1967 oPt: Israeli occupied Palestinian territory, Jimmy Carter's book tour (2006-2007)

Yossi Beilin: Of course, Carter is not just another media pundit or a leftist Israeli.

A former president of the United States and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, he has been one of the world’s most accomplished statesmen in the past three decades, a public figure of enormous moral clout.

His words weigh heavier than those of others, and his actions make a difference, in the real sense of the term.

* * *

The Camp David summit he convened in September 1978, which resulted in the signing of the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, was a historical watershed for the entire region.

It inaugurated the Arab-Israeli peace process, without which the Oslo peace process would not have been possible, nor the 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan.

In light of the failure of the second Camp David summit of July 2000, Carter’s successful mediation between such starkly different leaders as Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat is all the more impressive, and his achievement — which was a truly personal achievement — all the more remarkable.

Every Israeli, and every Jew to whom the destiny of Israel is important, is indebted to Carter for breaking the ring of hostility that had choked Israel for more than 30 years.

No American president before him had dedicated himself so fully to the cause of Israel’s peace and security, and, with the exception of Bill Clinton, no American president has done so since.

This is why the publication of Carter’s recent book, and perhaps more than anything else, the title it bears, has pained so many people.

And I must admit that, on some deeply felt level, the title of the book has strained my heart, too.

Harsh and awful as the conditions are in the West Bank, the suggestion that Israel is conducting a policy of apartheid in the occupied territories is simply unacceptable to me.

But is this what Carter is saying?

I have read his book, and I could not help but agree — however agonizingly so — with most if its contents.

Where I disagreed was mostly with the choice of language, including his choice of the word “apartheid.”

But if we are to be fair, and as any reading of the book makes clear, Carter’s use of the word “apartheid” is first and foremost metaphorical.

Underlying Israel’s policy in the West Bank, he argues, is not a racist ideology but rather a nationalist drive for the acquisition of land.

The resulting violence, and the segregationist policies that shape life in the West Bank, are the ill-intended consequences of that drive.

* * *

Somewhere down the line ... the destructive nature of occupation will turn Israel into a pariah state, not unlike South Africa under apartheid.

In this sense, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is a stark warning, to both Israelis and Palestinians, of the choice they must make.

That choice is between peace and apartheid, for the absence of one may well mean the other.

Carter’s choice is clearly peace, and, for all its disquieting language, the book he has written is sustained by the hope that we choose peace, as well.

Henry Siegman: Since the appearance of the book coincided with the recent Congressional elections, leaders of the Democratic Party went into near panic, and fell over one another, disassociating themselves from Carter’s book, and his criticisms of certain Israeli policies.

Indeed, the panic was so intense, that so independent-minded a man as Howard Dean, chair of the party — who, in the past, has had the courage to challenge the conventional wisdom of the party’s establishment, on a whole range of issues — joined the herd as well.

None of this, of course, is in the least surprising.

In the face of overwhelming international criticism of President Bush, for his failure to engage in the Middle East peace process, and for his unbalanced support of Israel, the Democratic Party’s Congressional leadership has managed to criticize Bush, for being too soft on the Palestinians, and not sufficiently supportive of Israel.

So the criticism of President Carter is noteworthy, only for what it reveals about the ignorance of the American political establishment, both Democrat and Republican, on the subject of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

* * *

Not the least of the ironies of the controversy, generated by Carter’s book, or by its title, is that on any day of the week, there appear in virtually all major Israeli newspapers, and in its other media, far more extreme criticisms of the policies of various Israeli governments than one finds anywhere in the United States.

Most of Israel’s adversarial editorializing would not be accepted in the op-ed pages of America’s leading newspapers.

It is also worth noting, how uninformed Democratic and Republican mavens are, even about the voting patterns of American Jews.

The panic, aroused by Carter’s book title, was based on the belief, of these mavens, that American Jews share the hard-line right-wing views of organizations like the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations {CoP} and AIPAC, organizations that would go out of business if Israelis elected a government committed to a political solution rather than a military one.

Indeed, when former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin came into office in 1992, and concluded that Israel’s security would be far better served by a peace agreement that recognizes Palestinian rights than by beating the Palestinians into submission, both the Conference of Presidents and AIPAC went into institutional eclipse, from which they did not emerge until Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in 1996.

The uncritical pro-Israel advocacy of these organizations has never been an accurate barometer of the political thinking or behavior of American Jews.

Surely there is something Republican and Democratic leaders can learn from the fact that — after six years of the presidency of the man believed by Israelis and by the pro-Israel lobby in the United States to be “the best American president Israel ever had” — 87 percent of American Jews voted for the Democratic Party, whose chair is seen by the pro-Israel lobby as untrustworthy, at best.

To be sure, the overwhelming majority of American Jews care deeply about Israel’s security and well-being.

But that concern does not translate, for most of them, into mindless support for the policies of Israeli governments that seem to undermine Israel’s security.

Most American Jews understand how recklessly both Democratic and Republican politicians manipulate the Israel-Palestine issue to their own advantage, just as most Israelis understand the same about many of their own politicians.

* * *

The destructive impact of Israel’s continued confiscation of Palestinian land, for its ever-expanding settlements, on all subsequent efforts to end this conflict, and of the draconian regime imposed by Israel’s army on the occupied territories — which today include well over 500 Israeli military checkpoints, and hundreds of other physical obstacles, that have utterly shattered Palestinian life — is the thread that runs through the various chapters in Carter’s book ...

* * *

For most Westerners — including most Israelis — the Palestinian ordeal is invisible, and might as well be taking place on the far side of the moon, for all they know, or seem to care, about it.

Steve Inskeep: You’ve been challenged in your recollections of meetings.

For example, with Hafez al-Assad, the one-time president of Syria.

And it’s been alleged, that your description of Assad makes him look more reasonable, and the Israelis look less reasonable, than might actually have been the case.

What was your version based on?

Did you go back to notes and other, other documents, that you had from the time?

Jimmy Carter: Of course.

I began meeting with Hafez al-Assad — who’s now deceased, as you know — back in, when I was president. I think in 1977, in May or June, I’ve forgotten exactly which {May 9 1977}.

But I met with him, trying to get him to support a peace process.

On one occasion, I, he was, he invited me to meet with him and his entire family. And I met all of his children, and got to know them. One of them was a college student who is now the president of Syria.

Steve Inskeep: But when you recollect, for example, your 1990 meeting with him.

At which you asked about the Golan Heights.

Jimmy Carter: Yes.

Steve Inskeep: How that dispute might be settled with Israel.

Were you working from, from your own notes?

Jimmy Carter: Of course.

My own notes, and my wife takes notes when I’m there.

And we have been very careful to make sure that all those descriptions are accurate.

Steve Inskeep: Ken Stein, as you know, former colleague of yours at the Carter Center, has alleged that his recollection of that meeting is somewhat different.

Jimmy Carter: Ken Stein was a professor, that I took along with me. And Ken attended some of the meetings with me, and the more highly sensitive meetings, I was the only one there, except my wife to take notes.

Steve Inskeep: Oh, you’re saying, that he did not go to all the meetings that you went to.

Jimmy Carter: Of course.

That’s right.

“My Problem with Jimmy Carter’s Book”

Inventing History

After reading Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, I was troubled by a passage recounting a meeting Carter and I had attended with Assad at his presidential office in March 1990. I revisited my notes and saw discrepancies between them and the story Carter recounts. When discussing the Syrian dispute with Israel, Assad, as always, chose his words carefully. The notes (see Figure 1) show the following passage:

But, in Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Carter wrote:

Carter reworded the conversation to suggest that Assad was flexible and the Israelis were not. Assad did not say he would accept a demilitarized zone; to do so would be to sacrifice his sovereignty. Nor did he say he would withdraw deeper from his side of the border. ¶

This was not a slip of memory for Carter; ¶

Carter received a full set of my notes of the March 1990 trip after its conclusion. ¶

These were intentional distortions.

When the meeting with Assad ended, Carter held a press conference at the Sheraton Damascus Hotel. In response to a journalist’s question about the substance of a possible Syrian-Israeli agreement to include the future of the Golan Heights, Carter said,

What Carter stated as his personal opinion in the 1990 press conference, he transmits as fact in 2006 in his book. ¶

He puts words in Assad’s mouth. ¶

Carter invented the substance of this meeting to indicate that Assad was leaning toward flexibility. Assad only considered demilitarized zones in his negotiations with the Israelis after the Soviet Union’s collapse removed his greatest patron. Assad certainly did not say that Syria would withdraw deeper from his side of the border. ¶

These are intentional changes that Carter made for the apparent purpose of misrepresenting Israeli intransigence and Arab state flexibility.

________

[47] Carter, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, p. 130-1.

[48] Jimmy Carter, Sheraton Hotel, Damascus, press conference, Mar. 16, 1990.

“Inventing History”?

• DMZ

Ken Stein says, his minutes say:

But plainly, his minutes say the exact opposite:

Hafez al-Assad (Syria president) rejects a statement made that day by Shimon Peres (Israel foreign minister), that Syria would accept a demilitarized Golan Heights.

Assad takes that statement to mean (as I do), a DMZ entirely on Syrian land (unilateral demilitarization). (Golan belongs to Syria, it’s under military occupation by Israel).

Assad then proceeds to explain, in the next sentence, that he’s happy to demilitarize Golan, or part of it, provided the zone straddles the border, and is not hosted entirely on Syrian land, if Israel shares the burden of it, mutually demilitarizes an equal portion of its own adjacent land, hosts an equal portion of the international observers, the DMZ-watchers (bilateral demilitarization).

Reciprocity. An equal investment in peace.

What Ken Stein’s minutes show Assad said, that’s precisely what Jimmy Carter then announced, at the press conference, as a feasible agreement.

He could not proclaim it feasible, rationally, unless Assad said he would do it.

All sorts of people would very quickly discover it, if Jimmy Carter simply invented this idea, not least U.S. government officials, who could pick up the telephone and ask Assad if it was true, that he would agree to that.

• “My notes of the trip”

Holy scripture?

And God said:

Here, Ken Stein asserts, by implication, he was the only note-taker for the trip.

And so naturally, then, when discussing business, Jimmy Carter always had, by implication, by his side, Ken Stein.

But Jimmy Carter says he makes his own notes, at his meetings or afterwards, I haven’t heard him say, and he famously travels with another note-taker, the famous Rosalynn, his childhood sweetheart and wife.

Was Rosalynn at that meeting?

And did she take notes?

Ken Stein doesn’t tell us.

He gives no complete list, of who was at the meeting, only a partial list, in this caption, framing an image of one page of a notebook:

____________________

“Minutes of a Meeting Between Syrian Pres. Hafez al-Assad and Pres. Jimmy Carter. March 16, 1990, 1:30-4pm, Damascus, Syria.

Notes taken by Ken Stein, Middle East Fellow, Carter Center. (Others present at this meeting include a translator and Syrian FM Farouk al-Sharaa).”

____________________

(The caption is contradictory. “Minutes” are something you write later, a shortened summary of what you think important in the “notes.” The image shows a neat hand, suggesting the words were written later, as unrushed minutes, or copied notes, and are not original notes, written in haste, in real time, in the meeting, but they might be.)

And, Ken Stein doesn’t tell us this:

Did Jimmy Carter have meetings or conversations Ken Stein did not attend?

If so, then Ken Stein’s notes might be a “full set of my notes of the March 1990 trip.”

And, they might even be trustworthy.

But, a very misleading, untrustworthy, omission:—

Are they incomplete.

A “full set” of incomplete notes.

Which did not record the full trip.

Which omit meetings during that trip.

A book with pages missing.

If so, then, on a full set of facts:—

Hardly holy scripture.

Hardly the word of God.

And merely a third set of notes anyway.

The gospel according to Ken.

The gospel according to Jimmy.

The gospel according to Rosalynn.

• “This meeting”

Ken Stein asserts it to be a fact, that Jimmy Carter, in his book, recounted “a meeting” with Assad “at his presidential office,” “reworded the conversation,” and “invented the substance of this meeting.”

But Jimmy Carter wrote no such thing.

Ken Stein quotes what Jimmy Carter said, in his book, which plainly does not refer to any particular meeting, or any particular conversation.

The image of Ken Stein’s minutes, the caption, says the meeting lasted 2-1/2 hours (1:30-4pm).

Speaking 11 days later, Jimmy Carter said, he and Rosalynn had spent 7-1/2 hours with Assad.

This additional 5 hours of conversations excluded, I presume, Ken Stein, and that’s likely where Assad said this, which Ken Stein asserts Jimmy Carter also lied about in his book:

This is a secret negotiating position.

Assad would not want to concede this, unless he had to, and so Assad would not want Ken Stein to know about it (how far Assad was willing to go), or any other stranger he didn’t trust.

Jimmy Carter would be glad to know about it, because he was a mediator. His task was to form a judgment, an opinion. What would his recommendation be? Is an agreement feasible? Is it worthwhile to mobilize a big production, multilateral peace talks? Or, instead, in the end, would it be a waste of time, money, effort, goodwill?

March 27 1990, Washington D.C.:

Jimmy Carter: (Applause.) Thank you.

Well, first of all, let me apologize for being late.

I was with the President and the Secretary of State, and I’m not the one to close those meetings these days. (Laughter.)

But I’ve been looking forward to the chance to come back and be with you.

I’m going to make a brief opening statement and spend what time we have available answering your questions.

And then I go to Capitol Hill to meet with a group that Tom Foley has put together.

And then over to the Senate. George Mitchell has a few people gathered together this afternoon.

* * *

Rosalynn and I spent 7-1/2 hours with President Assad.

A lot of that time accompanied by his Foreign Minister Sharaa who, interestingly enough, in the last three years has been greatly promoted, in my own assessment, in his stature and his influence.

I’ve known him for a number of years since 1983. He was at the Carter Center, representing Syria, but he’s now playing a very strong role there.

And again, we had interesting conversations.

We talked about a wide range of issues, and I answered questions later on.

I think the most important as far as the peace process is concerned is that Assad made it clear to me, as he has previously, that he didn’t object at all to the format of an international peace conference, either under US-Soviet sponsorship or the five permanent members of the Security Council.

He didn’t want the convening powers to play a major role except to provide the forum.

He did not want the Soviet Union or anyone else to impose will on the Middle East participants.

He was ready to adjourn immediately after expressing Syria’s best case to the world, to direct bilateral talks with Israel in order to resolve all the differences that exist between Syria and Israel—straight bilateral talks.

We had a long range of discussions, I am not authorized to speak in detail, but I can tell you my own opinion is that a resolution can be worked out at the Golan Heights issue, if both sides are amiable to this, to demilitarize the area on both sides of the international zone and to have international observers there to confirm that an agreement is being carried out.

* * *

Question: Mr. President, what is it like for you after 11 years since the Camp David signing, to see that there is still so much pain, so much suffering, so much needless death?

What is it like for you, personally?

Jimmy Carter: Well, it’s distressing to me, to see that very little movement has been made since 1980-81.

I have been pleased recently at the strong emphasis that has been placed on the Middle East peace process by President Bush and Secretary Baker.

And this is appreciated, I think, by all parties in the Middle East.

* * *

Question: Your statement on the Syrian position drove some of us to believe that Syria is really changing its position.

And it drove some of us to say that, no, Syria is still on the same lines as it were before, say, 10 years.

Will you kindly be more elaborate on that?

Jimmy Carter: Well, let me make clear something I shouldn’t have to, and that is, I’m not here speaking for Assad. But I’ve been meeting with him since 1977. The first time was in, I think, May or June of ’77 when I met with him in Geneva {May 9 1977}. He’s never been to this country. I went back in 1983 and again in 1987 and again just a couple weeks ago.

There’s no doubt in my mind, that Assad’s attitude toward the peace process is much more constructive, much more moderate, than it was before.

He acknowledges freely to me, and to others, that Israel— about Israel’s right to exist.

He recognizes, that Israel is there permanently.

And he’s willing to recognize Israel, to the extent of meeting with Israeli leaders, on an equal basis, to negotiate the differences that exist between his country and others. He’s willing to do this on a bilateral basis.

As you know, he strongly condemned Sadat, and broke diplomatic relations with Egypt — which almost all the other Arabs did — because Sadat negotiated directly with Israel, instead as of as a united Arab group.

Now, Assad is prepared to negotiate directly with Israel, as a second step in an international peace conference ... the convening of an international peace conference, in accords with U.N. Resolution 338 ...

And then there would be a general agreement with which Assad agrees, and authorized me to say, that the Soviet Union or others should not impose the superpowers’ will on the Mideast peace participants. They would not attempt to veto any agreement that was negotiated bilaterally.

The other two things that the superpowers or the convening parties would do is to guarantee that agreements reached would be carried out, maybe by taking this to the UN Security Council, or providing observation forces, and so forth.

And the last thing is that they would help be responsible for raising funds, to pay for the cost of the peace process, which might be substantial.

So this is what—

All of this, that I’ve just told you, I’ve been authorized by Assad to quote as his position. Whether he’s sincere, I have no way to know.

But the fact that he’s— now says that, is certainly a dramatic difference, compared to what it was, five or more years ago.

• Jimmy Carter, “Speech by former president Jimmy Carter, concerning his recent trip, to the Middle East Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.” (CSIS: Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington D.C., March 27 1990), FNS transcript (text) (FNS Carter, 1990 archive March-April) {Lexis}.

Defamation

Plain to see, Ken Stein’s evidence, proves nothing of what he claims, and does not even prove his description of his own minutes.

And especially, Ken Stein’s evidence does not prove his inflammatory defamation of Jimmy Carter’s character.

But much more than this, Ken Stein provides not a single scintilla of evidence, to support his defamatory libels.

Far, far, below a failure of proof.

No proof at all.

Zero.

These defamatory libels.

They may be true, as hypotheses, in Ken Stein’s mind.

But as objective facts, they’re simply hallucinations.

So far as Ken Stein can show.

A figment of his imagination.

Unproven hypotheses.

He finds no evidence, even to hint they’re true.

Zero.

Yet, he boldly asserts them as facts:

May be, Ken Stein’s abbreviated minutes (which are not a transcript) might suggest, to somebody, a credible interpretation different from what’s plain to me.

Were that so, the minutes would be ambiguous, and ambiguous evidence proves nothing.

May be, Assad was a liar and did not intend to negotiate a bilateral demilitarization.

But Jimmy Carter didn’t think so, because he said at his press conference, an agreement was feasible, in his opinion, describing exactly what Ken Stein’s minutes show Assad said.

Ken Stein does not allege Assad was a liar.

Ken Stein does not allege Jimmy Carter lied at his press conference (that Jimmy Carter believed Assad was insincere and so believed an agreement was not feasible).

Instead, Ken Stein simply denies Assad said what Ken Stein’s own minutes show, Assad did say, about the DMZ.

As to Assad’s secret negotiating position (withdrawing farther from the line), Ken Stein offers no evidence of what Assad did not say during the 5 hours of conversation Ken Stein did not hear.

Now what does this mean?

This means, Ken Stein offers no evidence to support his assertion of dishonesty.

Zero.

And that means, Ken Stein’s assertion of dishonesty is prima facie “malicious” or a prima facie “reckless disregard for the truth.”

And that means, his assertion is prima facie beyond the protection of the U.S. constitution, and its free speech privilege.

And that means, Ken Stein published a prima facie actionable defamation, a libel.

If Ken Stein were sued for defamation, his lawyers might argue, that his assertion of dishonesty — though he phrased it to be a fact — is instead a mere argument, because he disclosed the factual basis of his argument, and so empowered the public to discern for itself, that what Ken Stein asserted to be fact is, instead, foolish nonsense, refuted — patently — by the very evidence he quotes.

Ken Stein’s stupid claims about the DMZ, yes. The public can plainly see, Ken Stein’s evidence does not show, that Assad did not agree, exactly as Jimmy Carter said.

But Ken Stein did not disclose all the pertinent facts.

Ken Stein’s second headline libel (about Assad’s secret negotiating position, withdrawing farther from the line), this defamatory libel Ken Stein crafted entirely on this single implied fact:

There was only one meeting.

Untrue, according to Jimmy Carter, speaking 11 days after the meeting.

I imagine Ken Stein acted dishonestly and maliciously, that he knows it’s untrue, that he decided to not disclose it, because the truth utterly guts his defamatory libels, exposes them, all of them, 100%, to be his fantasies, his dark wishes, which he has no evidence to support.

I would be very surprised if Ken Stein did not know, that Jimmy Carter (leader of the very entourage Ken Stein was serving) had a lengthy private meeting with Assad, there in Damascus where Ken Stein was, and Ken Stein was not invited.

Personal and memorable.

But were it so, that he did not know about it, then Ken Stein acted recklessly, by failing to investigate that question before publishing a defamatory libel:

Did Jimmy Carter have any private meetings or conversations.

Ken Stein was surely aware, he was constructing a defamatory libel, which depended entirely, solely, on this single supposed fact (a single meeting):—

A fact Ken Stein knew was untrue and decided to conceal (dishonesty, a malicious lie).

Or else, a fact Ken Stein, the trustworthy historian, couldn’t bother himself to investigate (reckless disregard for the truth).

Or else, a fact Ken Stein, incapacitated in a zealot trance, convinced himself it wasn’t necessary to disclose (reckless disregard for the truth). A very persistent trance, if that’s what it be, as he remains in the grip of it still, now these many months later, from its first manifestations, in December 2006. I’ve seen no correction and apology issued by Ken Stein publicly, and he’s posted none quietly to his webpage (July 6 2007).

In this, his second defamation (about Assad’s secret negotiating position), Ken Stein gives the public, not an argument, but an impenetrable assertion of fact: There was only one meeting, the minutes are infallible, Jimmy Carter lied about it.

A defamation. A libel.

The “argument” or “opinion” theory of a defense of Ken Stein is also weak, for another reason.

Ken Stein continues to promote his defamation, by remaining silent, knowing (as he presumably does) that others repeat and republish his defamation.

Very few people cite Ken Stein’s article.

Presumably, others appreciate, they would promptly stigmatize themselves, eliminate themselves as a credible voice, if they cited it with approval.

But some quote from it, and promote Ken Stein’s defamatory libels, without citing the article.

This technique — separating Ken Stein’s defamatory libels, from his evidence — prevents the readers of the republished defamation from discovering, that one of his libels is not supported by his evidence (his defamatory DMZ libel).

Like this (boldface, paragraphing, added):

Steven F. Hayward (AEI: American Enterprise Institute), “The Other J.C.” {pf, 91kb.pdf, archive, copy} (Shalem Center, Azure, issue number 29, summer 2007, pages 146-152, Jerusalem, posted July 9 2007).

Concealing them, from his audience of true believers, this author thereby emboldened himself, both to label Ken Stein’s notes “unambiguous” and to assert the opposite of what the notes actually say (the same, what Jimmy Carter said).

Ken Stein did not inform this presumptive payroll writer (who might be a true believer too), that Jimmy Carter had 5 additional hours of conversations with Assad.

This author could therefore plea, that he was not malicious and he did not recklessly disregard the truth.

Ken Stein, a professor, deceived him, this author could claim.

But this author cannot plea, that Ken Stein deceived him about the notes, which this author himself concealed, from his own audience, and decided to misdescribe.

Thereby revealing his own state of mind to be dishonest and malicious.

More likely than not.

This technique — pretending something is so, by simply saying it’s so — is the basis for the U.S. war on Iraq, and the like assertions of “fact,” that Iran has a nuclear weapons program (nonexistent, on the abundant evidence).

This technique is adopted by the many people who quote Ken Stein’s earlier resignation email (December 5 2006)

In that email Ken Stein cites no evidence, no specifics, merely incendiary, unsubstantiated, unspecific, vague, defamatory libels, depending for their credibility solely on Ken Stein’s status, as an Emory professor, presumptively, a nominally authoritative voice.

A voice whose authority steadily grows, day by day, as Emory management remains silent, day by day, now these many months later, taking no action to expose, condemn, and punish Ken Stein, for his malicious lies or reckless disregard for the truth.

Ironically, Ken Stein describes the effect of his own factless allegations, while busily defaming Jimmy Carter:

The people citing Ken Stein’s vacant email allegations:—

They appear to number in the thousands.

But, caveat. They could be merely hundreds or dozens or even several only — true believers and/or payroll writers — masquerading themselves as thousands, via aliases, writing blogs, comments to blogs and posted articles, letters to newspapers, and such.

Ken Stein colludes, by his silence, in these republications (if he knows about them, or some of them), and he thereby exhibits his prima facie intent, that he intends and desires his defamatory assertions to be regarded as facts, not as arguments, that he becomes a willful co-publisher, in effect, of the defamatory republications.

This, because it’s a simple matter for Ken Stein to put a stop to these republications, if he wants to. Refute them, discredit them, disassociate from them. He can simply post a correction to his email, and his article, and his statements on TV, a notice, an apology, on his webpage, issue his correction as a press release, and send it to wire services, newspapers, and such, the same ones who reported his defamatory libels in the first place, and especially those who promoted it.

The public is busy, and the bulk of them do not anyway give fair readings of assertions in context, nor do headline writers, news reporters, partisan advocates, paid propagandists, who extract and report factual assertions, leaving behind, and unreported, tortured arguments, inadequate evidence, which does not support the arguments.

Arguments, masquerading as facts.

Makes for good headlines, and quotes out of context.

(The unreported context demonstrating, the quoted assertion is not a fact, but a mere argument instead, and also untrue, doubtful, or anyway unproven).

The public does not expect people in responsible positions, with reputations, professors for example, to make bold assertions of fact, unless they have the evidence to back it up.

(This is what makes “The Big Lie” big: It must be true, because such a person would not likely destroy his own reputation, and credibility, by asserting a malicious or reckless lie).

Hence, the bulk of the public, doubtless, assumes it’s true, or anyway likely true. A “fact.”

The public is busy, and not invested in the nitty gritty of most issues, and content with a brief report, a summary, a passing mention, about most news. At any rate, that’s what they get, the public in the U.S., whether they’re content about it or not, what the U.S. corporate media usually supplies them, superficiality.

Jimmy Carter is fit and healthy but, like us all, he knows his life clock is running out. He doesn’t waste his time, his money, his emotional resources, in lawsuits, to silence, punish, deter, malicious liars, reckless liars.

Instead, Jimmy Carter seems to accept the challenge, and learn from it, a professor, modeling, how to deal with such people, how to resolve conflicts, how to keep focus, on the merits of an issue, how to ignore a lure to change the subject, avoid inflaming emotions, another lure to rob focus and disrupt debate.

(For the title of his book, Jimmy Carter chose a word which inflames emotions, by accurately describing the facts on the ground, in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory. He did that to grab focus for the issue, not divert focus away, to motivate the American public to action, to inspire them to inform themselves, about what the U.S. corporate media blanks.)

A good, interesting, instructive, role model.

Following that model, I do not charge Ken Stein, on this evidence, with dishonesty.

Ken Stein might have blinded himself with zeal, instead (a species of negligence, not necessarily dishonesty), persuaded himself of something, something he wanted it to be true, and, in zeal or haste or confusion, did not observe protocols of rationality and fact-checking. Could be, he did not take a deep breath, formulate a competing hypothesis, and then reread his notes, and such, in that new light.

Maybe Ken Stein was in a hurry, too big a hurry, to assert dishonesty, with no evidence.

A professional misstep, maybe, a stumble.

If so, then Ken Stein will naturally feel regret, down the road, in a period of calm, when he discovers his mistake.

That feeling is a mark of honesty.

He can exhibit his feeling.

An honest apology, contrition, would be evidence of his discovery, and of his regret, and of his honesty, suggesting absence of original malice.

Because that’s what honest people normally do, I expect, when they realize they have stumbled and erred, if they caused trouble, or harm, to another.

I haven’t yet read or listened to the rest of what Ken Stein has said.

Charles Judson Harwood Jr.
June 20, July 10, 2007

From Nashville:
Woodmont Grammar School (1948-1956)
Montgomery Bell Academy (1956-1960)
Vanderbilt University (1960-1964 BA)
Vanderbilt Law School (1964-1967 JD)
Tennessee Bar No. 005483 (1967)

Ken Stein: The difficulty comes between me, the historian, and Jimmy Carter, the mediator.

He tends to want to be more agile in the use of the facts.

I try and s—

I’m a little bit more rigid, and historically consistent.

And my disagreement with him comes from that.

Steve Inskeep: Well, it would be difficult, in this interview, to analyze all the specific concerns that you have with his latest book.

But let’s analyze one.

It involves the Syrian president, of the 1990s, Hafez al-Assad.

Jimmy Carter met with Hafez al-Assad in 1990.

He wrote about that meeting in his book.

And you said, that he presented Assad a little more sympathetically, and the Israelis less sympathetically, than was actually the case.

What are the signs of that, in President Carter’s book?

Ken Stein: Well, President Carter, in his book, he says, I recollect the meeting.

And he said, that Assad was willing to withdraw further from the line than with the Israelis.

Steve Inskeep: This is all about the Golan Heights, a disputed piece of territory between the two countries.

Ken Stein: That is correct.

Now, there are two pieces of evidence that suggests that what Carter is saying is not accurate.

First are my own notes, at that meeting.

And more importantly, I think, if you don’t want to believe my notes, is the press conference that Jimmy Carter attended, immediately following, in which he articulated the following.

He said, “Now this is my personal opinion. I think the Syrians would be willing to make a compromise and move further back from the heights.”

What he now says, in 2006, is—

He makes it into fact.

And you can’t do that.

Steve Inskeep: Well, we asked President Carter about that meeting in 1990, and about your disagreement with him, about what actually happened, and here’s what he had to say about it:

Steve Inskeep: Well now, Ken Stein, is it possible that President Carter had meetings during that trip that you just weren’t there for?

Ken Stein: It’s possible he had meetings.

He had communications with all sorts of people that I never saw.

That’s all possible.

But in my conversations with President Carter, both before and after that trip, never once did he intimate to me, that Hafez al-Assad was going to be more flexible about sovereignty in the Golan Heights than were the Israelis.

It would also be inconsistent with Hafez al-Assad’s status of being the leader—

Of wanting to be the leader of the Arab world and not wanting to compromise with the Golan Heights.

“Agile in the use of the facts”?

• 1990 meetings and press conference

In his article, Ken Stein regaled a choir of true believers, the Israel Lobby.

But now, what does Ken Stein say, to an audience of 13 million radio listeners, who do not worship him, or his agenda, the most of them.

As with the true believers, to this audience too, Ken Stein models, once again, how to be “agile in the use of the facts.”

He doesn’t mention his foolish DMZ assertion.

Instead, he talks about Assad’s secret negotiating position (moving farther from the line).

And, he escalates, with brand new “facts.”

Special, for 13 million radio listeners:—

Ken Stein invents a statement by Jimmy Carter at his press conference (about moving farther from the line).

Ken Stein invents a statement by Jimmy Carter in his book (sourcing what Jimmy Carter did not say at his press conference, to the meeting Ken Stein attended).

Jimmy Carter did neither.

He not say it at his press conference (about moving farther from the line, according to the transcript Ken Stein quotes in his article).

He did not say it in his book (that he learned it at that meeting, what he did not say at his press conference).

(Radio listeners are easy to fool. They can’t fact-check. They have no text. They’re busy with their own lives. Fact-checking, this is the business of radio producers, not listeners.)

• “Never once did he intimate to me”

And that proves what?

Assad didn’t say it?

Because Jimmy Carter didn’t blab it?

Instead, could this be the explanation:

Jimmy Carter is trustworthy.

Assad’s secret negotiating position, how far Assad was willing to go, asymmetrically, to reach a peace agreement—

What Jimmy Carter learned in confidence, in a private meeting, he kept in confidence.

He did not reveal it at his press conference.

He did not intimate it to his staff.

Who had no need to know it.

Who might blab it.

Who might leak it, to the Israelis.

Could that be the simple explanation?

Jimmy Carter is trustworthy?

It was none of Ken Stein’s business?

____________________

Inventing History

Ken Stein invented history.

In his NPR interview, with 13 million listeners.

He asserted as fact what never happened.

Put words in Jimmy Carter’s mouth.

Rewrote Jimmy Carter’s book.

Reworded what Jimmy Carter said at his press conference.

Invented the substance of what Jimmy Carter said, in his book, at his press conference.

Are these intentional distortions by Ken Stein?

Intentional changes, to portray Jimmy Carter, a liar?

To ridicule Jimmy Carter?

Marginalize him?

Malicious lies?

To deceive 13 million listeners?

Provoke them?

To tell tens of millions more, their friends and families, to pay Jimmy Carter no mind?

And not to buy his book?

Or was this unintentional, instead?

Inaccuracies.

A slip of memory for Ken Stein.

Did he befuddle himself, into fantasy.

Stressed, at talking on the radio.

A compressed format, without time to say all he wants.

Here’s a clue:

Did Ken Stein ask NPR to post a correction, to their story and transcript of his interview?

I did not find a correction.

Maybe they wouldn’t post it.

Maybe it didn’t occur to him.

For the betterment of Ken Stein

• Tenure

Maybe Ken Stein feels no regret.

Maybe he did not befuddle himself.

Maybe he said precisely what he wanted to say.

Maybe he lied.

Wilfully, maliciously, and for a purpose.

To discredit a threat to Israel, as he might view Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter:— A certain threat to Israeli government policy, the conduct of successive Israeli regimes, Israeli occupation, confiscation, colonization, as Jimmy Carter puts it, of Palestinian land and water, a threat to U.S. taxpayer subsidies of Israel, weapons and such, and an annual $3 billion in cash, deposited each year, in a New York City bank account — an unaudited, secret, slush-fund.

Jimmy Carter:— A threat to the Israel Lobby and think tanks and Israel political-warriors, their income, prestige, payrolls, pensions, deferred compensation, tenure, travel, political contributions and rewards to their power-welding political servants, their staffs, government officials who place their people in influential government offices.

Maybe Ken Stein feels it’s ethical, to lie for that purpose.

A moral, righteous, lie.

Would Emory agree?

Or view that, instead, as “moral delinquency.”

And Emory management:—

Where are they?

Emory University president, James W. Wagner.

Emory provost, Earl Lewis.

Emory faculty, their committees, Ken Stein’s peers:—

Are these people trustworthy?

Fit for the responsibilities they undertook?

The trust committed to their charge?

A trust they agreed to steward, for pay.

Or instead, are they too genteel, too timorous, too pusillanimous, to confront Ken Stein, and Ken Stein’s facially egregious conduct:—

And model how to deal with it.

For the common good.

In an open and transparent manner.

Pursue the truth of it.

Discuss all relevant questions about it.

And if investigations warrant — that what Ken Stein wrote and said was a malicious lie or a reckless disregard for the truth — then invite Ken Stein to issue a public correction, a public apology.

Failing which, do it themselves.

To vindicate their own integrity, the integrity of Emory University, prevent the exploitation of their credentials to enhance, aggrandize, a dishonest, dishonorable, reckless, incompetent, abuse, whatever species they find it to be.

And then, discipline Ken Stein.

Enforce the strictures, of their tenure contract.

For the protection of the institution, the students, and the general public, against incompetence and irresponsible utterance and moral delinquency.

For the betterment of Ken Stein.

For the encouragement of others.

And for the common good.

Charles Judson Harwood Jr.
June 25 2007

Emory University
Statement of Principles Governing Faculty Relationships

Academic Freedom and Responsibility. A concern to provide for faculty and students a University atmosphere where there is freedom to pursue truth and to discuss all relevant questions has led the trustees of Emory University to accept the general principles and purposes embodied in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure {60kb.pdf} ...

Institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good and not to further the interest of either the individual faculty member or the institution as a whole.

The common good depends on the free search for truth and its free exposition. ...

[F]aculty members should have security adequate for freedom to teach and to seek truth. This includes security of position after a reasonable period of probation, income commensurate with professional attainments, and assurance of explicit contract.

As a citizen, the faculty member is also entitled to the right to participate in activities related to citizenship in a democratic society. ...

[W]hen the faculty member speaks or writes as a citizen, he or she should remember that the public may judge his or her profession and institution by those utterances.

Hence, the faculty member should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should indicate that he or she speaks as an individual and not for the institution.

With the acceptance by trustees, administrative officers, and faculty members of the related principles of freedom and obligation, the individual faculty member is assured of reasonable protection against arbitrary pressures and procedures; and the institution, students, and the general public are assured of reasonable protection against incompetence and irresponsible utterance.

Appointment and Tenure ...

12. Appointments, whether limited or continuous, may be terminated:

a. By resignation;

b. By retirement in accordance with the provisions of the Emory University Retirement Plan;

c. For one or more of the following reasons: moral delinquency, neglect of academic duty, incompetence, permanent physical or mental incapacity, or other such adequate cause.

• Statement of Principles Governing Faculty Relationships, approved by the University Board of Trustees, October 31 1951, last revised April 16 1998 (Emory University, Office of General Counsel, Office of the Provost, Atlanta Georgia).

Jimmy Carter (ppna, page 130):

Secretary of State James Baker understood the need to ease tensions in the Middle East and in May 1990 {1989*} stated to the annual convention of the powerful pro-Israeli lobby organization AIPAC the basic requirement for peace: ¶

These statements had a beneficial impact in the Middle East. ¶

For instance, when I visited Damascus in 1990, President Assad informed me that he was willing to negotiate with Israel on the status of the Golan Heights. ¶

His proposal was that both sides withdraw from the international border, with a small force of foreign observers and electronic devices to monitor the neutral zone. ¶

When I asked him if each nation would have to fall back an equal distance, he replied that Syria might move its troops farther from the border because of the terrain. ¶

He also gave me permission to report his proposal to Washington and to the Israelis, which I did in Jerusalem three days later. ¶

The following month I met with Yasir Arafat and other PLO leaders in Paris {April 5 1990}, where they all agreed to accept the Camp David accords as a basis for future negotiations with the Israelis.

________

•* James Addison Baker III (U.S. Secretary of State (S), Jan. 22 1989-1992 Aug. 23), speech, “Principles and pragmatism: American policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict” {pf} (AIPAC: American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, 30th Annual Policy Conference, Washington D.C., May 22 1989), published, Department of State Bulletin (1939-1989), “The official monthly record of United States foreign policy,” volume 89, number 2148, July 1989, pages 24-27 {July-Sept. 1989, 1.58mb.txt, 25.3mb.pdf, archive.org} (DoS: U.S. State Department, bureau of public affairs, office of public communication) {SuDoc: S 1.3:89/2148, ISSN: 0041-7610, LCCN: 39026945, OCLC: 01639364, GPOcat, LL: paper, DL, WorldCat}.