You're right that disengagement is a tool just as engagement is. I guess you could say that the Bush administration used "disengagement" as their entire approach to the Israeli-Palestinian problem for the first six and a half years of their administration when they didn't devote a single day to helping bring peace to the Middle East. For them, disengagement looked surprisingly like indifference. Of course, this follows in the Republican tradition as the beloved Ronald Reagan gave a grand total of one speech on the Middle East during his eight years in office.

What I'd like to hear from Carter's critics here in the US is why do you think your view is different than that of 64% of Israeli Jews who support direct talks with Hamas? What is it about your perspective from your safe little homes way over here in the US that somehow is more legitimate than the opinion of people who live each day in fear of bombs falling on their homes? Imagine that every day for the last three years, an average of two missiles have fallen on your town as you tried to go to work and take your children to school. Do you think you might be ready yet to at least try an approach other than disengagement yet?

The worst part about the recent criticisms of Carter is that like all political arguments now it seems, it has turned into a personal attack. Critics too intellectually shallow to just disagree with the merits of his approach and offer their own creative alternatives instead, resort to villanizing the ex-president, questioning his values, and even his senility. Very few of the talking heads mouthing off over the last couple of weeks understand one tenth of the complexity of the diplomatic situation in the Middle East the way Jimmy Carter does. Very few of them probably even know the difference between Gaza and the West Bank.

And as you question his tactics and then quickly jump into questioning his morals and values, stop to ask yourself what end is he trying to achieve? Certainly, you agree that his goal (and hopefully the goal of all of us) is peace for Israel and her neighbors. Do you see some alterior motive for President Carter? He's won the Nobel Peace Prize and (at least until his book on Palestine in 2006) was considered by most to the be the best ex-president we've ever had, rescuing the less than heroic legacy he left office with in 1981. Why doesn't he retire or just go make speeches and collect big paychecks like other ex-presidents? The answer: because he cares. He deeply and genuinely cares. I thank God for Jimmy Carter and for the many ways this world is better off for having had him in it.