We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land by Jimmy Carter

And secondly, the Palestinians will have to accept the proposition that all - a flood of Palestinians cannot return inside Israel. One is, Israel so far has not been willing to withdraw from Palestine, that is, from the West Bank. That is Ehud Olmert, who says we have got to withdraw from the West Bank we have got to let Palestinians return to Palestine and we've got to share Jerusalem with them.īut there are two very difficult things. By the way, that's also what's been espoused most recently by the prime minister of Israel at this moment. And these '67 borders can be modified through goodfaith negotiations. In a two-state solution, the basic framework is to recognize Israel and Israel's right to exist and live in peace within its pre-1967 borders. MONTAGNE: President Carter, the subtitle of your book is 'A Plan That Will Work.' What makes this plan that's in your book different from the two-state solution that American administrations have been promoting in some form for years?įormer President CARTER: There's no difference.

And third, I think the seeing of the evolving tragedy since Gaza was destroyed as another element of urgency to bringing peace to Israel. For the first time, the Hamas leaders pledged that they would accept any peace agreement negotiated between the Palestinian leader - that is, Mahmoud Abbas - and Israel, provided that same peace agreement was submitted to the Palestinians in a referendum, which is very good. I went to meet with the Palestinians on all sides last April ,and again in December. Secondly, that there would be a move that Hamas could be accepting a peace agreement that would be negotiated. First of all, and I didn't anticipate it, although I hoped for it while I was writing the book - it was finished in November - that President Obama would be in office, and that we would have a balanced and aggressive commitment to bring peace.

And I asked him, why this new book just two years after the other one?įormer President JIMMY CARTER: So much has happened since then. More recently, he caused a stir, a controversy, with his book called 'Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.' This week, he's out with another book, 'We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work.' That's the title. Today, we hear from a man who mediated peace between Israel and Egypt three decades ago, former President Jimmy Carter. And in recent weeks on this program, we've been hearing from politicians and intellectuals on the prospects, however dim, for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. With his administration barely a week old, President Obama has given an interview to Arab TV, Al Arabiya. I'm Linda Wertheimer.Īnd I'm Renee Montagne.

We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land by Jimmy Carter