Jimmy Carter spreads anti-Israel venom like cancer

It’s always interesting when Jimmy Carter raises his head from the depths of his presidency in exile, like a perennial groundhog. The main difference is that when groundhogs raise their head, it forecasts either more winter or an early spring. In Carter’s case, it’s always gloom and blame of Israel. As President Reagan famously and appropriately quipped, “There you go again.”

It’s novel for Carter to use the anniversary of the UN Partition vote to be heard from most recently. He’s too smart to make errors of the magnitude that he has in his NY Times Op Ed, so I must write it off to his willfully misleading the reader. Let’s address some of his misrepresentations.

For starters, if on Nov. 29, 1947, the Arabs (the only ones referred to as “Palestinians” then were Jews) had accepted the UN Partition Plan, they’d have a state today, side by side with Israel.

Carter disingenuously denies this, asserting that “peace is in danger of abrogation” as if Israel is the sole cause for the lack of peace. The fact is that if the Arabs laid down their weapons and stopped their rhetoric and incitement against Israel, they’d have peace tomorrow. He writes with arrogance as if only his voice is valid, but the truth is many former presidents and world leaders have spoken the truth, which Carter conveniently ignores.

Take President Clinton, a fellow Democrat, who also spent more than a little time on the Israel-Arab conflict. Clinton blamed the Palestinians squarely for the failed negotiations during his presidency. “I killed myself to give the Palestinians a state. I had a deal they turned down that would have given them all of Gaza... between 96 and 97 percent of the West Bank, compensating land in Israel, you name it.” He blamed Yasser Arafat directly for the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit.

Continuing to rest his hat on a stack of half-truths, non-truths, and innuendo, Carter chides Israel for the fact that Palestinian Arabs are not Israeli citizens. Of course they aren’t. They want their own state. Why should they be Israeli citizens? Many Palestinian Arabs are not citizens of the actual states in which they live including Syria, Lebanon and others. Why does Carter single out Israel, the Jewish state, as being responsible to grant citizenship to non-Israeli Palestinian Arabs who live in the Palestinian Authority? In fact, don’t all states have the right to determine what non-citizens actually can become citizens?

He adds to this the outright lie that “most (Palestinian Arabs) live under Israeli military rule.” That’s absurd. Most, the vast majority, live under Palestinian Authority or Hamas rule. These are simple facts he willfully misrepresents.

Carter inflates the number of Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria, “the West Bank,” (or what he calls Palestine) by some 50 percent, from some 400,000 to 600,000. He must have his head back during his presidency when inflation was at record highs. Either way, he’s deliberately and maliciously wrong.

There are many narratives that make up the conflict here, but willfully ignoring and misrepresenting facts is below the belt. Carter has ingested the Palestinian Kool Aid, and with it ascribes 100 percent blame of Israel, and a 100 percent pass for the Palestinians. In the world, according to Carter, Israel can do no right, and the Palestinians can do no wrong.

For instance, Carter not only ignores that thousands of Israelis (and Americans) have been killed and maimed by Palestinian Arab terror against Israel since he left office, but in his infamous book accusing Israel of apartheid, he even suggests that such terror is legitimate. Carter ignores the dozens of terror tunnels built, and thousands of rockets fired by his friends in Hamas, excusing their behavior as “boys will be boys,” disregarding the abject theft of resources that could be used to build the state of Palestine for which he advocates, rather than destroying Israel. Carter turns a blind eye to Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields, the definition of a war crime if there ever were one.

World leaders decried and condemned Hamas’ human rights violation including President Obama, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Prime Minister Cameron, Chancellor Merkel, President Hollande, and Prime Minister Harper. Yet Carter remains deaf, dumb and mute.

And Carter doesn’t seem to blink at the notion that his “Palestine” would be Judenrein, forbidden for Jews to live there, albeit contradicting the very 1947 Partition Plan vote on whose anniversary he writes. One might term this “pick and choose diplomacy.”

On a 2009 visit to Israel, Carter visited my neighborhood south of Jerusalem and referred to this as an area Israel would not have to cede in a final status solution. While it’s not up to Carter what Israel should or shouldn’t cede, he contradicts himself by referring to the “illegality of all Israeli settlements.” Carter represents it as if there are not equally valid conflicting legal opinions. He preaches as if his view is gospel, as if his initials imbue him with the sense of divinity. If such communities were illegal, what gives Carter the right to decide what can or can’t stay Israeli in the event of a peace agreement with our neighbors?

Carter purports to be a Christian, but someone must have taken an eraser to his Bible, purging reference to God giving the Land of Israel to the Jewish people. Someone please send him a new Bible, and pray that he changes his ways.

I have followed Jimmy Carter since I was a student at Emory, when Carter started what we called his presidency in exile. He remains angry that he lost the 1980 election, and that Prime Minister Begin did not roll over and do everything Carter wanted in peace talks with Egypt. I have challenged Carter on his half-truths and misrepresentations in person, and in writing. We were used to this then, and sadly nothing’s changed. His anti-Israel venom spreads like brain cancer, and is a disease that he uses to infect others. He needs to be called out and not allowed to let these misrepresentations go unchallenged. President Reagan’s rebuke remains valid today as it was then.

Jonathan Feldstein was born and educated in the U.S. and immigrated to Israel in 2004. He is married and the father of six. He has a three-decade career in nonprofit fundraising and marketing and throughout his life and career, he has become a respected bridge between Jews and Christians. He writes regularly on major Christian web sites about Israel and shares experiences of living as an Orthodox Jew in Israel. He can be reached at FirstPersonIsrael@gmail.com.