E-mail a friendPresident Jimmy Carter
airdate February 16, 2009
Jimmy Carter served as the 39th U.S. President. In his one term, his administration oversaw the creation of the Energy and Education Departments, the Israel-Egypt Camp David Accords, the Soviet Union Salt II treaty and U.S. diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. Since leaving office, he founded The Carter Center and has been active in Habitat for Humanity and international public policy. He's a Nobel laureate and best-selling author who's written more books than any U.S. president.
Former president outlines the obstacles for peace in the Middle East. (3:25)
Full interview. (23:11)
President Jimmy Carter
Tavis: I am always pleased and honored to welcome Jimmy Carter to this program. The 39th president of the United States continues to focus so much of his energy and his passion on solving one of the world's most vexing questions - how to bring peace and stability to them me.
His new book on the subject is called "We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work." He joins us tonight, sadly not here in studio, but in Seattle. A great city, though. President Carter, nice to have you back, sir.
Former President Jimmy Carter: It's good always to be with you, Tavis.
Tavis: Oh, well, I wish you were here in the studio, as always, but glad to have you on via satellite from Seattle.
Carter: Thank you.
Tavis: Let me start by asking what you think of how President Obama is handling - how do you think, rather, he's handling the economy. When you took office in '77, consumer confidence in this country, a crisis of confidence, was down for different reasons. What do you make about how he's doing so far?
Carter: Well, I think he's off to a good start. He's trying to keep the promises he made to the people during the campaign. He's already guaranteed that we're going to have a good tax reduction for all the working people in the country. And the proposal he's made I think is very sound. He's got the best advisers that you can find in the United States.
Unfortunately, the Republicans in the House don't have the freedom to vote the way they know they should vote and the way the people back home need them to vote. They vote the way their political bosses in the House tells them to, otherwise they lose their community assignments or they might lose benefits for their own people back in the district.
So the Democrats, I believe, will support him enough so he'll have a good recovery package and we'll have the stimulus that we need.
Tavis: Do I take your statement, then, to mean that you think that this economy so far has been partisan as opposed to Republicans having principle differences?
Carter: Well, there's no doubt about it. When you have a good, sound proposal made in the House of Representatives and not a single one votes for it, that pretty well indicates that what I said is true. They know that if they don't vote the way their bosses tell them to in the House, they'll lose their committee assignments and they might be cut off from any sort of benefits from appropriation bills.
So they have to vote the way they're told in the Republican Party's ranks in the House of Representatives. Only three broke away in the Senate, very enlightened Senators, I might say, but I think that Obama will prevail because the people are backing him around the nation.
Tavis: Let me switch gears from our domestic challenges, then, to the international front, and then I want to come directly to your new book. As we look back on last week, the elections in Israel, two questions. What do you make of how close those elections were last week, and secondly, is their system the best kind of system, politically, for the challenges they face in the region?
Carter: No, it's not the best kind, and I say that knowing that almost every political leader in Israel agrees with what I just said. It's not the best kind. They know it needs to be reformed, but obviously the small parties that are far to the right and quite often deeply religious don't want to see it change, because it gives them a magnified influence in the decisions made by - later on, when a government's formed.
I think the closeness of that election shows that Ms. Livni came - made tremendous strides upward just before the election was held, which showed, I think, that a more moderate opinion is prevailing now in Israel than it was, say, three or four months ago.
So it'll be a while before we see a firm government established in Israel. In the meantime, I believe we still have hope that what I said in my book - that is, we can have peace in the Holy Land, a plan that will work, will prevail, because the Israeli people are realizing that they've got to get away from what they've been doing the last 20, 25 years, and it is making it impossible to have a two-state solution.
They have confiscated the land so the Palestinians now have no place for their nation to be built alongside Israel and to live in peace.
Tavis: I want to start, Mr. Carter, talking specifically about the title of the book. You chose this title expressly, I suspect, because the title is so declarative. Why be so declarative on this issue?
Carter: Well, there are several reasons. One is what I just said - I think this is a major generic issue, and that is that the Israelis now realize, even the top leaders, whom I quote in the book, that you can't have a one-state solution that is one nation between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea where you already have a majority of non-Jews living there and the population of the Arabs is increasing very rapidly.
So eventually, you're going to have a majority vote in one nation, which means you can't any longer have a Jewish state, which is what Israel is defined to be, or you're going to have to drive the Palestinians out, and nobody - none of the neighbors want them. Or you're going to have to give them second-class citizenship, which is not what the Israelis want as well.
So the two-state solution that I describe very in detail in my book, which even a peanut farmer can understand, (laughter) is what you're going to have to have. And I think that this is a good time to have it, because I'd say there are a lot of reasons I can go into if we have time, but the main important reason is we have a new president in the White House that promised me during the campaign that he would put the peace for Israel at the top of his priority list from the very beginning of his administration.
He's already done that. He began to make telephone calls and so forth even the day he was inaugurated, and he's appointed the best possible American you could have as a peace envoy, and that is former Senator George Mitchell.
Tavis: Let me - to your joke a moment ago about even a peanut farmer can understand this, I was going to say even a talk show host can understand (laughter) the notion of the two-state solution. I guess the question is this, though, President Carter - whether or not there's anybody in the Middle East who doesn't agree with you that there has to be a two-state solution.
I ask that question because if everybody seems to agree, and most people I listen to seem to think that a two-state solution is the answer, and yet we can't seem to solve the problem.
Carter: I'm not positive that Bibi Netanyahu agrees with that.
Tavis: Fair enough, fair enough.
Carter: Although most people do. And as you know, one of the major parties that did so well this past election believes that you should have a complete separation of Jews and Arabs - that is, move the Arabs that are in Israel, about 1.1 million of them, into the West Bank, and bring the Israeli settlers back into Israel, and have two completely separated races. That's also a factor there.
But in general, the vast majority of Israeli citizens in all parties, if you put them together, fully agree that they need to give up their land in the West Bank for peace, and of course the Palestinians overwhelmingly accept that premise.
There's some modifications that I describe in the book that will make it work. One is you can leave about half of the Israeli settlers in Palestinian, near Jerusalem, and swap that same amount of land, the same amount of acres of land, to the Palestinians. And even the most conservative prime minister we've seen lately, Ariel Sharon, agreed with me in January of 2005 that that land could be used to build a corridor between the West Bank and Gaza, a distance of about 35 miles.
And he suggested that there be a railroad on that strip of land, and a road alongside of it, still controlled by and security provided by Israel.
Tavis: You mentioned a moment ago, President Carter, the fact that you think that the president, Obama, that is, has picked the best person to be his envoy in former Senator George Mitchell. The flip side of that question is whether or not George Mitchell is talking to the right people on the other side to make progress.
Are we talking to the right people? Are the right people in place where this conversation is concerned in the Middle East?
Carter: Not yet. I think that in the near future we'll see the United States reestablish diplomatic relations with Syria, which we ought to do. That was cut off under George W. Bush, and I think it ought to be restored because Syria can play a crucial role in helping with the Palestinian-Israeli issue. They've got to be involved in the Golan Heights issue, and they could also help in Lebanon and also indirectly in other countries like Iraq.
So Syria's got to be involved. And you have to have a unification, in a way, of the Palestinian factions between the Hamas and Fatah factions, and Hamas has come around a lot in the last year. They've told me, for instance, last April, when I was over there, that they would accept any peace agreement negotiated between the Palestinians and Israel if the people in the West Bank and Gaza could vote on a referendum to approve the terms of that peace agreement. Then Hamas would accept it as well.
Tavis: You mentioned, President Carter, George W. Bush a moment ago. You've made no secret about the fact that you - and not just you, a lot of other people, for that matter - but certainly you have made no secret about the fact that you think that they completely, my phrase, not yours, dropped the ball on this issue for eight years of their administration. How much damage was done, and was that damage irreparable by the Bush administration?
Carter: I don't think it's irreparable because now I think Obama can make a change. Let's just take one example that everybody talks about, and that is Iran. What's happened to Iran in the last eight years has been very disturbing. Iran has become much more powerful, much more influential, much more arrogant in dealing with the outside world because of four factors.
One is Iraq. We shouldn't ever have invaded Iraq, and that has been the main factor that's made Iran emerge as a top leader in that region. The second one is that we've made no progress in dealing with the Palestinian issue, and it's made Iran look as though they are the champions of Palestinian rights.
The third factor is that we've threatened, indirectly and sometimes directly, that we're going to bomb Iran, even with nuclear weapons, or we're going to authorize Israel to bomb Iran. And that obviously encourages Iran to build up their maximum capability to defend themselves.
And the fourth factor is no talking to them. We've let the Europeans talk to them, but we've refused to even have any communications with Iran, and that's a mistake as well. So if all four of those factors are corrected, I think we have the best chance to minimize Iran's inclinations to develop a nuclear weapon and also minimize Iran's power and influence in that region.
Tavis: You ran down four issues where Iran is concerned. I want to run down now three issues having to do with obstacles to this peace plan that you proposed in the Middle East. One of them you've already talked about, and I want to give you a chance to talk more about it. I want to cover these three obstacles. In no particular order, number one, the Jewish settlements.
Carter: Okay, well, that's going to be a very difficult issue, but a lot of the Jewish settlements that are now scattered all over the West Bank, which is only 22 percent of the total territory - a tiny portion of the total territory - many of those are already illegal. They've been declared illegal by Prime Minister Sharon and by Prime Minister Olmert right now, by the Israeli supreme court, and they have to be removed.
And those settlers, although they're very fervent, can be removed if the army is ordered by the prime minister to do so. And then there are others that can be rewarded financially, as they were when they moved out of Gaza, and they can move not completely out of the West Bank, because they can move back near Jerusalem.
I've just told you that I think that about half of the total settlers can stay in Palestinian if they give an equivalent amount of land back to the Israelis.
Tavis: Issue two, where the obstacles are concerned - Israel's security fence.
Carter: Well, the security fence was first proposed, as you know, by Yitzhak Rabin, who was responsible for the Oslo agreement moving toward peace. But unfortunately, he was assassinated by a radical right-wing factor in Israel.
Rabin proposed that that fence be built. It's not a fence in the populated areas; it's wall, sometimes 40 feet high, like a four-story building - a concrete wall. And he proposed that it be built along the 1967 borders, but when Mr. Sharon took office, he said why don't we move this barrier deep inside the West Bank and confiscate some very choice land that then belonged to the Palestinians.
So therefore that's what they've done. They've moved the line sometimes 12 miles deep inside the West Bank. Eventually, that wall is going to have to be removed back to the permanent border between Israel and the Palestinians, and that means giving up this land that the Israelis have tried to confiscate by putting the wall deep inside Palestinian territory.
Tavis: Obstacle number three, President Carter - Hamas refusing to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as a state.
Carter: Hamas has not denied the right of Israel to exist. What they have denied is recognition of Israel's right to exist. Recognition is the key word, and I hate to play on semantics, but that's what they described to me very clearly, and to the public.
Recognition means a mutual thing - I recognized China 30 years ago, almost exactly, as the China, whereas Nixon had said that - and others had said - that Taiwan was China. So what the Hamas people say is that we will accept Israel's right to exist, to live in peace inside the '67 borders, and that's exactly what all 22 Arab countries say - we'll accept or recognize Israel's right to exist inside the '67 borders. The Arab counties have said recognized, Hamas has said accept or acknowledge.
Tavis: This is my own assessment first, and I want to get your take on this. My assessment is that any powerful nation, whether it's the U.S. and Iraq, or U.S. versus Iraq, or Israel versus Palestinian - any nation that has power I think has an obligation to properly calibrate the use of that power in any sort of military engagement. I say that only because I wonder, one, whether you agree with that in principle, and if you do, number two, if you agree, number two, how did Israel do or not do, as it were, in calibrating the use of its power in this last round of fighting?
Carter: Well, I wrote an editorial that was in "The Washington Post” right after Israel attacked Gaza, and I said this was an unnecessary war. Because all that the Palestinians in Gaza have wanted, and there are 1.5 million of them, is to have Israel open the barrier in the wall built around Gaza - it's completely enclosed like a prison - and let food and water and medicine and fuel come in.
But Israel so far has refused to do so. Only about 25 percent, maximum, and right now, about 15 percent of what the Palestinians need to survive. And the only way the people have lived in there - most of them are eating just one meal a day, by the way, the Palestinians. The only way they've survived is by digging tunnels out of a southern part of Gaza into Egyptian territory, through which they can bring various things that they need.
Unfortunately, they also have brought in rockets, and that's an unfortunate development. But if Israel is willing, whenever Israel becomes willing to open up the borders and let free trade come in and supply the Palestinians with what they need, then the rockets will stop and you can have a permanent ceasefire, not just a temporary one.
Tavis: The last time we had a chance to talk about this on this TV show it was your last book, and we had a chance then - I had a chance to ask you then about your passion where this issue is concerned, and why you've devoted so much of your life to this issue.
I want to ask now a question that's a bit different, President Carter, if I might, and I don't want to waste your time or mine or the viewers' getting involved in the hermeneutics of this, the biblical hermeneutics. But there are a lot of persons who happen to be Christian, as you are and as I am. Their read of the Bible suggests that there will never be peace in the Middle East.
They have a different read of the same Bible that you and I read, and yet you devoted your life as a Christian to trying to bring peace to a region that they think, given their biblical read, that there will never be peace in the first place. You know what I'm talking about. Can your respond to that for me?
Carter: Sure. Tavis, I've been teaching the Bible since I was 18 years old, when I was a midshipman at Annapolis, and half the time I teach the Hebrew text, what we call the Old Testament, and the other half I teach the New Testament. And as I teach - in fact, right now, last Sunday and this next Sunday, I'll be teaching in the Old Testament - I'm teaching at this moment about the judges, all the way from Joshua, who replaced Moses, all the way up to the last judge, and that was Sa
Tavis: Thank you, sir.
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