I've read a handful of books on the Israel/Palestine situation, and this one definitely was one of the most useful. Why? A couple reasons:

1. Jimmy Carter writes with a simple, easy-to-read tone. He doesn't wax literary, but just tells a first-person account of his interactions with all sides in the Palestinian conflict over 3+ decades of peacemaking in the Middle East.

2. He has had a front row seat to the political maneuvering over the years. That means he explains the issues from a practical, political standpoint. Over the years, I've mostly caught snippets in the news about the different peace treaties, settlement issues, political figures, and mini-wars; the book makes all that coalesce into something that makes sense. Plus, it's nice to read about what was actually happening, rather than just conjecture and opinion.

3. He explains his position clearly. His position makes sense. He leans more toward supporting the Palestinian cause (though not exclusively), and it's not hard to see why. I'd be curious to read a similarly rational book leaning toward the Israeli side, but I don't know if one exists.

4. Finally, Jimmy Carter is my 10th cousin, and that automatically makes the book good. :D

So yeah, definitely an excellent read to get a basic overview to what has gone on in Israel over the last 40 years.

Didn't finish -- skimmed. I learned a lot about the countries involved, the history, and the personalities. Didn't gain a lot of hope about the possibilities for real and lasting peace in the area, but Carter outlined the logical plan for achieving peace. Our book group had a lively discussion about the book, and agreed that Carter is a smart, caring, diplomatic person who's not afraid to wade in to make a difference -- in lots of issues.

This is an insightful and fairly quick read regarding Carter’s view on Israel’s oppression of Palestine. Although I wish he would’ve been more critical on the origins of Israel and the history regarding the Nakba, he does recognize the colonization of Palestinian lands and shows a fairly progressive viewpoint for a US president.

Very subjective and one-sided.

Jimmy Carter presented himself as someone who is fighting to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but any one who is fighting for Israel to have a state on Palestinian land advocates the eviction of people from their homes and striping them from basic human rights only because they claim to have a right to live on this land.

the book was really frustrating all it did was justifying Israel existence on Palestinian land and justifying every single attack done by Israel against the Palestinian people, which were either Palestinian "violence" or "terrorism attacks", as if Israel is an angel treading on earth that doesn't do any act of violence unless provoked, let alone the huge difference between Palestinian vs Israeli casualties, the attacks were always justified somehow!

It was also misleading, any one who doesn't have a prior knowledge of the conflict will think that Israel and Palestinian shared a land and the Palestinians just decided that they don't want to share it with the Israelis so they performed "violent" attacks and Israel responded by more violent attacks and the whole thing started. but of course Jimmy carter and every other Israeli advocate started the book by pointing out Israel right to exist on the land as its right, and here is the tragedy since saying that they have a right to exist , this justifies every thing they do and even if they did the war crimes performed by Israel is sufficient to strip them of this right.
now to get to Israel logic for their right, they say that the Israelis lived there two thousand years ago, well there were people living in the area before and remained to live there until Israel decided to place European Jews in these people's homes only because they're Jewish, so people from Europe who'd never set foot on Palestine were given the right to live there and given homes of previous Palestinian owners only because they are Jewish! because Israel logic says that every Israeli is Jewish and every Jewish is Israeli, so to them race and religion is one; I am an Arab and a Muslim, that doesn't make every Arab a Muslim nor every Muslim an Arab. So Jews any where are given "the right of return" only because they are Jewish without the need to provide any document to prove their ancestors lived there, but Palestinian who lost their homes in the 1948 war are not given that right!

throughout the book it was pointed out that in order for peace to occur, Palestinian militants need to drop all weapons as if doing so would stop israel from launching any attack on Palestinians, these militant groups weren't their before Israel decided to make its own state on another people's, they existed to resist the invasion of their land, and without any of their resistance and the aid of the Arab countries in previous years, Israel would have gotten hold of more lands and evicted more people. Israel doesn't want peace or two-state solution, to them their "promised land" doesn't stop at the 67 border it expands to include Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and parts of Iraq and Egypt, and every peace treaty has been broken by them.

Book Circle Reads 16

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Following his #1 New York Times bestseller, Our Endangered Values, the former president, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, offers an assessment of what must be done to bring permanent peace to Israel with dignity and justice to Palestine. President Carter, who was able to negotiate peace between Israel and Egypt, has remained deeply involved in Middle East affairs since leaving the White House. He has stayed in touch with the major players from all sides in the conflict and has made numerous trips to the Holy Land, most recently as an observer in the Palestinian elections of 2005 and 2006.

In this book President Carter shares his intimate knowledge of the history of the Middle East and his personal experiences with the principal actors, and he addresses sensitive political issues many American officials avoid. Pulling no punches, Carter prescribes steps that must be taken for the two states to share the Holy Land without a system of apartheid or the constant fear of terrorism.

The general parameters of a long-term, two-state agreement are well known, the president writes. There will be no substantive and permanent peace for any peoples in this troubled region as long as Israel is violating key U.N. resolutions, official American policy, and the international "road map" for peace by occupying Arab lands and oppressing the Palestinians. Except for mutually agreeable negotiated modifications, Israel's official pre-1967 borders must be honored. As were all previous administrations since the founding of Israel, U.S. government leaders must be in the forefront of achieving this long-delayed goal of a just agreement that both sides can honor.

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is a challenging, provocative, and courageous book.

My Review: I do not have a dog in this fight. I'm not Jewish, I'm not Palestinian, and I'm not Christian so this isn't homeland or holy land to me.

But I'm a human being, and a very committed secular humanist. Israel's right to exist should be inarguable. The Palestinian homeland should be self-governing. But NEITHER should be run by gawd, since such an entity doesn't exist, and the rule books that the religions here in conflict use are both so revolting and reprehensible.

President Carter is a wise man, and his book is packed with commonsensical compromises. For those reasons alone, there is no chance whatsoever that anyone in power will listen to him. Wisdom is the garlic to the vampires of politics, and common sense can't get any traction where gawd is in the debate.

One side or the other must lose. There is no compromise that will make both sides happy enough to stop killing each other in gawd's name. So the inevitable must occur: Victory for one, defeat for the other, and many more generations of blood spilled over a scrap of desert with little to recommend it.

This is what religion does, people: It makes hate roil the never-calm waters of the human soul. Its purpose is to divide, separate, blame, vilify. It is very very good at those things. The reason is that it was created by humankind in humankind's own worst image. There is nothing "divine" about it...just humans bein' themselves, murdering apes.

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I recommend this book for anyone who would like a detailed account of all the peace talk efforts in Israel/Palestine, and what happened to derail them. I would also recommend anyone read the last chapter "Summary" for a good overview from Jimmy Carter's perspective.

This book has been on my list for 15 years, since it was first written and sold on a book tour. It felt timely for me to read it now. I'll try not to go into the specifics of the conflict or my strong views. I also had the audiobook read by Jimmy Carter himself.

The book reads like a dry recounting of all the peace efforts Jimmy Carter has been involved with for since before he was President. That's a good thing, I think it's better presented that way. One thing that struck me read Carter's strinyg Christian background, which I found interesting because it gave him a personal connection to the state of Jerusalem and other holy sites. Overall I'm glad to read it, and sad to hear that Carter came under fire for publishing this book and giving his viewpoint.

Between this book and Finkelstein’s books, I am now prettt well-versed in the Palestinian struggle. A must for anyone who needs to be informed.

Carter gives us an honest assessment of the problem in the Holy Land. But as much as I wanted to believe his ideology, the truth is that none of the peace accords have succeeded. True to form for an American president, Carter pushes democracy religiously.

I should add that in the back of my mind is the assassination of the Archbishop Oscar Romero, which occurred under the watch of the Carter Administration. The crime was committed shortly after Romero wrote Carter asking for the US to stop the shipment of weapons to the oppressive government in El Salvador. The US responded by increasing military aid and by 1986, the tiny country of El Salvador was receiving more military aid than the state of Israel. One third of the population in El Salvador was either killed or displaced.

Likewise, Carter agrees that the vast majority of Israeli and Palestinian citizens want to live in peace. But he continues giving power to governments that have a special interest in the profit made through war.

I thought about writing a long piece on this but decided against it. Carter's analysis is both enriched and limited by his experience as President. Few Americans of his status will use such accurate language talking about the situation, but his belief in asymmetric disarming and that a solution must come from inside the system show how he still favors one side of the conflict.

Still: he does deserve an amount of credit for not hiding the truth of Israeli occupation cruelty, or talking around the subject. Nothing he says here isn't true but the Israeli government hated him for saying it.

The book starts off with a rambling history of Israel coupled oddly with the authors own trips the holy land before and during his presidency. Once the reader plows through this bog, the book pick ups. A quick summary is as follows: It sucks to be a Palestinian.

This books explains that in essence Israel is channeling South Africa when it comes to dealing with the native population. The worst part is that by not condemning these actions, the US is in essence supporting apartheid.

A full circle of history. The insanity of changing times and positions in the hierarchy of humanity. The sad state of the Middle East, the politics of hate, and the politics of the hated. America with so many fingers in so many pies and its own country in shambles - why America points the finger of democracy at one race and dry humps another can never ever fully be explained - except to say that greed, money, fear and power make humans very unpleasant creatures to witness...