Jimmy Carter Made the World Un-Safe from Terrorism
Ok, Jimmy Carter died. Many will fill volumes writing now that he was a good guy, honest, intelligent, and did some good things as president and in his post-presidency. Despite many of these things being true, to me, Carter was an unrepentant antisemite who made excuses for Arab aggression and terror against Israel. For that alone, and also for using the pulpit of his presidency in exile to spread these messages, I say good riddance.
As a failed one-term president despite some achievements, including helping to broker the Camp David peace agreement with Israel and Egypt, Carter’s abysmal policies vis a vis Iran left the US ally Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi overthrown by Islamists, himself dying in exile, paving the way for the Islamic Republic regime to take over Iran which it has hijacked for the past 46 years. The Iranian hostage crisis was an example of Carter’s weakness and underscored by the fact that the hostages were released the day Carter was out of office.
His ineptitude was on full display then and paved the way for the Iranian Islamic regime to become the world’s largest state sponsor of terror. These are not mere words. Millions of Israelis and Iranians, as well as Jews and others, are still suffering as a result.
Carter’s antisemitism was not only unrepentant but arrogant as if only he knew the truth, but his truth was a cocktail of distortions and fantasy, looking at the Middle East through a prism about how he thought things should be rather than how they were.
His book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” deliberately kept its legitimization of terrorism against Israel despite being called out for it; there was no apology, no correction, no recall—just a playbook justifying why killing Jews was acceptable.
Source Wikipedia
Carter wrote, “It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the ‘Roadmap’ for peace are accepted by Israel.”
Basically, as long as Israel doesn’t do what Carter thinks it should do, terrorism against Israel will continue and is legitimate.
Carter doubled down on his anti-Israel rhetoric and hate as a leading member of “The Elders,” a group of failed world leaders who colluded in multiple ways to continue his anti-Israel diatribe.
In 2009, Carter visited my neighborhood, Gush Etzion, where he surprised many by stating that in an eventual two-state solution (creating a Palestinian Arab state in Judea and Samaria- the “West Bank” and Gaza), he did not envision that Israel would have to return places like this. “I never imagined that Gush Etzion would be transferred to Palestinian hands.”
Maybe he misspoke or was just making friendly chit-chat, but the praise he received then for looking at the reality and not stringent black-and-white policies in which Israel was always to blame was short-lived and not repeated. He must have realized that legitimizing Israeli “settlements” in any way complicated his notion that it was still OK for Palestinian Arab terrorists to kill us.
Carter repeatedly blamed the Jews both for voting for Ted Kennedy in an unprecedented primary campaign against a sitting president and then losing to Ronald Reagan. To him, the Jews were disloyal, if not all-powerful. Unencumbered by living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Carter simply allowed his antisemitic tendencies to take prime time in his presidency in exile.
As a student at Emory, where his failed presidency had not been able to find a home, I had several interactions with Carter. Yes, he was charming, and his soft-spoken demeanor caused one to think he was a good guy.
One day in the late 1980s, he was making public remarks following another trip throughout the Middle East, where he had no problem cozying up to the original Assad dictatorship and other terror leaders. His public comments throughout the trip were a dizzying litany of anti-Israel comments throughout the Arab capitals where he was feted when he was in Israel. He blamed Israel for everything wrong and the lack of peace in the Middle East.
During the question and answer, there was time for one question, and my hand shot up. It was the week of the anniversary of the Camp David Accords, and I thanked him for helping to make that possible with his big peanut smile. Then I asked him if, as a representative of Emory University, it was academically disingenuous to travel the world and blame Israel for lack of peace while not holding the Arabs at least equally accountable.
His peanut smile turned to a scowl, and he began a tirade about how I was wrong and Israel was to blame. I never had a former president get angry at me and “rip me a new one.”
It felt good not because I upset him but because I called him out in public for his dishonesty, and he had no good answer other than perpetuating his biased rate, which was on full display.
Carter has been in hospice for a very long time, and his death was inevitable. From my perspective, long overdue. I ask myself why God gives people like this who have such evil in their hearts so many extra years. My only explanation, or rationalization, is that maybe God gave him a chance to repent, and Jimmy Carter needed many more years.
I’m not convinced that he repented, and while throwing the baby out with the bathwater would be inappropriate, to say he never did anything terrible would be dishonest. He was a failed one-term president, and he did once unambiguously call for and justify the terrorist murder of my people. This disqualifies him from Sainthood or any other honors and memories that others will share in the coming days.
At least in remembering his life, let us not forget that he at least indirectly caused tremendous pain, suffering, and death for which building houses for poor people is no redeeming compensation.
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