Landrum Bolling, the filmmaker and educator, sent the following email to John Whitbeck yesterday in the wake of Jimmy Carter’s Washington Post piece suggesting that the two-state solution has lost its meaning. Bolling permitted me to publish it:
I just had a good phone conversation with President Carter. He is unflappable, unintimidated by the attack from Elliott Abrams. He agrees that there is no indication that the Israeli leadership has any interest whatsoever in a viable Palestine as part of a Two State deal. He says that, contrary to his original hope and expectations, Begin within a few months after Camp David gave clear evidence that his intention was to retain all of the West Bank.
I am not sure what we who have a strong interest in a fair and peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict can or should do. But of one thing I am certain: we must try to convince our government and the public that we must stop deluding ourselves about negotiating with the Israelis on a settlement freeze and on the adoption of the Two State Solution. The Israelis would be quite willing, though grudgingly, to enter into negotiations, endless negotiations, over a "settlement freeze". (It’s not something we should be pushing. That’s a sheer diversion.) The Israelis love "the peace process". They kept it going for forty years, and they’d gladly keep it going for another forty years. The just don’t want a decent, workable, fair just PEACE. It’s time we stopped playing that game. It’s futile– and basically dishonest.
