Former President Jimmy Carter finds himself in a defensive position after criticism of his new book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. The best-seller has generated a passionate response in critics who say it is slanted toward Palestinians, and full of inaccuracies.
Since the book was published, Carter says he has been branded an anti-Semite and a bigot. Reaction to the book included the resignation of 14 members of a Carter Center community board, who say Carter puts too much blame on Israel.
The former president confronted critics of his views on Israel at Brandeis University on Jan. 23. Carter responded to charges that his book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid is unfair to Israel. Carter responses were later rebutted by Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz. In that appearance, the former president defended the book’s accuracy, save one passage Carter now calls “terribly worded,” that seemed to justify terrorism by Palestinians on Israeli citizens.
Carter says he was not completely surprised that his choice of the word “apartheid” in the book’s title garnered criticism. Yet Carter says he hopes his book will raise awareness about conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank.
According to Carter, the word apartheid was “meant to be provocative but not in a negative since, thought provoking in order to trigger negotiations to ultimately have a comprehensive peaceful solution throughout the Middle East.”
The title of the book has angered many of Israel’s sympathizers because of the use of the word “apartheid,” the South African system once used to disenfranchise and oppress the black majority and empower and dominance to the country’s white minority.
Since he left office in 1981, former President Jimmy Carter has continued to work for peace. A Nobel Peace Prize winner, Carter has monitored international elections and helped build housing across the United States and across the world.
He continues to work for peace and writes about one of the world’s most troubled spots in his book “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.” Carter, who brokered the peace between Israel and Egypt in 1978 (The Camp David Accord), has a unique perspective on the situation in the Middle East.
“Israel has the choice to make: Peace approved by all Arabs, by withdrawing from occupied territory, or the retention of those isolated settlements in the West Bank instead of peace,” Carter said.
The former president is also critical of the way President George W. Bush has handled Iraq, a war he has been known to say has been a horrible mistake from the beginning. Carter said that one of the first steps he thinks the Bush administration should do is to improve the situation by opening communication channels with leaders from Iran and Syria, even though Bush has refused to deal with the two nations because he says they sponsor terrorism.
“When we have a difference of agreement with a nation or people, the first thing we should do is to open up communications with them,” Carter said.