Jimmy Carter: “Peace in the Middle East can only be achieved through an Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories”.

"Jimmy Carter, the American president who mediated the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, this week expressed high hopes that the Obama Administration would succeed in pressuring Israel to reactivate the peace process in the Middle East. Mr Carter was speaking together with former Nato secretary general and EU foreign policy representative Javier Solana at a conference organised by CIDOB and the Obra social de Caixa Catalunya in Barcelona.Mr Solana and Mr Carter, who share a broad experience in international politics as well as a professional background in physics, carefully dissected the international agenda during an intensive dialogue held at the Gaudí House, ‘La Pedrera’. Among other topics they discussed the emergence of new world powers, nuclear non-proliferation, the dual global challenges of energy and climate change as well as the fight against poverty and peace in the Middle East, a process on which Mr Carter focused much of his foreign policy efforts during his 1977-to-1981 mandate. 

“Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate that military means don’t work” Mr Carter, the 2002 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, criticised the military escalations pursued in recent US policies that have multiplied US interventions abroad. In support of Mr Solana’s criticism of trying to impose democracy and human rights by force, Mr Carter said that the threat of terrorism introduced a new element to the post-Cold War international panorama, posing a serious challenge to US strategists, but lamented that “today’s governments are less committed to defending democracy and human rights values than in the past.” Mr Carter said he believes the emerging powers (China, Brazil, India, and Russia) should take note and instead try to exercise their influence in international politics through alternative means such as economy, adding: “In the future, the voice of the United States must be accompanied by other voices in a more complex world.

”The Middle East peace process, in which Mr Carter, at 85 years of age is still deeply involved, formed much of the day’s debate. From the return of Arafat to power to the rise of Hamas, the Carter Foundation has carried out close supervision of electoral processes in the Palestinian territories. And while he did not appear overly optimistic, Mr Carter said he rests his hopes on the US changing its foreign policy towards Israel and on a search by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for allies in his own parliament among those most committed to the peace process such as Kadima and the Labour Party. Mr Carter advocated the formula ‘peace for territory’, and insists that peace will be impossible to achieve unless Israel returns the Occupied Territories to the Palestinians. As one of the American presidents most committed to peace in the Middle East, Mr Carter sees signs of positive changes in Washington. He highlighted the work of J Street, an association of American Jews that forms an important part of the leadership network in the US on the peace process. Founded in 2008, this pressure group has managed to reach into the corridors of power in Washington helping to counterbalance the powerful lobby group, AIPAC.

“Non-proliferation should move parallel to nuclear disarmament” Paradoxically, Iran, whose 1979 revolution cast a long shadow over the Carter Presidency, was barely mentioned once in the Padrera auditorium. Mr Carter linked the progress in impeding other countries from looking for a nuclear bomb to the leadership of the United States and Russia. He praised the “small steps” made by the Obama Administration such as signing the Start Treaty with Russia last April on reducing nuclear arsenals. However, Mr Carter also advocated pragmatism and expressed support for re-launching civil use of nuclear energy as a means of combating climate change. “The growing presence of China in Africa does imply a threat for the African continent” Mr Carter said he wanted to see a more human face in international relations in the struggle against poverty. Since globalisation has intensified the “inequality between nations and within each country” he confessed the fight against poverty is more difficult by the day. In this struggle he advocates the resolution of individual concrete problems such as his Foundation’s Africa campaign in Africa against “forgotten diseases”, and criticised his own country’s lack of generosity in terms of development support. The former White House tenant who normalised relations with China during his mandate, also praised the small advances the Asian giant is making in civil freedoms and expressed hope that its economic development would lead the country towards democracy. Mr Carter said he sees no danger in the growing presence of China in Africa, and instead described it is a “positive influence in terms of development”. 

Attendees enjoyed the vision of two heavyweights of international politics in a deeper dialogue on stage than aesthetic in the modernist Gaudi's building of La Pedrera.Further reading:· Especial Gaza-Israel 2010· ""The dramatic fallout of leadership vacuum in the Middle East "", por Francis Ghilès, Opinión CIDOB, 10 de junio de 2010 · “Is Barack Obama More AIPAC Than J Street?”, por Steven J. Rosen, Foreign Policy, 17 febrero de 2010 · “New Liberal Jewish Lobby Quickly Makes Its Mark”, por Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 17 de abril de 2009· “US Jewish lobby gains new voice” por Max Deveson, BBC News, 16 de abril 2008.