestinians and the Arabs recognize Israel as a Jewish state, although 20 percent of its citizens here are not Jews. This is a new demand.”
Carter also stated: “To me, the most grievous circumstance is the maltreatment of the people in Gaza, who are literally starving and have no hope at this time. … They’re being treated like savages. The alleviation of their plight to some means I think would be the most important [thing] the Israeli PM could do.”
FRANCIS BOYLE
Boyle, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, served as legal advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace negotiations from 1991 to 1993.
He said today: “Netanyahu has now shifted the goal-posts on the Palestinians by demanding that they recognize Israel as a ‘Jewish State.’ It would be as if the United States demanded that Iran recognize it as a ‘White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant State’ as part of any peace settlement. Of course this demand is racist. It would likely lead to the denationalization of the 1.5 million Palestinians who are already second-class citizens of Israel and set the stage for their mass deportation to the Palestinian Bantustan envisioned by Netanyahu in this speech.
“Basically, Netanyahu [is trying] to stall and delay while Israel continues to develop and expand its illegal settlements in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, funded in substantial part by United States taxpayers.” Boyle’s books include Palestine, Palestinians and International Law and most recently Tackling America’s Toughest Questions.
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
