Reading Carter in Israel

These excerpts are from an important essay by Yossi Beilin, which reminds us that the political debate in Israel is much less constrained and skewed than it is in the USA where self-censorship is common, and honest debate over Israel's policies is sometimes very hard to find in the mainstream press.

"Part of the explanation for why Carter’s book did not set off any public outcry in Israel lies in the difference in literary culture. For better or worse — and I, for one, certainly think that it is for worse — books just don’t matter here in the way they still do elsewhere. Yet perhaps a larger part of the explanation lies with the difference in political culture, and with local sensitivities (or perhaps insensitivities) to language and moral tone.

"It is not that Israelis are indifferent to what is said about them, but the threshold of what passes as acceptable here is apparently much higher than it is with Israel’s friends in the United States. In the case of this particular book, the harsh words that Carter reserves for Israel are simply not as jarring to Israeli ears, which have grown used to such language, especially with respect to the occupation.

"In other words, what Carter says in his book about the Israeli occupation and our treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories — and perhaps no less important, how he says it — is entirely harmonious with the kind of criticism that Israelis themselves voice about their own country. There is nothing in the criticism that Carter has for Israel that has not been said by Israelis themselves.

"Of course, Carter is not just another media pundit or a leftist Israeli. A former president of the United States and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, he has been one of the world’s most accomplished statesmen in the past three decades, a public figure of enormous moral clout. His words weigh heavier than those of others, and his actions make a difference in the real sense of the term."