Carter’s Maps: Worse Than Plagiarism

David Gerstman may have been the first person in the blogosphere to note that, buried in the middle of Professor Kenneth Stein’s stinging criticism of Jimmy Carter’s book, was a veiled accusation of plagiarism.  Stein called the book “replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments.”  David noted that “copied materials not cited” was a genteel reference to one of the worst sins a writer can commit.

In a subsequent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Stein said two maps in Carter’s book were “very closely similar, or unusually similar, to maps that were produced and published in Dennis Ross’ book.”  The next day Dennis Ross said it “sure looks” like Carter ripped him off. The apparent plagiarism was covered by The Political Pit Bull, Gateway Pundit, Bill’s Bites, Hot Air, LGF and others.  A video of Stein, Ross and Carter discussing the issue is here.

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line placed the issue in perspective, noting that plagiarism was “probably the least of the problems Carter faces with respect to his book” — given Stein’s other, even more serious, criticisms of it.  Mirengoff quipped that “at least [Carter’s book] has good maps.”

Actually — it doesn’t.  And therein lies a problem much more serious than plagiarism.

The truth is a little more complicated than mere plagiarism, and takes a while to explain.  Carter not only appears to have copied maps from Ross but — more importantly — to have re-titled them to make them appear to be something they are not.  Moreover, his maps omit the descriptive notes that Ross included on his maps, which would have contradicted the point Carter was trying to make.  Finally, the point he was trying to make with the borrowed and altered maps is central to his entire book.

So this will be a long post, but an important one. 

  * * * * * * * *

To understand the two maps, a little background is necessary.  On July 11-25, 2000, the Israelis and Palestinians met at Camp David to negotiate a final resolution of their dispute.  Israel made an initial offer of a Palestinian state on 87% of the West Bank.  By the end of the two-week period, Israel had increased its offer to 92% (91% of the West Bank plus a 1% land swap from Israeli territory).  Arafat rejected the offers and left Camp David without ever having made a counter-offer in the entire two-week period.

In August and September, the Israelis and Palestinians conducted secret meetings to try to resolve issues on Jerusalem and security so that a new summit could be prepared.  Clinton sent Ross to join those meetings. The parties eventually decided they wanted a U.S. proposal to spur an agreement, and Ross thus went to work over the next three months on what would become known as the “Clinton Parameters.” 

The Clinton Parameters were formally offered to the Israelis and Palestinians at a meeting with Clinton in the White House on December 23, 2000 — presented as a final proposal to be accepted or rejected by December 27, so that negotiations based on them could be completed before Clinton left office.  Ross appends to his book the actual text of what Clinton read to the parties on December 23.  Here is a summary of the parameters Clinton proposed:

— a Palestinian state on approximately 97% of the West Bank (phrased as “between 94 and 96 percent of West Bank territory” plus a “land swap of 1 to 3 percent,” for a total of between 95 and 99 percent — with 97% thus being the midpoint), and 100% of Gaza, with “contiguity of territory for each side” and 80 percent of the settlers remaining in blocs within the retained 4-6% area;

— a capital in East Jerusalem, with sovereignty over all Arab parts of the City (including Arab parts of the Old City) and Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount;

— an unlimited right of refugees to return to the new state of Palestine, plus limited absorption of refugees into Israel (depending on Israel’s policies and sovereign decision); and

— an international presence for security purposes as Israel withdrew from the West Bank, with a “small Israeli presence in fixed locations” remaining in the Jordan Valley — under the authority of the international force — for a limited time.

In his book (page xxv), Ross published a map entitled “Map Reflecting Clinton Ideas” showing what the area of the proposed Palestinian state would have been under the Clinton Parameters.  Here is the map:

The note on Ross’s map states that it illustrates a Palestinian state in 95% of the West Bank – midway between the 94-96% figures in the Clinton Parameters.  The note also states that the map “actually understates the Clinton ideas by not showing an additional 1 to 3% of territorial swaps to the Palestinian state from areas within Israel” that were part of the Clinton Parameters. 

Ross’s map makes it obvious that the proposed Palestinian state was on virtually all of the West Bank, in contiguous areas, with no retention of land in the Jordan Valley, and a long direct border with Jordan.

Israel formally accepted the Clinton Parameters on December 27 (with reservations that Ross noted were within the areas left for further negotiation under the Parameters). 

Clinton called Arab leaders on a daily basis to urge them to convince Arafat to accept the Parameters, getting backing from Mubarak of Egypt, Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and King Abdullah of Jordan.  On December 29, Ross met with Ahmed Qurei, the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, to warn him of the consequences of a Palestinian rejection — Sharon would be elected and would withdraw Barak’s offer, and the new Bush administration, having seen Clinton offer what they viewed as too much, and then seeing Arafat stiff Clinton anyway, would have no desire to involve themselves in the issue. 

Arafat was invited to the White House to give his response.  A week after the deadline, in a face-to-face meeting with Clinton on January 2, 2001, Arafat rejected the Parameters — refusing to recognize an Israeli claim to the Western Wall, rejecting the most basic elements of Israeli security needs, and dismissing the Clinton refugee formula.  Ross wrote that “All these were deal-killers.” 

Arafat thereafter rejected even an offer by Clinton to fly to Israel to meet one last time with Barak and Arafat, and further rejected an Israeli suggestion to produce a joint letter to Clinton summarizing areas of agreement and baselines for future negotiations.  It was a total and complete rejection of the peace effort, with full knowledge of the consequences, after Israel had accepted the Clinton Parameters.

All of this is a matter of record in Ross’s book.  Ross summarized it by writing that, with its December 27 action, “Barak’s government had now formally accepted ideas that would effectively divide East Jerusalem, end the IDF’s presence in the Jordan Valley, and produce a Palestinian state in roughly 97 percent of the West Bank, and 100 percent of Gaza” (page 755 — emphasis added). 

In his autobiography (“My Life”), Clinton wrote that “Arafat’s rejection of my [December 23, 2000] proposal after Barak accepted it was an error of historic proportions” (pages 944-45 — emphasis added). 

But here is how Jimmy Carter describes what happened (on pages 150-151 of his book), followed by the maps he published seeking to support his allegations:

There was no clear response from Prime Minister Barak [to the Clinton Parameters], but he later stated that Israel had twenty pages of reservations.  President Arafat rejected the proposal.

. . . The best offer to the Palestinians – by Clinton, not Barak – had been to withdraw 20 percent of the settlers, leaving more than 180,000 in 209 settlements, covering about 10 percent of the occupied land, including land to be “leased” and portions of the Jordan River valley and East Jerusalem.

. . . This honeycomb of settlements and their interconnecting conduits effectively divide the West Bank into at least two noncontiguous areas and multiple fragments, often uninhabitable and unreachable, and control of the Jordan River valley denies Palestinians any direct access into Jordan. . . .

This must set a new world’s record for substantive errors packed into three short paragraphs:  (1) the Israeli cabinet formally accepted the Parameters on December 27, and both Clinton and Ross thought Barak’s response was clear; (2) under the Parameters, 100% of the settlers would be gone from a Palestinian state covering 94-96% of the West Bank; (3) there would be no “honeycomb” of settlements dividing the West Bank; (4) Carter’s 10% figure is double the 4-6% figure expressly set forth in the Parameters; (5) no portion of the Jordan River Valley was to be permanently retained by Israel; (6) even the “small Israeli presence” for security purposes would be withdrawn within a fixed period; and (7) the Palestinians would have direct access to Jordan along the entire border.

Carter’s description of the Clinton Parameters, and the Israeli response to it, is not even close to correct, but Carter used two maps on page 148 to try to illustrate his false description and absolve the Palestinians from their rejection.  The first map is set forth below and is obviously substantially identical to the Ross map reproduced above. 

But notice that while the map is in identical to Ross’s in almost every respect, Carter has significantly altered its title. Carter calls his map not an illustration of the Clinton Parameters by the U.S. Ambassador who developed them, but rather the “Israeli Interpretation of Clinton’s Proposal” (emphasis added) — as if it were simply one side’s “interpretation.” He also omits Ross’s explanatory note, which made it clear the map “actually understates the Clinton ideas by not showing an additional 1 to 3% of territorial swaps to the Palestinians” (emphasis added). 

Next to that map, Carter placed another map, which he titled “Palestinian Interpretation of Clinton’s Proposal” (emphasis added) — a map also borrowed from Ross but then re-titled and altered in an even more significant way.  Here is Carter’s map:

Carter’s map, and the title he has placed on it, appears to show that the Palestinians had a dramatically different “interpretation” of the Clinton Parameters.  Looking at Carter’s map, the purported “interpretation” of the Clinton Parameters divides the West Bank into three separated cantons, with no contiguous territory, with a very large amount of land retained by Israel, and with a wide strip of land running along the entire Jordanian border as an Israeli Security Zone. If this were a possible “interpretation” of the Clinton Parameters, the Palestinians might have had reasonable grounds for rejecting them.

But this Carter map is a totally false illustration of any possible interpretation of the Clinton Parameters, and you can tell it is false not just by reading the Parameters themselves, but by looking at Ross’s second map (and its explanatory note), from which Carter’s map apparently came.  Set forth below is the page from Ross’s book (page xxiv) with two maps; the one on the left corresponds to the above map in Carter’s book:

The map on the left is substantially the same as Carter’s (although it includes more detail).  But the more important point is that the title on Ross’s map refers not to a purported Palestinian interpretation of the December 23, 2000 Clinton Parameters, but rather to the “Palestinian Characterization of the Final Proposal at Camp David” (emphasis added) — in July 2000!  It is not a map of the Clinton Parameters at all — not in anyone’s interpretation. 

Moreover, Ross added the map on the right to demonstrate that the map on the left was actually an incorrect illustration of the initial Camp David offer in July.  Ross’s third map on the right above (which Carter did not use in his book) shows that the actual final proposal at Camp David did not separate the West Bank into three cantons, nor provide for a non-contiguous area.

And it gets worse. On the map he did borrow, Carter omitted Ross’s note, which clearly stated that the map “reflects a map proposed by the Israelis early at Camp David” (emphasis added).  It is not even the final offer at Camp David in July 2000, much less what Carter has titled it — an alleged “interpretation” of the December 23, 2000 Clinton Parameters differing from an “Israeli” interpretation.

Finally, Ross noted on his map of the "Palestinian Characterization of the Final Proposal at Camp David" (which Carter published as the Palestinian interpretation of the Clinton Parameters) that it was actually an illustration of a map posted by the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department that “inaccurately depicts” even the initial Camp David proposal by Israel.  Ross’s note states that the map “inaccurately depicts Israeli security zones carving the West Bank into three cantons and includes Israeli settlements in the proposed Palestinian state.”  In addition, Ross noted, the map shows the proposed Palestinian state as “comprising only 83% of [the West Bank]” instead of 87% in the actual Israeli offer at that time. 

In other words, it is totally bogus to present this map, or one based on it, as a purported Palestinian “interpretation” of the December 23, 2000 Clinton Parameters that might have given the Palestinians cause for concern. It is a map of a purported Israeli offer at Camp David six months before, and not even an accurate depiction of that.   

Ross put the map in his book to demonstrate the erroneous contention by the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department of what was offered at Camp David.  The title of the map clearly indicates it refers to Camp David, not the Clinton Parameters. The note at the bottom of Ross’s map indicates it is a map “based on the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department” and one can find the map at the PLO-NAD website, which itself identifies it as an “Israeli Proposal for the Palestinian State at Camp David in July 2000” — not the Clinton Parameters.

The two maps on page 148 of Carter’s book are thus either virtually identical or substantially the same as those in Ross’s book, which Ross has said he created himself. But the titles have been changed, and the explanatory notes omitted, and the maps are being used to illustrate a demonstrably false point.

Perhaps there is an innocent explanation for all this that absolves Carter from the lesser charge of plagiarism. In the video linked above, Carter asserts that he has “never seen Ross’s book” and that Carter’s maps “come from an atlas that is publicly available.”  But the maps in Carter’s book bear no notation of any source or attribution, and at the back of his book (page 250) Carter thanks Paul Pugliese “who prepared the maps.”

Did Carter take the maps from Ross’s book, or from a publicly available atlas that has not yet been identified, or did he have Paul Pugliese prepare them (with what instructions from Carter)? 

We don’t know for sure, but it seems reasonably clear that, one way or another, the maps came from Dennis Ross’s book and then were mislabeled, making them into something they are not, omitting important information that was on the maps, and then presented in Carter’s book as competing “interpretations” of the Clinton Parameters — which they indisputably are not.  Carter’s maps are worse than plagiarism — they are placed together in a way that dramatically distorts history, misinforms the reader, and assists Carter in his book-length attempt to absolve the Palestinians from their rejection of peace in 2000 in favor of a barbaric war.

If Carter’s book were a car, it would be recalled.