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America in the Middle East

Carter’s colleagues see the light


By Stan Goodenough
January 14, 2007

Former US president Jimmy Carter has unmasked himself, revealing a strong bias against Israel and, by so doing, disillusioning growing numbers of people, including 14 members of his advisory board who last Thursday resigned en masse.

The resignation was the latest in a series of repercussions felt by Carter since publishing his patently prejudiced new book, “Palestine, peace not apartheid.”

In their letter of resignation, the Carter Center advisors – whose advice Carter may now wish he had heeded – chastised the ex-president for having “clearly abandoned [his] historic role of broker in favor of becoming an advocate for one side.”

They meant the “Palestinian” side, and they were clearly right about that. What they were wrong about, was the shift.

Carter has always been pro-Arab. Those saying so in the past have simply not been taken seriously.

For decades, the peanut farmer from Georgia portrayed himself – and was sycophantically portrayed by the media – as a reputable and honest peacemaker.

He ensured that he would earn that reputation by having his administration craft the agreement signed between Israel and Egypt in 1978.

That treaty purposefully contained the seeds that would grow into the land-for-peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

Many Israelis trusted Carter. So did many of Israel’s friends, though not the more careful ones.

Already then there were those who knew that Carter had Arab creditors. And shortly after assuming the presidency he had reneged on a predecessor’s promise to sell advanced F-15 fighter jets to Israel.

It was the Carter administration which, in the words of Shmuel Katz, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, “launched a veritable propaganda campaign to spread the ‘ruling’ that Jewish settlement in the West Bank - that is, Judea and Samaria - and in the Gaza Strip were illegal (in addition to being an ‘obstacle to peace’).”

Carter has actively pushed forward the Palestinian state concept ever since. The Carter Center has monitored at least two elections in the PA areas and declared them “free and fair.”

In “Palestine, peace not apartheid,” he divulged what he tried to mask for so long. His confession is not being so gratefully received by everyone.

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