Carter's Controversy

Liar, Bigot, Coward, Anti-Semite, Plagiarist, Racist — these insults, and dozens more, have been hurled at Jimmy Carter over the past few months.

Why has the former president become the target of such vitriol? Because this past November, Carter published a book detailing his thoughts on the crisis in the Middle East. It’s far from the first foray into writing for Carter, who has published numerous books since leaving the presidency in 1981.

This particular work, however, has been drawing fire since critics first read its title, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. In the book, Carter discusses how he believes peace can be achieved in historic Palestine — or what now comprises Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Before discussing Carter’s most recent political venture, it is helpful to explore his personal history. The man has never been seen as radical, nor even particularly left-leaning. When elected to the presidency in 1976, Carter was described by one political analyst as “the most conservative Democratic president since Grover Cleveland.”

President Carter increased the military budget by 10 percent over his four-year term. He also openly lauded the Shah of Iran in 1977 as “an enlightened monarch who enjoys the complete confidence of his people,” despite the fact that the Iranian people would overthrow the dictatorial leader less than two years later.

Since leaving the White House, Carter has been known mostly for his humanitarian work. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for those efforts as well as for brokering the 1978 Camp David Accords, under which Israel returned the Sinai peninsula in exchange for peace and recognition from Egypt. Carter is hardly the left-wing extremist he is currently being made out to be by some.

Nor are the conclusions drawn in Carter’s book particularly radical. Continually denouncing violence in its pages, Carter emphasizes the need to re-establish the “peace process” in the Middle East. He paints the Camp David Accords as a milestone in this process even though they did not address the construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land taken by Israel in the 1967 war. He openly criticizes the Palestinians’ recent election of the Islamist movement Hamas, saying that “the fate of all Palestinians depends on whether those in the occupied territories choose to pursue their goals by peaceful means or by continued bloodshed.”

Even the wording he uses in the book is restrained. He refers to the situation as a “conflict” or a “cycle of violence” repeatedly, ignoring the fact that Jews and Arabs lived in relative peace in historic Palestine until the early 1900s, decades after the beginning of the Zionist movement. He also refuses to use the word “resistance” to describe the actions of Palestinian fighters, preferring more neutral terms like “guerilla warfare.”

None of this, however, has stopped prominent mainstream politicians and media figures from loudly denouncing Carter. Leaders in the Democratic Party, including Howard Dean and John Conyers, have quickly distanced themselves from him. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi went a step further, publicly announcing that “Carter does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel” before the book had even been released.

Right-wingers have been less restrained. Popular conservative blog Little Green Footballs continually refers to Carter as “America’s worst former president,” citing his “obsessive hatred of Israel.” Harvard Law Professor and prominent Israel supporter Alan Dershowitz has loudly denounced the book, though he has shied away from specific criticism, instead focusing on why Carter chooses to criticize Israel’s human rights abuses but not those of Arab states like Saudi Arabia.

Zionist protesters pop up at book signings, branding Carter an anti-Semite. Much fanfare was made in the mainstream media over the resignation of 14 Carter Center board members in protest of the book, though these reports did not mention that the board has 200 members. In its “Editorial Reviews” section, normally reserved for short summaries by Booklist or Publisher’s Weekly, Amazon.com instead chose to post an openly hostile 20-paragraph review by Jeffrey Goldberg, who has dual Israeli-American citizenship and has volunteered for the Israel Defense Forces.

What Carter’s critics find most objectionable is his use of the term “apartheid” to describe Israel’s control of Palestinian land. The unfortunate truth is that it is the only term that correctly describes what is happening in the Occupied Territories. The government of Israel has consistently supported the construction of Jewish-only settlements on this land, and of checkpoints and roadblocks to prevent the ordinary movement of the Palestinian people. Different ID’s and license plates are given to Israelis and Palestinians. The so-called “security fence,” constructed under the guise of protecting Israeli citizens, is being built deeply into the West Bank, cutting off Palestinian villages from one another and families from their farmland.

Many South Africans have publicly used the a-word to describe Israel. Willie Madisha, president of the Congress of the South African Trade Unions, has said that the situation in the “apartheid Israeli state” is worse than the apartheid that was carried out in his own country.

Despite all the criticism, Carter’s book seems to be well received by the general public. It quickly shot up the New York Times Best-Sellers list, currently ranking fifth on the list. The average rating on Amazon has been 3.5 stars out of 5, with a full 60 percent of readers rating the book five stars.

Although Carter’s analysis of the situation is imperfect, it must be lauded for its attempt to expose the crimes of Israel toward the people of Palestine. Rather than reflexively denounce all who support the Palestinian cause as racist bigots, we must take a hard look at the current situation in Israel and begin to fight on behalf of the Palestinian struggle.

Laura Taylor is a senior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She can be contacted at lat34@cornell.edu [1]. Kind of a Big Deal appears Tuesdays.