"Why don’t we try one more time?"

This morning, I remembered that the mutual love of children was the turning point of President Jimmy Carter's successful peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt.
(I mean the meetings at Camp David in 1978. I was seventeen.)

I was thinking about it because this past weekend, a little boy in Illinois was murdered by his landlord who was outraged by Hamas violence in Israel/Palestine [NYTimes]. The boy was Palestinian American Muslim.

I found Carter reminiscing about the moment when love turned things around in this speech: "Remarks by President Jimmy Carter in Recognition of the 20th Anniversary of the Camp David Accords, October 25, 1998"

President Carter:  "[Israeli Prime Minister Menachem] Begin had decided to leave [Camp David]. I had decided to leave, and so had [Egyptian president Anwar] Sadat.

"Begin asked me to sign a photograph of the three of us for his grandchildren. My secretary brought me eight photographs, and she had also discovered the names of Begin’s grandchildren. So instead of just signing Jimmy Carter, I put 'With Love to' and wrote the name of every one of his grandchildren.

"I took them over to his cabin. He was hardly speaking to me. I knocked at the door and went in.
I handed him the photographs, a stack of them.
He said, 'Thank you, Mr. President' and turned around, dismissing me in effect. And he looked down and he read the first photograph, and he called out the name of his granddaughter. And then one by one he read out the names of his grandchildren.

"Tears ran down his cheeks, and when I saw them I also cried.
And he said, "Why don’t we try one more time?"

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BELOW: Sept. 15, 1966, then Georgia State Sen. Jimmy Carter hugs his wife, Rosalynn, at his Atlanta campaign headquarters.

Jimmy Carter turned ninety-nine a couple weeks ago, on October 1, 2023. He's been on hospice at home since February and did not make a personal statement about the violence, so far as I can see, but the Carter Center did on October 8:

"The Carter Center: 

"Our hearts are heavy with sorrow for the tragic loss of innocent lives on all sides of the conflict. We urge all parties to prioritize the protection and well-being of civilians by refraining from actions that target residential areas.

"The Carter Center calls upon the international community to engage actively in building peace in the region.
The urgency for a robust and renewed peace process has never been greater. There is not a military solution to the crisis – only a political one.

"We implore the international community to fulfill its responsibilities and reinvigorate a credible process that brings peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians while safeguarding the lives of all civilians."
___________

BELOW: From the Jimmy Carter Library: "Camp David Accords: Twenty-Five Photographs After Twenty-Five Years"

 "On March 26, 1979, on the North Grounds of the White House, Presidents Carter [above, center] and Sadat [left] and Prime Minister Begin [right] joined hands in celebration of the signing of the “Treaty of Peace Between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of Israel.” (This is among the most requested photographs in the holdings of the Carter Library.)

"Egyptian president Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Islamic fundamentalists dissatisfied with Sadat's concessions during the peace process.

"In 1995 Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin [not Menachem Begin] was assassinated by an Israeli student dissatisfied with Rabin's concessions during the peace process of the Oslo Accords."