The Fall of the United Kingdom
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President Carter had a complex and contentious relationship with Israel and Jews.
Former US President Jimmy Carter, who has died at the age of 100, had a complex, highly contentious relationship with Jews. Though he pursued some policies that helped Jews while he was in office, Pres. Carter also engaged in breathtaking antisemitism and reflexive anti-Israel rhetoric throughout much of his life.
Here are 10 facts about Pres. Carter and Jews.
Carter, who became President in 1977, is often remembered for his failures: a one-term president, he was unable to free American hostages being held by Islamic radicals in Iran, and oversaw a nation hobbled by high inflation, in part caused by the oil boycott of the predominantly Arab states in OPEC. Voters gave Carter near-record low approval ratings.
Yet Carter’s tenure contained one foreign policy triumph: negotiating the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt that still governs relations between these two nations today.
The foundations of the peace treaty were laid soon after Egypt launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur in 1973. The ensuing Yom Kippur War ended after weeks of intense fighting, in part thanks to the intense diplomacy of then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who shuttled back and forth between Israel’s and Egypt’s capitals.
In 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat announced he was ready to make an unprecedented visit to Israel for further negotiations. The following year, from September 5-17, 1978, Carter defied many of his closest advisors and invited both Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the United States to negotiate a peace agreement.
Carter, Begin, and Sadat retired to Camp David in Catoctin Mountain Park, Maryland. Over the course of 17 days, Carter engaged in intense negotiations, personally contributing to 23 different versions of the resulting treaty.
“Carter was the hero of Camp David,” recalled Begin’s former Chief Advisor and former Israeli Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak. “We ate, we did a prayer, we thought of problems, and would sit and sit until late, late at night (negotiating). Which other president of the United States would be willing to do this?”
Carter wanted to forbid Jews from living outside of Israel’s pre-1967 borders, which earned him the ire of many Jewish leaders. He also - successfully - insisted that the agreement contain provisions for a future Palestinian state. (The PLO turned down Carter’s plans a decade later, during the Oslo Accord negotiations.) On September 17, 1978, Pres. Carter, Prime Minister Begin, and Pres. Sadat signed a seminal provisional Israel-Egypt peace treaty; the formal peace treaty was implemented the following year. Begin and Sadat won the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. Carter was granted a Nobel Peace Prize in part for his role in that agreement in 2002.
In 1978, Carter established the US’s Holocaust Memorial Council to discuss ways to remember the Holocaust and educate future generations. Monroe Freedman, a prominent law professor, chaired the Council, which eventually recommended the establishment of today’s US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Years later, Prof. Freedman recalled that Carter complained that “too many Jews” were involved. Freedman suggested a long list of Council Members; about 80% of them were Holocaust survivors. His memo was sent back with a notice scrawled in Carter’s handwriting and with his initials saying “too many Jews” were included. Carter even rejected one Christian scholar’s proposed membership because his name “sounded too Jewish.”
In 1979, with Carter's encouragement, the United States passed the Israeli Anti-Boycott Act, which allows individual US states to make it against the law to boycott Israel or companies that do business with Israel and makes it a federal crime to boycott Israel.
The background to this groundbreaking act was the Arab League’s widespread use of boycotts to isolate Israel. Under “primary boycotts,” no Arab state, citizen, or business can do business with Israel or Israeli companies; “secondary boycotts” prohibit Arab countries, citizens, and businesses from doing business with a company that does business with Israel; “tertiary boycotts” prohibit Arab nations, citizens, and businesses from engaging with companies that do business with companies which do business with companies which trade with Israel.
When he signed the 1979 Israeli Anti-Boycott Act, Carter spoke out forcefully against anti-Israel boycotts: “For many months I have spoken strongly on the need for legislation to outlaw secondary and tertiary boycotts against American businessmen on religious or national grounds. During the campaign I called this a profound moral issue from which we should not shrink. My concern about foreign boycotts stemmed…from our special relationship with Israel…. The new law…seeks…to end the divisive effects on American life of foreign boycott aimed at Jewish members of our society.”
In later life, however, Carter radically changed his views. After the US Senate passed the Combating BDS bill in 2019, making it hard for state and local government entities to do business with companies which boycott Israel, former Pres. Carter spoke out against it. He called the BDS movement, which seeks to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel and render it a pariah state, a legitimate goal. Carter went to the trouble to issue a formal statement asserting that: “U.S. courts have protected the rights of individuals to participate in boycotts as a form of political protest. The same protection applies to the right to advocate or oppose BDS.”
During the Iranian Revolution of 1978-9, Carter froze Iranian government assets held in the USA, expelled thousands of Iranian citizens living in the US, and closed the Iranian embassy in Washington DC. Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s Chief Domestic Policy Advisor, recalls his role in convincing the president to help thousands of Iranian Jews and others flee Iran as it came under theocratic government.
I learned from Mark Talisman, the head of the Washington office of the Council of Jewish Federations, that the head of the Iranian Jewish community, Habib Elghanian, had been executed on the false charge that he was a spy for Israel. Shortly thereafter, I arranged a White House meeting with a number of federal agencies with a delegation of Iranian Jews….
(One Iranian Jewish delegate said) ‘Upon the results of the meeting in the White House with Mr. Eizenstat rests the fate of tens of thousands of our fellow Iranian Jews.’ They told us emotionally that expulsion to Iran amounted to a death sentence. Moreover, Iranian Jews fleeing Iran were being denied access to the US by our embassies in Europe. President CArter and I recognized the parallels to hundreds of thousands of European Jews denied entry to the US by the Roosevelt administration during World War II.
Carter created a special visa allowing Iranian Jews, as well as Christians and Baha'is, to remain in the US and gain political asylum. Approximately 50,000 fleeing Iranians - primarily Jews - were granted American citizenship as a result of Pres. Carter’s scheme.
Carter pressured the Soviet Union to allow more “refuseniks” - Jews who wished to leave the USSR - to emigrate. As a result of his pressure, it’s possible that an extra 25,000 Jews were allowed to move to Israel or the US annually.
When the famed Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky was arrested in Russia in 1977 on charges of being an American spy, Sharansky’s wife Avital begged Carter to repudiate the charges. Carter agreed, publicly stating that Sharansky was not an American spy, and helping pave the way for his eventual emigration (nearly a decade later) to Israel.
On November 4, 1979, thousands of Iranian students supporting the revolution seized the American Embassy in Tehran, and held over 50 staff members there hostage for 444 days. On April 24, 1980, Carter gave the go-ahead for an ambitious rescue operation involving eight US Navy helicopters which were to fly to Iran. Tragically, the helicopters encountered a massive storm. Carter called off the rescue mission; one of the rescue helicopters crashed, killing eight servicemembers on board.
In the midst of this failed rescue, Carter welcomed Israeli politician (later Israeli Prime Minister) Shimon Peres to a visit at the White House. Peres later recalled that Carter asked for insights into Israel’s successful Entebbe mission, in which a hundred Israeli commandos flew to Uganda and rescued over one hundred Jews and Israelis being held hostage there in a hijacked airplane. (Three hostages and one commando were killed in the raid.) Peres recalled:
I shall never forget my experience at the White House on 24 April 1980, the day that President Carter launched his abortive helicopter-borne attempt to rescue the American hostages in Tehran. At the time, of course, I knew nothing of what was going on….
Carter asked (his advisors and other members of the delegation) to stay outside and ushered me into the Oval Office alone. He asked me two questions: what would I do, in his position, regarding the American Embassy hostages? And what were our considerations when we made our decisions regarding Entebbe?
I told him that if there was any realistic possibility of a military option, I would take it. As for Entebbe, our greatest problem, I said, was the scarcity of information… But in the end, we told ourselves that every military operation involves a gamble - and we decided to risk it. Carter said that my words had helped him. I did not know then that the helicopters were already on their ill-fated way.
Peres later concluded that even though Carter’s rescue attempt failed spectacularly, it had been the right course of action. (Quoted in Battling for Peace by Shimon Peres: 1995)
Carter lost the Presidency to Ronald Regan in a landslide in 1980, garnering just 49 Electoral College votes against Reagan’s 489. Despite the overwhelming nature of his loss, Carter blamed American Jews. “At times, he would express to me and others that if American Jews had not abandoned him, he would have beaten Reagan,” recalled Prof. Kenneth Stein, Pres. Carter’s primary Middle East advisor until 1994 and a former fellow of the Carter Center, who later broke with Carter (discussed below.)
Carter’s belief that Jews cost him the 1980 election was reaffirmed in 2018 when his former Domestic Affairs Advisor Stuart Eizenstat published his memoir President Carter: The White House Years and blamed Jewish leaders for torpedoing Carter’s chances of reelection because of policy disagreements. In the complex world of American politics, it seems strange to focus single mindedly on the role that Jews play. Yet in the Carter White House, it seems that Jews were given extra scrutiny, and Pres. Carter was often incensed when he felt American Jews were not sufficiently grateful.
In his later years, Carter reinvented himself as a global pundit, supporting left-wing candidates and causes in the US and around the world. He was a born-again Christian and taught Sunday School in his church in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he grew up. Carter’s anti-Jewish feelings, never far from the surface, became more apparent.
One puzzling manifestation of his post-career activism came in 1987, when the US Office of Special Investigations, which investigated Nazi crimes, discovered proof that a Chicago janitor named Martin Bartesch had once worked as an SS officer and murdered Jews in the Mauthausen death camp in Austria. The US swiftly deported Bartesch to Austria. Neal Sher, the head of the US Office of Special Investigations later recalled having “extraordinary evidence” of Bartesch’s sadistic crimes.
After his deportation, Bartesch’s daughters launched a petition to various US politicians asking them to lend their support to their father and readmit Bartesch to the United States. They claimed it was “un-American” to hold him accountable for crimes he’d committed as a young soldier. Sher remembers being floored when he received a letter from Bartesch’s daughters that contained a handwritten and signed note from former Pres. Carter asking for “special consideration” for Bartesch on humanitarian grounds.
Despite Carter’s intervention, the US never readmitted Bartesch; Austria declined to prosecute him, saying that the statute of limitations had passed.
In 2006, Carter published Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, a bizarre book smearing Israel as uniquely evil and warmongering. It endorsed terrorism against the Jewish state and called Israel the root of all problems in the Middle East. From the inaccurate slur that Israel is practicing Apartheid in its title to the disdain for Israel throughout the book, Carter’s tome cemented his position as a foe of the Jewish state. (Ironically, Carter himself admits in his book that Israel doesn’t practice Apartheid, yet he refused to alter the work’s offensive title.)
The New York Times, hardly a proponent of Israel, slammed the work, calling it simplistic, “tone deaf,” “distorted” and filled with “misrepresentations.” It critiqued Carter’s writing for blaming Israel alone for all the ills of the Middle East. (The name Al Qaeda doesn’t once appear in the book, the New York Times notes.) “Across the land,” the newspaper declared,” Jewish leaders and their friends are asking each other what exactly Carter’s problem is with the Jews.”
Former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton both criticized the book as inaccurate and offensive. Prof. Kenneth Stein, professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History at Emory University, helped build the Carter Center at Emory and worked with Carter for 23 years. He - along with over a dozen others - tendered his resignation from the Center. Carter’s book, Prof. Stein wrote, “is replete with factual errors…superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments.” He accused Pres. Carter of making up “falsehoods” and of creating material and referring to conversation that never happened.
Most dangerously, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid calls for the continuation of Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israel until a Palestinian state is established. (No mention is made of the fact that the PLO twice turned down a two-state solution during Carter’s post-presidential tenure.) After being criticized for encouraging violence, Carter apologized and claimed he would revise future editions of his book to omit calls for killing Jews and Israelis. Yet despite Carter’s promise, future editions contained no such adjustments.
As Carter faced criticisms about his slanderous, fact-free book, he doubled down and dismissed critiques of his work with antisemitic language. Emory History Prof. Deborah Lipstadt (and current United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism) noted at the time that “Carter has repeatedly fallen back…on traditional antisemitic canards.”
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times about his book, Carter claimed he was being victimized by powerful Jews for having the guts to criticize Israel: he called it “politically suicide” for anyone to put forward a “balanced position” about Israel. On CNN, Carter complained about “tremendous intimidation in our country that has silenced” the media - by Jews, was his clear implication. Speaking on Al Jazeera television, Carter airily dismissed real critiques of his book as being the unimportant whining of duplicitous Jews, declaring: “Most of the condemnations of my book came from Jewish-American organizations.”
“Perhaps unused to being criticized,” Prof. Lipstadt wrote, “Carter reflexively fell back on this kind of innuendo about Jewish control of the media and government.”
As the world mourns President Carter, the longest living President in American history, American Jews face a difficult challenge. We can acknowledge the good that he did in aiding Iranian and Russian Jews and helping to bring peace to Israel and Egypt. Yet we can’t forget his demonization of Israel and use of casual antisemitism. By using his bully pulpit to smear Israel and its supporters as uniquely evil and malevolent, Carter has made us all much less safe.
This looks very balanced. Thank you so much for the research!
He reeked of antisemitism.
Sadly, Jimmy Carter's insertion of the word "Apartheid" in his book title was a strong promoter of a devastating ignorance about Judaism in a large South African population sector, often combined with Holocaust denialism. This has manifested in the recent ICC motion accusing Israel of genocide, tabled by an immoral and sordidly corrupt African National Congress (ANC) pandering to it's strong Islamic contingent internally and the nations it sees as potential funders.
Unleashed Iran.
Comments are amazingingly partisan. Yes Carter blames the Jews, privately but Trump try to blame the jews publicly if lost. Meanwhile that's lost on the author of this article and everyone in the comments. Perhaps Carter had a very complicated relationship with jews which is not uncommon with many American leaders of the past, but as we mourn the president let's remember that Carter did more than any President to remember the holocaust. First by establishing the Presidential Commission and second and third by saving jewish refugees around the world; he not only saved their lives but he showed that we can as a nation learn from the failures of the Holocaust on how to respond to persecuted people around the world.
Carter was very public in his antisemitism. Don't try to whitewash his behavior!
He grew peanuts.
I’m convinced that he lived such a long life because he was so evil. He got completely rewarded in this world for any good that he might have done. Now in the afterlife, he will face harsh judgment for all the evil that he did.
This is the corollary of the idea that righteous people suffer in this world and get rewarded in the afterlife.
Starting the holocuast museum was evil? Saving 50,000 Iranian Jews was evil? Saving countless russian jewish live was evil?
Cherry picking, aren't you!
Even bad people do good things sometimes. While JC was president, he had to control his lowlife urges, but not so after he left office.
Overall, he was a person who succumbed to ugly antisemitic feelings, stooping so low as to outright lie about the arab-Israeli conflict.
Wow, I had no idea about his antisemitic views.
“Too many Jews” involved with the Holocaust museum could be an inarticulate way of saying that the museum should not solely focus on the Jewish victims. The Roma were nearly wiped out. The disabled were murdered because they were “useless mouths”. Certain pacifists, including Christians, were put to death for refusing to participate in war. I have visited the museum twice, and I am very glad to see that it tells the story of Jewish and other victims of the Nazis because it brings home the danger of totalitarian regimes that will persecute everyone who stands in their way.
Here we go again, making excuses for his Judeaphobia.
Are you going to actually address her point or just attach her character incapable of an intelligent response? Bottom line Jimmy Carters presidential commission is repsonsible for educating millions of Americans each year and preserving the memories of countless millions who were affected by the holocaust and the war. We have to reach beyond our partisan panic and be grateful when gratitude is deserved which Jimmy deserves for this.
In our imperfect world, people rarely get what they deserve. But no worries, he's surely collecting his just "reward" where he is right now!
Not wanting Jews to be uniquely vilified is not "partisan panic."
Thank you for such an informative article. I feel compelled to share it with those who are so liberal that they don’t look at ALL the facts.
TRUMP and the Jews? If Trump supports Israel, does he get a "blank check"?
Many of my friends seem to give Trump total support, because of his Israel support.
Where will this lead the US of A ? Heaven, help US of A ! thanks for this discussion
Tell us, how much better off do you think the good ole US of A was under the (interim) Biden administration? (Facts only, please!)
And most of us don't even want to imagine the horror of the likes of Harris as pres., any consideration of Israel excluded. Thank G-d we were spared!
Instead of buying into all the media hoopla surrounding Trump (and we know how reliably "objective" they can be), use the power of prayer to hope the next 4 years will help bring the US out of its wanton moral & ethical decline.
The "wanton moral & ethical decline" is BECAUSE of trump, not IN SPITE OF Trump! Take a good look at what is going on!!
Thank you very much for this article. When Carter died, my friend, who is Jewish, was saddened by his death. I told her what I knew about Carter's history of antisemitism. She didn't believe me. This is one of many articles on the subject. One other great accomplishment of the Carter presidency. He sold the Panama Canal back to Panama for $1.00. The U.S. built that canal, and 40,000 people died in the process. Now, China is all over Panama, and we may greatly regret having given up the control of this territory. If they block U.S. access, we will be in for a bad time.
You are right!
Just because someone lives to 100 does not mean that all their prejudiced and irrational decisions had any validity.
I didn’t know about Carter’s sentiments toward the Jewish people either. Antisemitism is evil and not compatible with the Christian faith whatsoever. He lost the presidency because of his failed economic policies and hidden contempt for Jews. No doubt about that. Scripture says that God blesses those who bless Israel, and I wholeheartedly believe that. Great article! May the Lord bless you abundantly.
I have only voted once for a Democrat for president. That vote was for Carter. I fell for his claims of Biblical knowledge, but I was young and didn't realize that Gen 12:1-3 wasn't part of his knowledge base. Carter has been the most antiSemitic president in our history and he has continually supported antiIsrael positions. One cannot be a New Testament believer and antiSemitic. The entire Bible as accepted by the Christian world is a Jewish document and written by Jews. Carter let his prejudices overwhelm his Bible knowledge.
Woodrow Wilson was the most anti-semitic President.
American anti-semitism has a very long history.
Actually Barach Obama was the deceitfully most Judeophobic president he gave the muslim brotherhood the keys to the kingdom.
So surprising that these facts are not well known to the general public and Presidential Carter anti semetic distorted “facts” are not challenged and brought to light. He wasn’t the kindly G-d fearing man that the media portrays him to have been.
Excellent article. I do think that you shoild have mentioned the name of the Israel commando killed during the Entebbe raid
It was Yoni Netanyahu, Bibi's brother. It was publicized at the time, but that was 49 years ago.
Interesting!
I really don't understand why anyone seems surprised by Carter's ambivalence toward Israel and Jews. He was, first and foremost, an evangelical christian. His loosey goosey support of Israel was always suspect, at least to me. He supported Israel because that's where he believed Jesus would return and convert all the Jews. No offense to anyone, but if a christian says he/she supports Jews, they probably have their own agenda.
You have it backwards. True evangelical Christians (predominantly the ones who have actualy read the Bible) love & pray for Jews, God's chosen people through which Jesus the Messiah was born on earth.
Your comment represents some false "Christians."
I stand by what I previously wrote. These are my experiences with evangelicals. Apparently, yours were different. And if I had a shekel for every anti-semetic christian who read the bible, that is, the new testament, well, you know the rest.
It’s antisemitic not antisemEtic I’m tired of people pronouncing it wrong and spelling it wrong. But I agree from this article he sounds very very antisemitic.
It's Judeophobia.
You are being fooled by your christian leadership. I grew up in the christian world before finding HASHEM.
Christians are taught in sunday school that and President Carter was a Christian who was taught this from day 1. He did what a politician should do,, put the rules of government and the presidency first.
I am a goy. I have always been an Evangelical. I'm 76 years old and when I was 16 I wanted to move to Israel and I actually tried. I'm a Zionist. To this day I'm strongly fighting the Christian heresy of Replacement Theology (AKA supersessionism). The Messianic movement is an outgrowth of the Evangelical world. I don't think that you have been reading Benjamin Netanyahu's writing when he says that Evangelicals are the only friends that Israel has. At present, I'm in the process of applying for a student visa to Israel to earn a master's degree in Judaic studies. Roberta, you are much ruled by your prejudices as much as are the antiSemites. BTW, I have Jewish grandchildren who are halachically Jewish. I have a daughter that is a citizen of Israel. Please rethink your position. Gen 1-3.
You are only partly correct concerning my prejudices. My problem is not with christians generally, but specifically evangelicals.
Yes, including the current Ambassador Mike Huckabee!!
He came across as a genuine peace man, but his philosophy obviously had the last say. My advice to anyone is to keep reading the Bible. Human behaviour stays the same. We can be very good in some areas but failures in other as happened with the kings of Israel. Need to pray and seek God personally.
Wow. I didn't know alot of this. He was awful.
President Carter was responsible for formulating the triangle between Israel, Egypt and the USA. Unfortunately, most if not of his other actions were Anti-Semitic. His books are full of non facts and lies.
I also cannot forgive Carter for what he did with the Embassy in Iran. He tried to negotiate when it was obvious that our students were not going to come back. He formally allowed the world that one can bully the USA. Any other president until Carter, would have threatened Iran with force if students were not returned within 48 hours! This is the main reason he lost the election in 1980, everybody knows that! Election results had nothing to do with Jews living in USA.
Get your facts straight. The hostages were not "students."
He acted in retaliation to Jews after losing the election to Reagan. He wrote fictitious book demonizing Israel in which I can safely assume he was being paid to do that from the Islamic Reigme. They do pay people for slaying Jews or criticize and all else to destroy Israel s legitimacy and economy. Sad for me to see Carter who is not a man of integrity which I once thought.
"Look for the GOOD in other people, not the BAD" (Rabbi Nafali Schiff, Aish.com)
=======================================
Yes, we should note the mistakes Jimmy Carter made, but let's appreciate the good.
And right now, with Trump 2.0, I hope and pray that he can wake up to the good...
I so agree, look for the good...I am still looking for Trump's good.
You might want to get your glasses checked.
No matter what, Israel shall prevail,and Jimmy is six feet under .
Great article
Great article. Thank you!
I readCarter's book. I'm also old enough to remember first hand when these events, discussions, etc. took place. Carter simply lies about many meetings at which he was present. The book is an astonishing justification for Arab attrocities and actual genocidal intent.
Thank you for this comprehensive review of Carter's history.
First, let me say just how much I appreciated reading Yvette Alt Miller's thoroughly researched essay on Jimmy Carter. Second, I still do not understand how Carter could have referred to apartheid the way he did. I also wonder if some anti Semitic publisher convinced him the book wopuld sell more copies that way! Regardless, it is offensive beyond words.
I think we should let Jimmy Caryer own his own words and not try to blame his publisher. No telling what he was teaching in Sunday school. I do not mourn this awful President. He did nothing to get our hostages back after his failed attempt, which was probably somebody else’s idea.
I wish I COULD have heard an explanation from Carter re: the book title. Just shaking my head…
Though at the time I voted for Jimmy Carter and the peace with Egypt is most important, his subsequent actions were deplorable. The Shah was NOT a wonderful guy and instead of pressing him for reforms, he abandoned the Shah (a staunch ally) who fled. In
The US needs to stop propping up corrupt regimes. The Shah was one of them, and in fact the US is who put him there because we didn’t like who the Iranians chose. Now look at the mess.
Dear Ms Rina: the bottom line is that HaShem is the one who puts all leaders on their thrones. I vote, but G-d is the decider. If I had to choose between the Shah and the mullahs, I think I'd vote for the Shah. However, the L-rd had his own opinion and it's His plan that we're watching come forth.
Carter’s legacy; Iran’s mullah regime, Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, Fatah and other enemies of Israel and Jews that are offshoots of these groups. Let’s rejoice the last night of Chanukah as we start this new calendar year and departure of this 100 year evil from the world!
Even if you have never worked online before, you could easily make $500 from this. Please test it out on the appropriate website. I began by saying this COPY HERE salaryhere.Com
May he rest in “peices”
Though at the time I voted for Jimmy Carter and the peace with Egypt is most important, his subsequent actions were deplorable. The Shah was NOT a wonderful guy and instead of pressing him for reforms, he abandoned the Shah (a staunch ally) who fled. In came the Ayatollahs and with them a significant portion of the problems in the Middle East today/ Then he turned on us in Israel to the point that members of his staff resigned over the inaccuracies and fabrications in his book. This man had the moral integrity of pond scum - and I say that at the risk of offending pond scum.
Right you are, as usual. He started out as KKK. However, my guess is he saw the horrors to which Black people were victimized, and became a civil rights proponent. However, he had no such epiphany for Jews, whom he continued loathing in the good old fashioned evangelical tradition.
Where’s the evidence that he was KKK? I don’t believe it.
He held to the "good ol' boy" belief of many in the Southern Baptist denomination about Jewish people and Israel. As he aged, his true feelings of Israel were made apparent. I was always ashamed of him and knew his actions were a facade.
There is no fool like an old fool.
Just like my father used to say!
But he wasn’t a fool. He was an antisemite who had power. I’ll bet you that people in his cabinet were responsible for pressuring him to let the Jews in, or letting them stay. They probably promised the Jewish vote for that, which is why he blamed the Jews for losing. It wouldn’t have mattered if every Jew voted for him, he lost by such a landslide that it would not have made a difference.
The Southern Baptists waited to apologize for supporting slavery until 1995.
Loosely using the term "Apartheid" is to put it politely, denigrating to people who have been displaced and oppressed by the Apartheid Regime in South Africa, including Jewish communities there.
Absurd comparison!
Not at all. Did Carter even understand what the term apartheid meant, or was he going for shock value? I think it was the latter.
Correct. Anyone who has suffered under real apartheid is discounted by the word's casual use by Carter.
Carter's legacy was tarnished by not just his failed policies regarding Iran, which paved the way for the Iranian revolution and the death and destruction for which the Iranian regime has since been responsible. In 2006, he published his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, a highly distorted account of the Arab-Israeli conflict blaming all Middle East woes solely on Israel, and seemingly justifying terrorism against Israel. As a part of “the Elders” (or as I called them, the Elders of Moron), he would constantly slam Israel while pimping for Hamas, something that aged about as well as Carter himself.
I agree with Carter Israel is to blame
You’re to blame for not wanting peace. Please take your finger pointing elsewhere. Have a great day!
Actually, have a lousy day.
Don't know whether you're a young fool or an old one, but no matter—you're so pitifully ignorant about the Mideast conflict (not the leftist media-invented one, but the factual account).
The French and the Brits were the architects of Iran’s so called revolution and Carter was their muscle. I remember well at the time when US military, there were several American bases in Iran at the time, neutralized the army and forced the Shah out. Khomeini was then flown in and the murders started. He was the 100 year evil.
Perhaps he became more antisemitic as time went on, hence that should answer at least some of the aforementioned contradictions. ...
I believe he couldn’t get over his presidential loss to Reagan- the same thing we’re seeing with Biden. Egoistic.
Biden was messed over by his own party. But that’s their fault too because they knew he was mentally failing and they put him there regardless.
Having lived through the Carter presidency, he was awful. I was in the military he worked hard to destroy. He was an anti-semite. He was the kind of phony Christian who would be proud of the Inquisition and Holocaust. He hated the Jews so much, he embraced Hamas. I had friends who worked in the White House and every one of them told me what a nasty, conceited person he was. He told a Jewish friend of mine she would suffer until she accepted the Christian savior. It was the only time he said a word to her. She always had the worst hours and had to threaten legal action to get off Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rosalyn was no better. The best part of his presidency was watching him go back to Plains. He paved the way for the acceptance of anti-semitism in the Democrat party.
Wow you have grievances i doubt anything you say is actual true
Maybe you need to read up on Mr Carter. Then you’ll find the truth.
You probably wouldn't recognize the truth even if it kicked you in the face, as it just might one of these days, "Ari."
Sorry, but the Democrat party has always been anti Semitic. They just hid it better in the beginning.
This is not true. “Always” is a long time. There was no major problem in the post World War II era. Many of the social advances of that period, including integrating the military, civil rights, and women’s rights occurred during that period. Don’t forget that moneyed GOP WASPs kept Jews from certain housing and clubs, etc. The real Democratic antisemitism started with the 21st century.
And don't forget about employ,emt opportunities!
FDR was a vicious antisemite.
https://www.amazon.com/Jews-Should-Keep-Quiet-Roosevelt/dp/0827614705
That's doubtful, except in clear cases of Jew haters like Carter and FDR.
Thank you Yvette for clarifying Carter’s stance toward the Jews. This information was factual and clarifying. I very much appreciated having these facts laid out so clearly. Now he will face True justice.
Carter was an Antisemite and an enemy of Israel, he got the Sinai for Egypt.
Carter was a terrible President, not only for his ambivalence toward Israel and the Jews, but also for almost every other policy his team enacted (aided and abetted by a Democrat-controlled Congress).
He signed into law the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, which relaxed regulatory constraints on banking and disastrously raised FDIC insurance from 40K to $100K, precipitating the trillion dollar S&L collapse. We are still paying for that today.
There are many other petty and poorly thought through actions of which the Carter Admin. was guilty, but because Americans don't study history enough, he's Uncle Wiggly and we glorify his memory. He was, however, an idiot.
No American votes on how a president views Israel that's ridiculous I’m very ambivalent to Israel and don’t trust them but I know a lot of Jews like myself that feel the same way
There is a big difference between criticizing Israel - as a Democracy, its people do that all the time - and singling the tiny country of Israel out to subject to different standards and to disproportionately demean and delegitimate to justify destroying, along with half the world's Jews. You know, "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free?"
Surely we can agree nothing says Jew hate quite like vying for dead Jews?
And surely you've experienced non-Jews parsing the tiny Jewish community into "good Jews" - those willing to disavow the centrality of Israel to our beliefs, traditions, and practices - and "bad Jews" - those who believe in the right of Jews like any other people to self-determination in a land where we're unquestionably indigenous?
I think I agree on everything you say I think a lot of my disagreements are more about how my family has lived in American almost 240 million while my partner’s family came after ww2 and I see that difference first hand my family weren’t Zionist or pro Israeli and that has more to do with my great grandparents view on the Eastern European Jewry since I’m Sephardic
as for experience of AS I haven’t had that experience in manhattan
i personally love the heritage and ethnic heritage more than the religious aspect
You don't trust Israel because it is run by Jews. NOT kapos, not court Jews, but red blooded Jews.
Explain why i should trust them ? Just because your Jewish like myself isn’t a good enough reason
Because Israel and the Jews are biblical. That’s the part you’re missing. You are nothing more than a “useful Jew” to people who want to destroy you for being Jewish.
You're asking the wrong question because you never explained why you (supposedly a Jew) don't trust Israelis.
Think about what you say before spewing your garbage; there are so many contradictions throughout your posts that you're only succeeding at making a laughingstock of yourself!
Actually I consider how a president views Israel to be one of my main deciding factors on whether I support or not. Where they stand on Israel and the Middle East shows a lot about someone's character in my opinion. Especially a gentile, its alright for Jews to have disagreements on Israel, these are kind of like family issues. However when a gentile shows disdain for the only Jewish state, I question their world view.
You are a minority.
Ari, you are the worst kind of self loathing Jew……..open your mind and heart to real facts instead of altering excuses.
Ari, you are so VERY WRONG!!! I live in a very Jewish area and near NYC. We ALL take presidential candidates' views towards Israel very strongly in whom we vote for!!
Especially since October 7th, that is foremost in our thoughts. Biden and Harris tried to play the middle, acting nicey nicey to the Arabs, while they claimed to care about Israel.. What matters are words and actions, and we knew that Harris was a palestinian supporter. Playing the middle only blew up in their faces, as we could all see right through them!!
And, so could the rest of the United States!!!
One of the reasons he accomplished so little was that he would not work with anyone. His way was the right way, so, even with a solid Democratic majority in both houses of congress, he was inept. He also kept an enemy's list, just like Nixon.
The question is do you look in the mirror.
my father a holocaust survivor can’t stand
people like you… what did your family
do during the holocaust probably voted
for our friend FDR.
People like what ? My relatives fought during thevwar and one was a pilot whose bomber was shot down during the Nuremberg raids and if you want to go back centuries help fund a synagogue in nyc and what’s wrong with FDR a great president so I’m confident by your comments
Do you realize that you're not making much sense?!
He was insulting saying my family didn’t contribute to Jews or the community we have contributed millions I’m proud of that I didn’t like his calling me you people as for FDR he was a great president most Americans say that whatever political stripes they are as well I’m not a Zionist nor were my parents nor grandparents
You're still not saying anything sensible, sticking up for the likes of FDR who would hate your guts! Indeed, he benefitted the country during a tumultuous time but there's no denying that he was antisemitic.
And guess what: you can be a good Jew as well as a loyal American; the two are NOT contradictory.
Also, you don't have to be a Zionist to support the Jewish people's right to live in their ancestral homeland. (Have you read the Bible, by any chance?)
He was the first president I voted for as a teenager. I was enchanted with the idea of a peanut farmer from Georgia becoming President of the United States. When I think back to his term, incompetence is the first thing that comes to mind. His rabid anti-Israel views seemed to become the focus post-presidency. On a positive note, he did wonderful work building houses for Habit for Humanity.
Please explain to this American tge vitriolic comments basically cheering on his death I personally don’t get it maybe I’m young but don’t understand why
There is an awful lot you don't understand.
I have yet to read comments (I haven’t reach the bottom of this section) anywhere “cheering on his death”. You are young and possible ignorant. Put your face into unbias history and learn the truth.
Didn't see anyone cheering but see a LOT of NEGATIVE from you!
Liberal Democrats never cease to amaze me. They will find every excuse in the book to whitewash the antisemitism that pervades the Democratic Party.
What’s AS ? Obvious I view everything separately but being critical isn’t AS and maybe my family wasn’t Zionists so we had different opinions about Israel but I’m not tribal as some here I’m a American first
Not according to American antisemites!
If if you think "it can't happen here," think again; better yet, read the history of German Jewry in the 1930s.
It definitely can’t I personally think the rise of AS on tge streets here in nyc is all because of Israel and the settlements this conflict didn’t start on October 7 but has been going on for decades I think it’s inaccessible to compare 1933 to what’s happening now but I do think it’s generational on how you view Israel and if you went to a Jewish high school or nit because I see even in my family stark difference where they went to school and how they feel abt Israel
Consider broadening your mind for your own sake. Read unbiased history to fill the gaps in your knowledge. You can choose not to agree with the majority of your people, but at least know what you're talking about!
As an evangelical Christian it's surprising Carter never supported Israel's goal of resettlement in Judea and Samaria. His views are not different than many liberal Democrats including many Jews. As the article states he was both a positive and negative force and seems to me petty blaming Jews for his defeat in the election in 1980 although he did say it privately unlike Trump who publicly proclaimed if he would lose it's because the Jews didn't support him.
Well, the Jews did support Trump and he did win.
Trump is the greatest friend that Israel has ever had.
Hurrah!
Don't know what you read but, the majority of jews did not back Trump.
And you know that how?
The alternative was the anti-semitic Democrats, you think Jews voted for anti-semites?
Really?
Lets not pretend like the most hardcore antisemites are Democrats. The otherside of the political aisle is home to every single Neo Nazi and Klan affiliated hate group on the planet. All the Jew hating propaganda espoused those on the far left comes from the far right who are laughing their asses off at getting leftists to do their dirty work for them
Right but more voted Red.
Actually, that is NOT true!
The majority of proud Jews, Zionist Jews, identified Jews did support Trump. The marginal ones (like NY Times Jews) of course voted for woke and are now broke :-)!
I am a proud Jew, and a Zionist, as are all my friends. We did NOT vote for the fascist currently occupying the Peoples House!! Most of the Jews I know did NOT vote for this convicted criminal! We voted for the Democratic PARTY, AGAINST Trump, if we had doubts about Harris.
And I am sick to death of the Jew-bashing in these comments just because we are Democrats!!!
Where is your proof of this?!
Thank you!!!
Be"H he'll continue to be a great supporter of Israel. What makes you think the Jews voted for Trump. Not one poll claimed more than 30 percent of the Jews voted for him. Average in low 20's. Only Blacks vote for Harris in bigger percentage.
You have noticed all the anti-semites in the Democrat Party, haven't you?
The choice was Trump or the anti-semitic Democrats.
I should like to believe that Jews don't vote for anti-semites.
Name the Anti-semites in the Democratic PARTY! I can think of 4 obvious ones-- Bernie Sanders, AOC, Rashid Tlaib, and Ilan Omer. Sanders is a self-hating Jew who knows nothing about Judaisn or Jewish history. The others are Moslem. AOC is a Moslem wannabe. So, who else???
An excellent, comprehensive review of the fraught state between Carter and the Israel.
Without question, he was a classic
anti-Semite.
Dr. Miller provides an important earth-settling facts. particularly as we approach the near beatification of a leader that many would have good reason to damn.
Carter ABSOLUTELY was an antisemite; he was a product of such upbringing and the facts of the matter are clear historical record.
Excellent article!
I may have not been born when he was president but I see a lot of anti American comments and rabid Israel supporters and things the former president has said in the past as anti Israel out of context and as a American I see nothing wrong with being anti Israel or protesting Israel for one thing it’s the most American thing you can do and the other is I don’t like the weaponizing of antisemitism there’s a reason fir tge protests it’s because of a genocide and dint believe me but tge head of the department of holocaust studies at brown university a former IDF officer said so
Ari, yes you don't remember him and didn't live in that period.
I did, and remember it well.
Don't comment about something you know little or nothing about.
I’m a American I think it’s in bad taste to speak of him that way but I don’t believe he’s AS just because your critical of Israel they deserve most of it in my view but it’s a foregn country to me and doesn’t have the same values as America in my opinion
To me, Israel has higher values than the US because of Judaism. To you, it’s just a foreign country. To many here, it’s a true home. A place where we can be Jewish without what President Carter expressed - antisemitism.
It’s not being critical, it’s what the criticism is based on. When it’s based on lies it’s no longer criticism but defamation.
In JC's case, the criticism is unfortunately well deserved.
But it's also "bad taste" to accuse the majority of American Jews of being 'un-American' for supporting Israel -- not to mention plain stupid!
If he listened to you, he wouldn't write a thing.
That would be great!! Listen to him, Ari!!
Nicely said. Thank you.
"It's" a "genocide?" You mean like what's happening in Myanmar, the Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and China? Or are you talking about Assad, who killed 600,000 of his own people and imprisoned and tortured hundreds of thousands more?
Surely you aren't talking about Israel's actions in response to the war Hamas, an entity committed to destroying Israel and its people, started?!? Doing simple math, let's adopt Amnesty International's data that 40,717 Gazans have died in the war (any death is a tragedy). That, of course, presumes the IDF is wholly incompetent and have yet to kill one militant. Out of a population of more than 2 million people, that means 2% of the population have been killed. Again, a tragedy. But a genocide??!!!
Hardly.
You are quite right. People have a choice, good vs evil. Many people support good. others, like you, support the opposite.
You’re no Ari.
If so, he's no smarter than you!
Ari, I wonder what that professor would say now, regarding the pro palestinian protests over college campuses since last spring! Brown was one of them with huge protests, and no one did anything about stopping them! Just like the Holocaust that he supposedly teaches. I bet HE was
shaking in his shoes.