On December 10, 2006, in An Open Letter to the New York Times, entitled, Smearing Jimmy Carter, Hugh Sansom took the New York Times to task:
The New York Times has now joined the slander campaign against President Jimmy Carter following the release of his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. (The paper gets the title wrong — there’s a colon.)
Just how ignorant does the Times think its readers are? All of the “critics” cited — Kenneth Stein, Alan Dershowitz, David Makovsky and the Wiesenthal Center — are unqualified apologists for Israel and its occupation.
The paper claims that Stein’s “criticism is the latest in a growing chorus of academics who have taken issue with the book”. What chorus can the Times have in mind if the only critics it can find just happen to be pro-Israel anti-Arabists?
Stein might be the most moderate — he’s also the most insignificant. One way or another, the Times cites –not one example– of the claimed factual errors or copying, except to convey Stein’s vague (and possibly actionable) assertions about an unnamed source.
Professor Stein, by the way, was also part of a campaign at Emory University to stop Mary Robinson, former Irish President and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, from speaking at Emory’s 2004 commencement — because of her criticism of Israel.
Makovsky is a long-time apologist for Israeli occupation and settlements. He likewise refers to many errors. The Times cites none. Did Makovsky offer none?
The Wiesenthal Center has never offered any criticism of occupation. It does routinely charge –any– critic of Israel with anti-Semitism.
Dershowitz is a vicious apologist not just for Israeli occupation, but for Israeli atrocities. His own book The Case for Israel really has been shown to be riddled with errors and probably plagiarized (from Joan Peters’s debunked From Time Immemorial). Dershowitz plagiarizes ‘fact’ from fiction, but the Times makes no mention of this.
The Times is fond of turning to Dershowitz. It did so when Noam Chomsky’s Hegemony or Survival appeared on the best seller lists following a mention before the UN by Hugo Chavez. Then as now, Dershowitz exhibited no experience of or interest in either reading or truth. Yet the Times thinks not only that he’s worth citing, but worth citing repeatedly and without qualification.
It is notable that the Times says nothing at all to suggest that these Carter critics might have an axe to grind. But it shows no comparable hesitation when the critic is one of US or Israeli actions. Chomsky and others like him are routinely identified by their criticism of US and Israeli policy. Why the discrepancy?
The Times provides yet another example of just how right Professors Walt and Mearsheimer are.
More recently, Sansom took Dennis Ross to task for his deceit in the matter of Camp David/Taba negotiations which began in 2000. Ross is a well known Israel shill, who was instrumental in the attempt to get Barak off the hook and blame Arafat for the failure of the Camp David negotiations. In his letter to the NYT’s editor, entitled, Dennis Ross’ curious maps problem, Hugh Sansom goes further concerning the so-called “generous offer.” As is well known, there was an attempt to dupe the American public about who was to blame for the Clinton’s failure at Camp David. In fact, Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster and master of deceit, recommended to The Israel Project, a right wing Israeli propaganda NGO, that it continue talking about the “supposedly generous offer.” Supposedly, indeed.
To the Editor:
Dennis Ross’s [“Don’t Play With Maps,” 9 January 2007, The New York Times] concern over President Carter’s use of maps in Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is curious.
The first of the maps on page 148 does indeed resemble an Israeli map — one presented at Eilat in May 2000. The Palestinians rejected it categorically then. Perhaps it was also presented in July 2000 at Camp David. That Israel should have presented it at all shows audacity — and little Israeli interest in peace. That it might have been presented again boggles the mind.
The second map seems a hybrid of one Israel presented in December 2000 and another at Taba in January, 2001. Barak recalled his representatives from the January discussions — arguably because they were going too well for an Israeli leader determined to annex larger sections of the West Bank than he was advertising. Israel’s propagandists, like Ross, prefer to pretend Taba never occurred.
One way or another, the mythology in question is not that of Carter or critics of Israel, but that of Ross and Israel’s supporters.
Ross, understandably for one perpetuating a myth, makes no mention of key features of the “generous” proposal he pretends was offered. That proposal would have annexed a large portion of an East Jerusalem taken from Palestinians. That “currently Jewish” Ross uses casually glosses over the fact of Israeli expulsion of Palestinians from homes in the city.
Ross also fails to mention either Israel’s intention to retain control of many water resources in the West Bank or its plan to annex large blocks of territory — illegally settled — in such a way as to leave a Palestine only barely contiguous, if at all. Small percentages can still be significant — hardly a point lost on Israelis or Americans. After all, if 3 percent (according to Ross alone) is so insignificant, why would Israel be so determined to keep it?
But let us suppose that Ross is entirely honest and accurate. Why should Palestinians be required to surrender land illegally taken, occupied and settled by Israel?
Finally, Ross’s “generous” claim that he is not concerned with “what appeared to be … misappropriation” is fortunate. His book was first published in 2004. The Foundation for Middle East Peace published far more detailed maps of Barak, Clinton and other proposals in 2001. Where did Ross get his maps?
Sincerely,
Hugh Sansom
Brooklyn, NY
Where did Ross get his maps? It was well known that during the Camp David/Taba negotiations, Israel distinctly avoided drawing any maps of their proposals. In fact, Israel insisted that negotiations be entirely verbal, that nothing at all be set in writing. The reason is obvious in the maps Ross published: they clearly support a Bantustan solution, which would have condemned Palestinians to the “separatist” fate of Blacks in South Africa under the White Afrikaaner government.
The laughable aspect of Dennis Ross’ Israel propaganda is that it has now got him into hot water to explain himself.
At least Barak has since come clean (in this video).
As a guest on the Charlie Rose Show, January 25, 2005, when asked about Sharon’s disengagement plan, Barak stated, “I proposed this disengagement (Sharon’s concept) and couldn’t even get the support of Labor (his own party).” As everyone knows, the Bantustans offered to Arafat were to retain the Israeli only settlements, roughly 150 of them ranging in size from villages to cities, and the roads and highways interconnecting them with Israel, and presumably the necessary military forces to protect them. It is also interesting that while these negotiations were going on, Israeli settlers were pouring into the West Bank as its highest rate ever.
Asked by Rose if he ever accept Taba (Taba was where the newest resurrection of “generous offer” claim originates), Barak stated, “there was no agreement.”
Asked to describe the difference between Camp David and Taba, Barak stated, “Taba? There was no negotiation, never. No meetings, no teams, no authority for the teams to negotiate anything. No Americans in the room, no record, nothing. Unofficial contact between senior Israelis….” As is known, Barak finally abruptly pulled his negotiators out.
In essence, Barak refuted the legitimacy of Taba and stated that it did not have any significance in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. To date, the Israel government, while continuing to colonize the West Bank, has never offered the Palestinian people a sovereign state in any sense of the term. The Barak admission also suggests that he entered Camp David with no intent, indeed, no capacity to offer Arafat an independent sovereign Palestinian state.
That truth of course will not stop Dennis Ross from continuing to shill for Israel’s right wing and continue to propose that Arafat refused a “generous offer.” In fact, it is now possible to find resurrections of the generous offer, negating the myth everyone knows it to be. “The myth of the myth of the generous offer” is its most recent rebirth. Some people just can’t help taking Frank Luntz seriously when he obviously couldn’t take himself seriously. “Supposedly,” indeed.
