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Last update - 09:04 05/02/2007
Who really cares about this Carter guy?
By Eliahu Salpeter

Undoubtedly, the former president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, is an honest man. That is why it behooves him to transfer some of the royalties from his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" to Jewish organizations in the U.S. Were it not for their attacks, it is doubtful the book would have soared to the top of the bestseller list.

The book prompted countless articles and commentaries in the American media; when a former U.S. president clashes with irate Jews, no media outlet can ignore the story. Jews are also compulsive book buyers, and a book everyone is talking about must at the very least lie on the living room coffee table. It would be excessive to describe Carter as an anti-Semite (although he was accused of being one), and his role in the peace treaty with Egypt should be recalled. But a big Zionist he is not. However, it seems it is not the content of the book that has agitated most of the Jewish organizations.

Carter does indeed side with the Palestinians, and describes Israeli behavior in the territories in a way that does not add to the country's dignity. But the media depicts all of that daily, in harsher language. Carter's book does not reveal anything new to the average Israeli or American interested in the Middle East.
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The anti-Israel triangle

More infuriating and painful is the fact that the book creates a sort of triangle: the denunciations and defamations of Arab and pro-Arab sources have recently been joined by powerful Jews protesting against the occupation and Israel's behavior in the territories, speaking in the name of Jewish values. And now they are joined by the former U.S. president, a symbol of liberalism, righteousness and American support for the weak and persecuted all over the world. His words are a kind of seal of approval for the denunciations of Israel by the "Do-Gooders" Israelis once considered themselves part of.

And above all stands the title. The word "Apartheid" associates the Israeli occupation in the territories with the racist white minority government in South Africa. As Carter later acknowledged, he should have thought twice about the title. And if he didn't think, it's not hard to suspect him of envisioning the public relations value of such a provocative title.

However, in his numerous press and electronic media appearances, and at various academic speaking engagements, Carter defended the claim that Israeli behavior is indeed a form of "apartheid." And with the same intensity, Jewish spokesmen from Abe Foxman, the head of the Anti Defamation League, to Prof. Alan Dershowitz, of Harvard University, denounced Carter's errors.

Of particular note was the reaction by Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, who received much publicity for her court appearances against Holocaust denier David Irving, published in the Washington Post. She says Carter's primary sin is that he completely ignores the Holocaust, and the connection between it and the establishment of a Jewish state. Lipstadt wrote of Carter: "Now, facing a storm of criticism, he has relied on anti-Semitic stereotypes in defense."

While Carter is exceptionally sensitive to Palestinian suffering, continues Lipstadt, his book "ignores a legacy of mistreatment, expulsion and murder committed against Jews. One cannot ignore the Holocaust's impact on Jewish identity and the history of the Middle East conflict. When an Ahmadinejad or Hamas threatens to destroy Israel, Jews have historical precedent to believe them. Jimmy Carter either does not understand this or considers it irrelevant.

"His book, which dwells on the Palestinian refugee experience, makes two fleeting references to the Holocaust ... Remarkably, there is nothing listed between 1939 and 1947 ... However, this event sealed in the minds of almost all the world's people then the need for the Jewish people to have a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland. Carter never discusses the Jewish refugees who were prevented from entering Palestine before and after the war.

"Carter's minimization of the Holocaust is compounded by his recent behavior," says Lipstadt. "Carter has repeatedly fallen back - possibly unconsciously - on traditional anti-Semitic canards. In the Los Angeles Times last month, he declared it 'political suicide' for a [U.S.] politician to advocate a 'balanced position' on the crisis. On Al Jazeera TV, he dismissed the critique of his book by declaring that 'most of the condemnations of my book came from Jewish-American organizations.' ... Perhaps unused to being criticized, Carter reflexively fell back on this kind of innuendo about Jewish control of the media and government."

An unfortunate achievement

The Jewish organizations and their spokesmen therefore had, ostensibly, a considerable accomplishment: Leading American public figures questioned the objectivity and credibility of the former president with regard to anything connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it is hard to shake the feeling that this is a success we would be better off without: The book has become a bestseller in the U.S. IDF soldiers' actions in the territories are again in the headlines.

The best thing from Israel's perspective would have been for the American media to ignore the book. Israel may have had to distance itself from its charges. And it is not as if the Jewish organizations did not have precedents to learn from. The case of the article by the professors John Marsheimer and Steven Walt about the power of the Israel lobby in the U.S. was already on its way to becoming a big scandal, because of claims that Jewish organizations blocked a New York auditorium from being used for a public debate on the article.

It was an ideal combination: both proof of the influence of Jewish power (and perhaps also Jewish money), and a debate over freedom of speech versus censorship. Fortunately, the fire subsided rather quickly, and the smoke lingered in intellectual journals and within academic institutions. Perhaps in those days, there were other things that drew more public attention. Perhaps Marsheimer and Walt were not important enough. But ignoring them certainly helped to drop the subject from the agenda.

The matters of Carter's book, and Marsheimer and Walt's article, were not the first. Before that there was Mel Gibson's film, "The Passion of Christ." That was a full-fledged rehashing of the old anti-Semitic denunciations, whereby the Sanhedrin and the Jewish establishment forced the Romans to kill Jesus. This slander was responsible for 2,000 years for church incitement and pogroms across Europe. It is reasonable to think that in the 21st century, the film would be screened in Christian fundamentalist churches, and then quickly disappear. But the noisy attacks transformed it into a huge box office success, which earned Gibson and his partners millions of dollars in profits.

It is worthwhile learning from these cases because criticism of the Israeli occupation and anti-Semitism are both on the rise. The former spurs anti-Semitism, and the latter reinforces hostility toward Israel. In its political struggle, the State of Israel needs the support of American Jews. In their struggle against anti-Semitism, they need wiser Israeli behavior in the conflict with the Palestinians. American Jews need to remember this reciprocal relation no less than the leaders of Israel.
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  1.   It is not because of Jewish response that many Americans today 09:46  |  AA 05/02/07
  2.   Oy - not the Carter book again 09:51  |  Clickfool 05/02/07
  3.   THE LAST WISE MAN DIED 3000 YEARS BACK 09:59  |  paul harris 05/02/07
  4.   Who cares about what Carter has to say? 10:46  |  John 05/02/07
  5.   Maybe the real problem... 10:49  |  Colin Wright 05/02/07
  6.   re ! `It is not because of Jewish response...` 10:54  |  Colin Wright 05/02/07
  7.   Apartheid vs Terror 11:03  |  Tom Spender 05/02/07
  8.   # CHALK AND CHEESE AGAIN, ANYONE CANWRITE ABOOK 11:24  |  paul harris 05/02/07
  9.   CARTER, GIBSON, POPE JOHN PAUL II ETC. 12:03  |  indrajaya 05/02/07
  10.   Get Their Names Right, Salpeter 12:31  |  Rowan Berkeley 05/02/07
  11.   #9 to Indrajaya 12:40  |  GF 05/02/07
  12.   # 11, GF 13:05  |  indrajaya 05/02/07
  13.   You have a point, but the American Jews cannot sit quietly either 13:16  |  Judith in Haifa 05/02/07
  14.   Carter who? 13:22  |  Zuriel 05/02/07
  15.   To 5/Colin Wright 13:29  |  Lena 05/02/07
  16.   stuff that cake in your mouth 13:44  |  disgusted 05/02/07
  17.   #12 Indrajaya 14:03  |  GF 05/02/07
  18.   Carter book 14:10  |  Mitch Cohen 05/02/07
  19.   Lipstadt iz a shande far di goyim 14:12  |  Matt 05/02/07
  20.   The Barn Was Already Empty 14:13  |  Victor Smolinsky 05/02/07
  21.   DISGUSTED You must really love the Hamas charter,the cook book 14:16  |  PETER SM 05/02/07
  22.   Apartheid 14:39  |  no name 05/02/07
  23.   So, then becasue of the Holocaust, and Mel, Gobsin 15:07  |  Yaakov Sullivan 05/02/07
  24.   Colin, Tom, and Matt 15:23  |  JB 05/02/07
  25.   That Rowan should be his biggest flaw #10 15:28  |  Yaakov Sullivan 05/02/07
  26.   2000 years of history prove Salpeter wrong 15:41  |  Michael O. 05/02/07
  27.   #2 Clickfool 15:47  |  MR 05/02/07
  28.   PETER 16:49  |  anat 05/02/07
  29.   GOOD NIGHT MR, PEANUT 16:52  |  Wendy 05/02/07
  30.   Cheap trick of conflation 17:05  |  Ben Brackley 05/02/07
  31.   Colin Wright and his behaviour 17:14  |  Scott 05/02/07
  32.   No Indrajaya 17:22  |  Yosemite 05/02/07
  33.   Saltpeter 17:23  |  Huw 05/02/07
  34.   Bad Thing Was... 17:28  |  Yosemite 05/02/07
  35.   Right on, Scott! 17:31  |  Michael O. 05/02/07
  36.   # 23 The Other Side Of The Coin 17:31  |  Tony Anthony 05/02/07
  37.   Anti... 17:37  |  MR 05/02/07
  38.   to Colin Wright (about Jewish behavior) 17:47  |  Cat 05/02/07
  39.   PAUL HARRIS ( IN London ) 17:54  |  EC 05/02/07
  40.   it is apartheid 17:54  |  otiwa ogede 05/02/07
  41.   Yaakov Sullivan 18:00  |  Cat 05/02/07
  42.   Tony Anthony on the other side of the coin 18:06  |  Yaakov Sullivan 05/02/07
  43.   the worst Pres. U.S. ever had! 18:12  |  Ariana 05/02/07
  44.   Cat, oh, the Mossad does tracking down as well #41 18:16  |  Yaakov Sullivan 05/02/07
  45.   #2 Clockfool; Good start 18:28  |  Max Zinger,P.Chimist 05/02/07
  46.   To Yaakov Sullivan, Holier than thou 18:36  |  For those who hate 05/02/07
  47.   You do what you have to do.......................... 18:36  |  NS 05/02/07
  48.   What Occupation? 18:38  |  Avi Yerushalmi 05/02/07
  49.   Yaakov Sullivan #41 and #44: 2 questions 19:12  |  Michael O. 05/02/07
  50.   For the record.... 19:23  |  Blogowitz 05/02/07
  51.   For those who hate... Response #46 19:29  |  Yaakov Sullivan 05/02/07
  52.   One has to wonder if such questions were asked of Black Americans 19:38  |  Jacob Blues 05/02/07
  53.   Of course Colin, its all Israel`s fault 19:42  |  Jacob Blues 05/02/07
  54.   Yes Yaacov, one should be criticized 19:47  |  Jacob Blues 05/02/07
  55.   Carter Easily Worst President Ever 19:49  |  Mike 05/02/07
  56.   Poor Yaacov, starring in his own melodrama 19:50  |  Jacob Blues 05/02/07
  57.   Michael O-happy to respond #49 19:52  |  Yaakov Sullivan 05/02/07
  58.   Yaacov and tracking down 19:53  |  Jacob Blues 05/02/07
  59.   jacob blues on joe biden #52 20:02  |  Yaakov Sullivan 05/02/07
  60.   Obsessions 20:04  |  Swiss (Dino) 05/02/07
  61.   jacob blues on the "spewers of hate" #54 20:08  |  Yaakov Sullivan 05/02/07
  62.   IT`S A BIG DEAL BECAUSE 20:29  |  B 05/02/07
  63.   jacob blues i have no doubt that there is 20:30  |  yirmiyahu 05/02/07
  64.   #23 Uh oh, Mr. Sullivan, lay it out for em! 20:39  |  ballistic 05/02/07
  65.   Yaacov rejects the country and tradition that rejected him 20:39  |  B 05/02/07
  66.   The Holocaust And The Mistreatment of Palestinians 20:54  |  chet 05/02/07
  67.   Sullivan # 57: First about Carter 21:03  |  Michael O. 05/02/07
  68.   "B" from the Us attempts to establish facts #65 21:04  |  Yaakov Sullivan 05/02/07
  69.   Sullivan # 57: Second, about international conflicts 21:05  |  Michael O. 05/02/07
  70.   65 - Converts are to be treated as if they were alw