It may be that the filmmakers were trying to tell the story of a widely-recognized failure of an ex-president rehabilitating his reputation through humanitarian action and spending the twilight of his life in faith, friends, and family. But then he came out with a book, and the story wrote itself, inevitably shifting to the whirlwind that followed his “controversial” book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. I say “controversial” because it dared to speak ill of Israel’s policies. Not Israel in general, not Jews, but Israel’s firmly instituted policies of treating Palestinians as second-class citizens, trapping them in a massive cage, and then wondering why anyone could possibly think ill of them.
It brings to mind for me how modern civilization almost constantly moves forward, toward a direction of greater rights, more acceptance, and generally more progress, and the best example for this is the United States, the history of which barely needs to be glanced at to see this obvious broadening. Gay people can almost be married, and we have an African-American as president.
Then there are those who always stand in the way of such progress. Their tactic is to lash out, often through building up their own strawmen and then using base attacks programmed to instill fear, while hiding their true intentions. Racists in the 1950s built up their false ideas of “separate but equal” while trying to exploit the racial (not to mention sexist) fears of white women brutalized by sub-human black men. The forces of history and hard work exposed and marginalized them and reason is winning.
The AIPAC squad, so perfectly personified by Alan Dershowitz, simply continues this tradition. Their straw-man: that no one opposed to them decries Palestinian violence. Carter did in his book, frequently, and so does every other Israel critic I’ve read. But facts really don’t matter when you’re as intellectually bankrupt as the AIPAC squad and the hardcore Zionists. What matters for them are racial attacks and lies. In the film Dershowitz plays this out in almost real-time. He levels an assault at Carter that he won’t denounce Palestinian terrorism (which he does), then he goes to state that Hamas poses the same danger as Hitler, and then calls Palestinians “cockroaches,” which after catching himself on his own racism he backs down from and claims he was talking about Hamas.
Dershowitz’ main strategy is to share a stage with Carter. This is the same plan as the Ann Coulters of the world. They must be present against their critics, not to debate them on any intellectual grounds but through ad hominem attacks, straw men, and general shrieking. Carter was wise to ignore him and not engage because it’s impossible to win an engagement with a deranged person, and it would erroneously give the impression that there are two sides to the debate. There are not, not two legitimate ones anyway. It’s the foreign policy equivalent of arguing with a two-year-old throwing a tantrum; no one wins and a tie goes to the loudest shrieker.
Unfortunately, as Israel grows more right-wing and Netanyahu resumes his rise to power, reason will take a back seat. Racial fears will be exploited, and Israel will continue its supposedly sacred duty to subjugate its opponents and silence any criticism. And I fear Obama will be largely useless in the constant struggle for basic human rights. Hopefully society will progress, clear heads will prevail, and the cycle of violence ceaselessly prolonged by Israel’s self-avowed exceptionalism will finally come to an end.
At least Jimmy Carter is out there, working to make that possible. His death will come too soon, whenever it is.
