An Elder is nuts

Jimmy Carter, a member of the The Elders (Independent global leaders working for peace and human rights), had an op-ed piece in today's (15.09.2013) Haaretz "Legitimizing Middle East peace through referendum" (it had a different title in the actual paper and according to the website, was also/already published on the elders website). (It seems that it maybe the new peace making tool.)

Lamenting the lack of progress since 1993 (and the Oslo Accords), he argues that having a referendum (or if it doesn't go 'according to plan' a series of referenda) for having a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians approved, suggesting that " submission of an agreement to their own people in a referendum will make it easier for them to make necessary concessions"  since

We observed this in our previous meetings with Hamas leaders, who affirmed publicly that they would accept an agreement negotiated by the PLO leader, provided their people then approved it in a free and fair vote. It is encouraging that both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas promise to submit any agreement reached to a popular vote. I am confident that both sides would approve a balanced peace agreement.
Both Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu need a referendum if they are to have the flexibility and legitimacy required to conclude a potential agreement.

Who is he kidding? It's my observation that with any controversial issue referenda instead of promoting dialogue, compromise and agreement, lead to polarization and hardening of positions. Look at the ballot initiatives for legalizing same sex marriage where the majority of Americans support it, yet it engenders fractious battles on the ballot. In the case of a peace agreement, neither side, Palestinian/Arab nor Israel, seems to have a clear majority supporting it. The Israeli public--despite the current right-wing government (supposedly anti-compromise)--is highly divided about what to do. The Arab world, seems highly tilted away from encouraging (nevermind) supporting any kind of dialogue with "Zionists” (aka Jews who aren't anti-Israel). Then there's the short democratic history of the Palestinian Authority for conducting open and fair elections, where once seems to be more than enough and Hamas who's yet to actually run even one public election.

While it's not worth rehashing the entire piece, several of his comments demand a response.

Past leaders of Israel have established valuable precedents towards an eventual peace agreement with the Palestinians – even those who may not have been expected to do so, such as Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Olmert, and even Ariel Sharon. When I brokered the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978, I felt that the Israeli delegation on the whole was more willing to agree to a deal than was Prime Minister Menachem Begin. I believe it was a phone call to Ariel Sharon, then a powerful right-wing figure in his government, that convinced Begin to accept the peace proposal.

Let me see. Ariel Sharon, the architect of the (first) Lebanon War and champion of  settling "Greater Israel" including having an apartment in the Moslem Quarter in the Old City (Jerusalem) convinced Begin to accept the Camp David Accords.He voted against the treaty when it came up for a vote in the Knesset. Maybe there where other members of the Israeli delegation--Ezer Weitzman, Moshe Dayan--who were in favor of the treaty, but Ariel Sharon (nor Yitzhak Shamir--then Speaker of the Knesset) were supporters of Camp David.
Then there's Carter's final paragraph

Peace deals were possible in 1978 and 1993. They still are today, but time is running out and hard decisions need to be made very soon. Like 35 years ago, the United States’ role as an honest, impartial broker will be a key to the success of the current talks.

Sorry, Charlie Jimmy, but frankly neither year bore much fruit for creating a peace agreement/understanding between Israel and the Palestinians. While the Camp David Accords (1978) did produce a peace treaty between between Israel and Egypt, it did little for actual movement on the Israel-Palestinian coexistence track (viz. the numerous skirmishes) and the Oslo Agreements (1993) while it produced great fanfare and theatre did little else. The other common characteristic of the two dates was it lead to a political assassination--1978 of Anwar Sadat and 1993 of Yitzhak Rabin--by internal opponents to peace. Can't say either represented a positive development of peace.

Maybe, it might be better for you, Jimmy Carter, to stick to building real houses than sticking your nose into an region where your world view is so out of line with the regional thinking and behaving. That way, the nails in the wall will actually support the structure instead of being another nail in the coffin.