Let me say right up front that I really don't want to blog about this. I don't want to blog about Jimmy Carter at all. The man is an embarrassment at best. A weed. A clog. A hairball. At worst, ... I probably shouldn't say. He has lawyers.
Uber blog-commenter Mal drew my attention to Kenneth Stein's new full length essay on why he resigned from the Carter Center in the next issue of Middle East Quarterly. Yes, please read it. (And please subscribe to the MEQ or, better yet, join the Middle East Forum. It's a worthy cause.)
Somehow, Carter's appearance at Brandeis ended up as a fizzle. Despite the predictions of a dramatic confrontation between Dhimmi and Dershowitz, the rules of the engagement conspired with student apathy and The Professor's own leftist-infused ideas about the "Middle East Conflict" to defuse any serious criticism or challenge. The audience permitted to attend Carter's speech was limited, the questions were pre-screened and Dershowitz ended up claiming that there wasn't that much space between them after all.
President Carter and I agree on many issues. We both want a two-state solution to the conflict. We both want to see an end to the occupation. We both oppose new Israeli settlements. We both wish to see the emergence of a democratic, economically viable Palestinian state.
Fundamentally, we are both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. There need not be any contradiction between the two.
Of course, Dershowitz then went on to point out the many very fundamental areas where he did see contradictions, but how many people bother to read that far? Don't get me wrong. Dershowitz is a dedicated and effective advocate for Israel as far as he goes. But his advocacy always falls limp because he can't quite wrap his brilliant mind around the contradictions between the reality on the ground in the Middle East and his own orthodox liberalism. It's a common problem but it rarely gets quite this much exposure.
Carter evidently got quite the warm welcome at Brandeis. This is disturbing on so many levels, not least because I happen to be a Brandeis alum myself. It's a puzzle, and it's only one in a long string of them.
