DERSHOWITZ ON CARTER'S BRANDEIS VISIT

A Real Dialogue Would Have Been Better - Alan Dershowitz
President Carter's speech at Brandeis University on Tuesday should have been a real debate. Instead, it was a one-way dialogue with pre-screened questions and no rebuttals.

Carter defends Yasser Arafat's refusal to accept the generous terms offered by President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000-2001 - or to make a counteroffer. In fact, the Palestinians could have had a state in 1938, 1948, 1967 and on several other occasions, but their leaders cared more about destroying Israel than they did about creating Palestine. That is the core of the conflict. It is Palestinian terror, not Israeli policy, which prevents peace. Carter chooses to believe Arafat's story over that of Clinton, Barak and Saudi Prince Bandar, who called Arafat's refusal a "crime."

Even at Brandeis, President Carter continued to make the kinds of inaccurate claims that run throughout his book. He said, for example, that Hamas began a sixteen-month cease-fire in August 2004. He said nothing about Hamas rocket attacks in the weeks and months that followed, which killed innocent Israeli women and children. He claimed that Israel's security barrier was designed to seize land, when in fact it was proposed by left-wing Israelis, and aims only to protect civilians from bombings and sniper fire. I would like to join with President Carter in working for peace in the Middle East. But peace will not come if we insist on blaming one side in the conflict. (Jerusalem Post)