Jimmy Olmert? Ehud Carter?

Apropos the once-again moribund Middle East peace process - if one can in fact call this kind of endless churning of diplomatic activity a process - the New York Times chimed in with this editorial on Saturday, Mr. Olmert's Belated Truth's. It seems that the Times is grudgingly appreciative of the fact that the exiting Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, had screwed up the courage to speak out about the reality behind his nation's conflict with the Palestinian people and to outline how it could be resolved.

Ignoring for the moment that the Times had dragged their feet for decades in coming to the very same conclusions that Mr. Olmert did, it was gratifying to see that the editors and the P. M. were finally on the same geopolitical page in recognizing the following:

• that an Israeli peace with the Palestinians requires the full withdrawal of Israeli forces and settlements from all of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,
• that the return of the Golan Heights must be on the table as part of peace negotiations with Syria,
• and that it would be a foolhardy adventure - megalomania, according to Olmert - for Israeli to undertake unilateral military action to thwart Iran's development of nuclear weapons.

As encouraging as it is that Olmert has finally come to see the light, or more accurately, come to speak these inconvenient truths, in the waning days of his scandal-plagued administration, it should be noted that both he and the New York Times have reluctantly become proponents of the idea that peace in the region, and, ultimately, Israel's security, can only be achieved by the return of the West Bank - with small adjustments of territory excepted - to Palestinian control.

One international figure, it turns out, has been championing just this position for years, and, in spite of winning a Nobel Peace Prize, has met with much disdain from the American public and not infrequent accusations of antisemitism from the American Jewish community. That man, of course, is former president, Jimmy Carter.

In his 2006 book, "Peace Not Apartheid" Carter reviews the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict focusing his attention specifically on the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War. He and, interestingly enough, the Labor leadership of Israel at the time of the hostilities, concluded that the occupation of Palestinian lands would inevitably interfere with Israel's aspirations to remain a Jewish state, one living at peace with its neighbors within secure borders. Carter's stance was a principled one, rooted in the system of international law that had come to maturity with the establishment of the United Nations following the devastation of the Second World War. His stance was also both a practical and a personally compassionate one, as well.

Sadly, the influx of North African Jews and refugees from the Soviet Union, helped transform the Israeli political landscape in the 1970s and brought to power a right-wing government that harbored ambitions for a "Greater Israel", a notion derived from Biblically-based claims that were never part of the secular, internationalist vision of the Labor Party founders of the Israeli state. Thus work was frustrated on further exchanges of land-for-peace, like the one between Egypt and Israel, which Carter had helped to secure with the Camp David accords and which he saw as model for similar agreements between Israel and other parties to the conflict.

Well, at long last, it appears that Carter's even-handed approach to resolving disputes in the region, often characterized unfairly as "pro-Palestinian" and irrationally as "antisemitic" by those who brook no criticism of Israeli policies, is finally being widely adopted. (Oddly enough, Carter's fringe point-of-view - fringe relative to that of his fellow Americans, that is - has long been considered centrist in western European political circles and well within the bounds of reasonable discourse within Israel itself.)

Carter has, to say the least, suffered the slings and arrows which come with staking out a principled position and defending it over a long period of time, in the face of withering and unwarranted personal attacks. He must be gratified finally to see an Israeli prime minister, even a departing one, affirming his own long-held prescription for an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

I, for one, I am grateful that Carter has stuck to his guns and has never stopped reminding us, as he did while he was president, that solutions to conflict must always be founded on a respect for human rights and that the rule of international law must everywhere be fostered and observed.

Given all that hangs in the balance in the Middle East and given the havoc wrought by an American administration which sees respect for human rights as discretionary and which regards international law often as no more than an impediment to their freedom to act unilaterally, it is now more important than ever to be reminded of Jimmy Carter's not-at-all belated truths.

Changing Gears - My Obama Obicycle

Well, today was the deadline in Georgia to register to vote for the November election, so, according to plan, I lifted my cloak of (ostensible) bipartisan invisibility and switched my bike trailer from its alter-ego guise as an unassuming, mild-mannered "register-to-vote-here" mobile voter registration station to its bold, battle-ready incarnation as a partisan Democrat campaign vehicle - one that I am calling the "Obama Obicycle".

A five-minute test drive around my neighborhood was greeted mostly with honking horns and howls of approval. How sweet it is!

Nevertheless, a car-full of young men, from the suburbs I imagine, one flaunting a McCain-Palin t-shirt, apparently on their way to Little Five Points to sample the pleasures of the degenerate, left-leaning popular culture of which their candidates most certainly disapprove, called out, accusing me of consorting with terrorists, encouraged by the latest Sarah Palin initiated "gutter politics" attack.

What to say? "You guys could have been friendly (I had waved to them), or you could have been assholes. You decided to be assholes, just like your know-nothing attack-dog vice-presidential candidate. Do you have any idea what part of town you are in? Welcome to Atlanta and good luck!"

I'll Have What She's Having - Dispatches from the Voter Registration Front

After being inspired several weeks ago by my friend Joy Rousso to put our after-work bicycle rides to good purpose by using them as an opportunity to register voters, I decided to add a bold "Register to Vote Here" sign to my B.O.B. Yak trailer (above). Within a few days I resolved to keep the trailer attached to my bike all the time, not just when I was running errands that required it. Like a workplace photo ID dangling from a lanyard or a t-shirt proclaiming support for some political cause or other, it's easy to forget that such things that one "wears" habitually can attract the attention of people passing by.

I happened to be having lunch on the patio of my favorite local coffee shop (and wine bar) Java Vino the other day where I had left my bike-trailer combo sitting in the parking lot, a few feet away from the sidewalk that borders N. Highland Avenue. While I was preoccupied on my laptop, responding to a backlog of email, an older woman walked up to the patio, approached a young woman sitting near me - whom I took to be a new or infrequent customer, since I didn't know her - and struck up a brief conversation, one that I did not overhear. She then took a seat at a table near the door, without ever entering the shop. I assumed that she was waiting for a friend to arrive and join her for coffee or a bite to eat.

Java Vino has a menu of sandwiches, salads and pastries, but, like most coffee shops, doesn't offer table service. The wait-staff does occasionally make the rounds, busing tables and bringing out orders placed at the counter that take time to prepare. About 10-minutes after the older woman arrived, Dianna, a long-time Java Vino barista, was clearing dishes left on out on the patio, and, having noticed that the woman had been sitting for a while but had not yet ordered, asked her, "Is there something I can get for you? Coffee? Something to eat?"

"No thank you," the older woman responded, "I'm just waiting to register to vote."

Without missing a beat, Dianna began to send her my way, while I, having picked up on what was being discussed, was already dashing to my trailer to retrieve a clipboard, a pen and a blank registration form.

It seems that the older woman - who had just moved to Atlanta from Dallas - had noticed the sign on my trailer as she was walking down the street and had approached the young woman, the one whom I didn't recognize, to ask how she could go about registering to vote. Not knowing me or of my voter registration efforts, they conferred and came to the conclusion that voter registration must be a service offered by the coffee shop to its customers.

I, of course, had forgotten how an unattended bike and trailer with a "Register to Vote Here" sign on it, could be confusing people passing by a retail establishment.

Fortunately for me the older woman was a patient person, one committed to become a registered voter in her new hometown.