Jimmy Carter’s Animus Toward Israel

Jimmy Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter, said this Monday about his grandfather: “This is a good man who has done remarkable things with his life and has taken the opportunities that he was given and used them to do good.” Back in 2016, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach pointed out several reasons to disagree with this assessment, including Carter’s fondness for the Palestinians, as well as his animus toward Israel and its American abettors:

In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Carter again laid responsibility for U.S. bias against the [supposedly] destitute, depressed and (consequently) violent Palestinians on American policy makers’ helplessness, over the last 30 years, against the menacing tactics of the powerful American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC).

AIPAC, that all-powerful Jewish lobby, as Carter clearly sees it, is a danger, with those “menacing tactics,” whom no one can apparently stand up against. In truth, AIPAC has no “menacing tactics,” but is largely informational: it disseminates information about Israel, and sometimes sponsors trips to that country; it urges its members to support candidates who share AIPAC’s concerns but does not contribute to any political campaigns itself. It is far outspent, in Washington, by the Saudis and other Gulf Arabs who do have small armies of well-paid lobbyists at their disposal, and are also well-versed in contributing to presidential centers and libraries.

However, it seems that AIPAC’s real fault was its failure to outdo the Saudi’s purchases of the former president’s loyalty. “There has not been any nation in the world that has been more cooperative than Saudi Arabia,” the New York Times quoted Mr. Carter June 1977, thus making the Saudis a major factor in U. S. foreign policy.

Carter apparently took no notice of the $100 billion the Saudis have spent around the world to promote Wahhabi (Salafist) Islam. And twenty-four years later, when 15 out of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis, Carter still continued both to praise the Saudis, and deplore the behavior of Israel.

Evidently, the millions in Arab petrodollars feeding Mr. Carter’s global endeavors, often in conflict with U.S. government policies, also ensure his loyalty.

It’s hard to know if Carter’s animus to Israel reflected all the money that Arab sources supplied to him, to his peanut farm, to his friend Bert Lance, and to his presidential center and library. Was there not a pre-existing antisemitism which then was reinforced by the receipt of all that Arab money? His dislike of Israel was difficult to conceal during the Camp David negotiations.

Many will remember Carter’s behavior during the Camp David negotiations with Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. He hero-worshipped Sadat, who in his view, could do no wrong. For Begin, on the other hand, Carter exhibited a palpable want of sympathy, even a visceral physical dislike for the homely Israeli leader. He was cruelly impatient with the anxieties Begin expressed about threats to the Jewish state’s survival. While pressing Begin to make concession upon concession to Sadat, Carter erupted that he was “sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust.” Carter and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski exhibited a clear distaste for Begin, while setting up Sadat as a veritable Prince of Peace, even though it was Begin who was making “sacrifices for peace” by giving back the entire Sinai, while Sadat gave up nothing, and only had to graciously accept what Begin, under American duress, offered. The great sacrifices Begin made to obtain a peace treaty with Egypt were never acknowledged by Carter. When else in history has a nation victorious in war ever had to sue for peace, as Israel did with Egypt at Camp David? On what theory did Carter think an aggressor state deserved to have every last bit of territory from which it had launched such aggression? For Begin was pressured to give back the entire Sinai, from which Egypt had launched attacks on Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973.

Carter has said that Israel should give up all of the West Bank, which he calls “occupied territory.” He seems never to have read the Mandate for Palestine, for if he had done so, he would have discovered that Israel has a legal claim to all of the West Bank which was, according to the Mandate, part of the territories originally assigned to the future Jewish state. But had he done so, would it have mattered? He has for decades been set in his virulent anti-Israel ways, that appeals to history and international law are unlikely to cause him to rethink his deep dislike of the Jewish state.

AUTHOR

Hugh Fitzgerald

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