[WCUSP] Carter's Clarity, Bush's Befuddlement/ Washington's post

[Odile Hugonot Haber]

Israel/Palestine

Carter's Clarity, Bush's Befuddlement
Robert D. Novak, Washington Post, Monday, November 5, 2007; 8:16 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/05/AR2007110500204.html

The timing of the release of the new documentary "Jimmy Carter: Man
>From Plains" was not intentional. The movie is arriving in theaters
just before the Bush administration's proposed Middle East conference
in Annapolis, scheduled for the end of this month. But the former
president's clarity on the Palestinian question contrasts sharply with
George W. Bush's refusal to face reality, casting a pall over hopes to
conclude his presidency with a diplomatic triumph.

In the film, Carter repeatedly and unequivocally states what
Palestinian and Israeli peace advocates view as undeniable: to achieve
Israeli-Palestinian peace, with all its benefits for the world, Israel
must end its illegal and oppressive occupation of the West Bank. That
is a prerequisite that neither President Bush nor congressional
leaders of both parties can approach for fear of being labeled
anti-Israeli or even anti-Semitic (as Carter has been).

With the end to the occupation not on any participant's agenda, hopes
for substantive accomplishment at Annapolis are dim. Testifying before
the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 24, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice warned of "further radicalization of Palestinian
politics, of politics in the region" if "we lose the window for a
two-state solution." But she did not mention the forbidden words of
Israeli removal from the West Bank.

These words are not forbidden in "Man From Plains." I was surprised
when a publicist for the movie invited me to a private screening in
advance of its Washington debut Saturday. For the past 32 years, I had
been a critic of Carter - but not of his most recent and most attacked
book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid."

The unusual documentary is mainly an account of Carter's travels
promoting his 21st book. Normally, nothing would seem more boring than
presentation of a book tour. But Jonathan Demme, the Academy
Award-winning director of "The Silence of the Lambs," has produced a
beautiful, fascinating film, whose two hours sped by.

Demme told me he intended the documentary to be a "portrait in motion"
of the 83-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, whom he greatly
admires, "to find out what makes Jimmy Carter tick." But it became a
condemnation of what Demme now calls "land-grabbing" from the
"oppressed" Palestinian people.