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With #JimmyCarter suddenly being all the rage again thanks to an odd choice of camera perspective I am just going to have to promote my research on Carter and the Middle East.
A thread.
A thread.
In 1977 #JimmyCarter entered office with a plan to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict in its entirity, including the Palestinian issue. In this article I study the @BrookingsInst report which provided much of the foundation for the comprehensive approach https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592296.2014.936199
In the end #JimmyCarter 'only' solved the Egyptian-Israeli conflict, but not for lack of trying. He spent much of his first year trying to include Palestinians in peacemaking but never took the last step. Read the whole story in my book @ibtauris https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/arab-israeli-diplomacy-under-carter-9781788310529/
A major stumbling bloc on the road to the comprehensive peace was the election of Begin as Israeli PM. His Greater Israel ideologi meant that the West Bank was non-negotiable. In this article I explore the ideological underpinnings of Begin's politics https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20581831.2020.1710675
Begin realized that there was serious pressure on him to concede something on the Palestinian front. He put forth the autonomy plan to lower pressure. In this article I term this "smokescreen diplomacy" because it merely enabled the Egypt-Israel peace https://muse.jhu.edu/article/730233
While #JimmyCarter never talked to the PLO in the peace process he reached out to the PLO to negotiate with Iran over the US hostages. This was US tradition from Ford's period: the PLO could not be talked to on political issues but only on security issues. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13530194.2019.1661646
The PLO, for its part, thought that if it could secure the release of US hostages from Iran then the US gratitude would open the way for direct negotiations with the US. The PLO did secure the release of the Thanksgiving 13 but then progress ended. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13530194.2019.1661646
The short version of the US-PLO-Iran hostage triangle can be read in my @madebyhistory @PostOpinions piece: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/04/how-plo-served-us-interests-during-iranian-hostage-crisis/
Lastly, in two Norwegian language academic articles @babylonnorden I compare #JimmyCarter to other US presidents' engagement in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the first, with @anjaland I compare the Carter-Begin encounter with the Obama-Netanyahu encounter https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/74483/Jensehaugen.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
In the 2nd I show the change in US policy towards the Jerusalam-question from Truman to Trump. @babylonnorden #openaccess https://journals.uio.no/babylon/article/view/5922/5063
