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Scolding Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for what he considers unacceptably conciliatory rhetoric at last week's peace conference, Commentary's Eric Trager suspects the source of Olmert's outrageous moral unclarity: Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby and U.S Foreign Policy:
"[W]hile the American Jewish community was busy debating whether these authors were anti-Semitic, conspiratorial, or simply misguided, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was apparently leafing through the two bestselling tomes for sound-bite material. Consider Olmert’s bizarre press statements following last week’s Annapolis Conference, in which he framed his pursuit of negotiations with terms perfectly agreeable to Carter, Walt, and Mearsheimer.[...]Olmert is going to have to learn to better represent Israelis and more effectively address Palestinians if forthcoming negotiations are to have any chance. On the other hand, in case negotiations fail, Olmert has done a good job of opening up a future position as a Middle East Fellow at the Carter Center."Yes, if only Olmert read Commentary more, then he'd really understand what's at stake in these negotiations. He'd also better understand what language is and is not acceptable when discussing the issue in the United States, and how this differs significantly from what is acceptable in some other countries. --Matthew Duss
