The author can't seem to make up his mind in this book, and you can still feel like it's a typicall politicians writting it.

The LA Times did a story about this book & it sounded interesting: [http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-...]

An excerpt:
The former president also asserted that pro-Israel lobbyists have stifled open debate in this country on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. "It's impossible for any candidate for Congress to make a statement like 'I favor balanced support of Israel and Palestine,' " he said.

I learned alot in this book that I feel I should have already been aware of; like Operation Opera where Israeli forces bombed and blew up an Iranian nuclear reactor: about the Camp David accords and land disputes. There has always been growing illegal Israel settlements in recognized Palestinian territory in which resources like river water is diverted away from Palestinians. There really is alot of learn from reading this book but definitely take your time to read it because theres alot of information packed into this. Carters touches on peace talks and significant events from 1947 to 2006 as well as gives an intro that has historical accounts to try and put the situation into perspective. Carter is a humanitarian who's foundation have almost eradicated the guinea worm and in his old age helps build houses for the homeless. Anyone who thinks this book indicates that he is racist or anti-semitic in my humble opinion either feel that Israel is justified in their apartheid of Palestinians or that merely Israel cant do anything wrong. Thats how it seems to me.

Courageous and informative book written by the incredible former & late President Jimmy Carter. Carter visits the occupied territories numerous times and touches on the occupation and injustices inflicted against the Palestinians at the hands of the brutal Israeli occupation. It was interesting to hear him reflect on previous US Presidents and how the USA notoriously aids and abets israeli violence. So refreshing to know that a former president was able to have and share these views against Israeli occupation and apartheid. Thankful for Jimmy Carter’s voice, activist and bravery. He is a true humanitarian.

Book #2 of 2025!
Honestly an incredible read and a unique perspective. A really good historical account of what has happened largely since Carter's presidency, and from such a personal perspective of what he has witnessed, and conversations and agreements made between leaders. Written in 2006, so he's critical of the George W. Bush years, but it's so evident that Carter has such a deep respect and love of all peoples. A good read to give context to an ongoing crisis, and secondly a good perspective on Carter's life and what he dedicated so much of his time towards.

A fascinating look at the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian situation from someone who has been actively involved in the process, first as US President, and then as the head of an organisation helping to run democratic elections in the Middle East. A refreshing perspective from a well-known American, who is frank, open, and even-handed in his treatment. It is written in simple language and is a great primer for people wanting to understand the background of the situation, and where it was at when he wrote this.

This brisk history goes back to the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, journeying through major peace efforts over the decades and introducing key players. Carter charts a moral path over "the right side of history" to arrive at conclusion that may be controversial for some but has a clear consistency of goals from his first visit to the area. Thus, while taking a position, he demonstrates rational clarity, patience, and reserve in making the case. Reading the conclusion made me regret that there wasn't an updated edition to explain succeeding events as clearly and effectively, not to mention that events had gone so far in the opposite direction from President Carter's aspirations for the area.

Because he's a former President, and neither a Palestinian nor a Jew, and because he managed to help broker the first peace deal Israel ever signed with an Arab nation, Jimmy Carter has managed to create a fairly decent "mainstream" introduction to the conflict. Despite being forever labeled as an "anti-Semite" for DARING to criticize Israeli policy (the only country that has never made any mistakes, and will never make any mistakes) and endured 16 members of the board of his nonprofit, the Carter Foundation, resigning in protest, Carter should be reckoned as a hero and a brave man just for being willing to say the few things in defense of the Palestinians he did, as well as the rightful criticism labeled against his own government.

The access he had to speak to heads of Arab states as well as multiple Israeli prime ministers provides us with the truths spoken behind closed doors that are not often repeated in the mainstream press, because it would contradict the "poor oppressed Israeli" narrative spun by AIPAC.

The text also offers several appendices, including UN Resolution 242, which is one of the fundamental bases on which to create any future peace.

(basic premises for peace)
1. Israel's right to exist within recognized borders — and to live in peace — must be accepted by Palestinians and all other neighbors.
2. The killing of noncombatants in Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon by bombs, missile attacks, assassinations, or other acts of violence cannot be condoned; and
3. Palestinians must live in peace and dignity in their own land as specified by international law unless modified by good-faith negotiations with Israel.
p. 17

(quoting Chaim Weizmann) "I am certain the world will judge the Jewish state by how it will treat the Arabs." (p. 34)

"Although exact data are not available, it is estimated that in 1880 there were only 30,000 Jews in Palestine, scattered among 600,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs. By 1930 their numbers had grown to more than 150,000." (p. 65)

"Assad stressed to me that Israel was admitted to the United Nations in 1949 with the clear proviso that Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to their homeland or be fully compensated for their lost property. Prior to 1967, he said, Israel was steadily forcing additional Arab inhabitants from their small remaining territory in violation of UN agreements that the Israelis had sworn to honor, and he claimed that they initiated the 1967 war in order to take even more Arab land." (p. 74)

"Assad complained that the Israelis consider it the right of every Jew in the world, needy or not, to settle in the Arab territories that they control by force while refusing to allow homeless and suffering Arabs driven out of their country to return ot th dwellings and lands to which they still hold legal deeds. He argued that, while Israel claimed the right ot its statehood in Palestine in 1948 because it was only recreating a nation demolished in ancient times, it rejected the recognition of a Palestinian state in the same area — the very place that generations of Palestinians, either Christian or Muslim, have inhabited continuously for thousands of years." (p. 76)

"Furthermore, no other nation on earth, he added, including the United States, recognizes Israel's present claims for lands it has confiscated since 1949). (p. 77)

"The Syrian leader also said that Israelis asserted that the Jews of the world constitute one people, regardless of obvious differences in their identities, languages, customs, and citizenship, but deny that the Palestinians comprise a coherent people even though they have one national identity, one language, one culture, and one history. Many Arabs consider these distinctions to be a form of racism by which Israelis regard Palestinian Arabs as inferiors who are not worthy of basic human rights, often branding them as terrorists if they resist Israel's encroachments. He scoffed at Israel's claim to be a true democracy, maintaining that its political and social equality are only for Jews." (p. 77)

"We learned that after one of their sons had made a statement critical of the Israeli occupation, five of the father's truckloads of oranges had been held up at the Allenby Bridge crossing into Jordan for several days — until the fruit had rotted. This was a large portion of their total crop for the year." (p. 116)

"Some showed us the wreckage of their former homes, which had been demolished by Israeli bulldozers and dynamite, with claims by Israel that they had been built too near Israeli settlements, on property needed by the Israeli government, or that some member of the family was a security threat." (p. 116)

"[T]he Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem explained that, on average, twelve innocent families lost their homes for ever person accused of participation in attacks against Israelis, with almost half of the demolished homes never occupied by anyone suspected of involvement in any violent act against Israel, even throwing stones." (p. 116)

"As President Clinton made efforts to promote peace, there was a 90 percent growth in the number of settlers in the occupied territories, with the greatest increase during the administration of Prime Minister Ehud Barak. By the end of the year 2000, Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza numbered 225,000. The best offer to the Palestinians — by Clinton, not Barak — had been to withdraw 20 percent of the settlers, leaving more than 180,000 in 209 settlements, covering about 10 percent of the occupied land, including land to be "leased" and portions of the Jordan River valley and East Jerusalem." (p. 150-151)

"The driving purpose for the forced separation of the two peoples is unlike that in South Africa — not racism, but the acquisition of land. There has been a determined and remarkably effective effort to isolate settlers from Palestinians, so that a Jewish family can commute from Jerusalem to their highly subsidized home deep in the West Bank on roads from which others are excluded, without ever coming in contact with any facet of Arab life." (p. 190)

"Israeli directives state that every Palestinian over the age of twelve living in the closed are has to obtain a 'permanent resident permit' from the civil administration to enable them to continue to live in their own homes. They are considered to be aliens, without the rights of Israeli citizens." (p. 192)

"President George W. Bush said, 'I think the wall is a problem. It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and the Israelis with a wall snaking through the West Bank.' Since 1945, the International Court of Justice has functioned essentially as the judicial arm of the United Nations system, and in July 2004 the court determined that the Israeli government's construction of the segregation wall in the occupied Palestinian West Bank was illegal. Even Thomas Buergenthal, the American judge who cast the lone negative vote (largely on procedural grounds), acknowledged that the Palestinians were under occupation and had the right to self-determination, that Israel was obligated to adhere to international humanitarian law, and that there were serious questions whether routing an impenetrable barrier to protect West Bank settlements would qualify as legitimate self defense." (p. 193)

"[A]fter the age of fourteen Palestinian children are tried as adults, a violation of international law." (p. 197)

(from UN Resolution 465) "Determines that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel's policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East..." (p. 237)

In this book, former president Jimmy Carter offers a perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He suggests that peace can be achieved in the region when Israel starts honoring UN resolutions 242 and others. If only Israel left the occupied territories, all would be well. But Carter fails in this respect. Honoring UN resolutions is no panacea. The conflict is thousands of years old. Although not entirely accurate in some places (Carter’s notes are faulty at times), the book does shed some light on the history of the region and Carter’s influences there (which are significant). I respect Carter a great deal, but this book is not his best work. It’s all memories, anecdotes, not careful analysis.

I read the book for two reasons; One is the author happens to be one of my favorite US presidents Jimmy Carter, two is the word "apartheid" is a politically charged word to put in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Don't get me wrong! Anybody who had the chance to read up on the conflict would easily deduce that Israel is running an apartheid reality from the river to the sea at the expense of the Palestinian population, unless one is motivated to not admit it. Yet, I am fully aware of the political discourse in the US, and how it is sort of heretical to say anything remotely critical of Israel. Politicians are signing laws to punish people for endorsing BDS (a movement dedicated to sanction Israel), willfully ignoring the First Amendment of the American constitution, but hell, it's Israel we're talking about.
This is 2021, and strings have loosened up a bit, and progressive politicians are well-aware of what is going on, and unafraid to call the situation what it is, apartheid. This book was written back in 2006, which makes it incredibly interesting that anybody dared to say the A- word. So much respect to Jimmy Carter!
I don't want to dwell too much on the details of the book, because I have so much to say about the conflict. Suffice to say, Carter doesn't offer any new insightful ideas. He does a retelling of history, and his proper opinion shows up at the summary, I kid you not.
The situation in Israel/Palestine, in his opinion, is going to be like either one of these cases: 1/ an apartheid reality where Israel rules the whole land with Palestinians living as second- or third-class citizens, 2/a binational democratic country that will end the Jewish state, 3/ a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders, which Israel will not accept because the West Bank is basically the cradle of Jewish civilisation.
I honestly don't have a problem advocating for the dismantlement of Israel in order to have a democratic secular multicultural state from the river to the sea with equal rights for everybody regarless of their ethnic background, or religion. This conflict will not end until people will understand that you can't have an ethnostate in a multiethnic region. Period.

This book was a pleasant surprise. I started reading it with an expectation bias that President Carter would pander to both sides in an effort to alienate neither. This wasn't the case at all. He apportions the majority of blame for the failure to achieve peace between Palestine and Israel to Israeli intransigence, prevarication, and duplicity. It was a refreshing departure from the status quo.

If you aren't well read on the century-long struggle, this probably isn't the best book to start with. President Carter glosses over many significant events as is often the case with books of such breadth. If you are, the book provides unique insight to the peace process as seen through the eyes of an individual who has contributed and been involved with so much of it. It's a very quick read, just over 200 pages.

Having been published in 2006, this book is somewhat dated. However, I learned a great deal about the problems that have created such suffering in Gaza as we see in 2024.