An August 19 Associated Press article by Bill Barrow titled, Jimmy Carter, trounced in 1980, gets fresh look from history, correctly notes the 39th US president’s monumental role in brokering the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty but thereafter fails to mention more recent forays into controversial Middle East waters.
The piece, which was subsequently republished by prominent news organizations such as The Washington Post and ABC News, rightfully included this sentence:
Carter’s brokerage of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt remains his most undisputed success.”
Indeed, the agreement between Jerusalem and Cairo, which launched wars against the Jewish state in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, was a watershed event that earned then-Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and then-Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. Moreover, the treaty has since held, with the two countries now key strategic partners.
But Carter’s Middle East legacy is complicated, to say the least. In this respect, AP’s “fresh look from history” omits crucial context about his subsequent controversial positions and their lasting impact on the peace process.
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Did Carter popularize Israel-Apartheid South Africa comparison?
In 2006, Jimmy Carter published Palestine peace not apartheid, which caused a firestorm. Much of the backlash focused on an assertion that Israelis were guilty of human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank. Specifically, Carter equated the plight of Palestinians to victims of government-mandated racial segregation and oppression previously experienced in South Africa.
In doing so, Carter seemingly not only condoned but fast-tracked attempts by anti-Zionists to isolate Israel from the international community. The 2001 UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, was already etched in the minds of many as the beginning of an egregious camapign to compare the Jewish state to apartheid South Africa.
Indeed, the Durban Conference, or Durban I, featured some of the vilest antisemitism since WWII, and experts trace the roots of the ongoing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement back to the 2001 gathering.
Related Reading: The Durban Conference’s Hateful Anti-Israel Legacy
Carter: Hamas committed to peace
In another problematic incident, Carter in 2008 described Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip as “one of the greatest human rights crimes on earth.” But this did not take into account the fact that the blockade is a security measure that was imposed in response to incessant attacks against the Jewish state, as well as the smuggling of weapons through the Sinai Peninsula, by Hamas — a US-designated terrorist organization.
Carter nevertheless at the time urged the US government to acknowledge Hamas as a “legitimate political actor.”
In 2009, Carter even traveled to Syria for talks with Hamas’ exiled leader Khaled Mashaal, after which the former president claimed the terrorist group was trustworthy. Israel condemned the meeting, while the US State Department confirmed that Hamas made no changes to its genocidal policies following the encounter.
In 2015, as Carter called Mashaal a strong proponent of the peace process, he also opted out of a meeting with then-Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu because it would have been “a waste of time.” The statement was made as Carter was touring Israel and the West Bank, where he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
“I don’t believe that he’s a terrorist. He’s strongly in favor of the peace process,” Carter said of Mashaal during the trip.
It is worth noting that after Washington removed Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in the wake of the Arab nation’s pledge to normalize relations with Israel, Khartoum in 2020 revoked Mashaal’s citizenship.
Related Reading: Focus on Hamas, a Brutal Terrorist Organization
Media’s sin of omission enables anti-Israel narrative
Jimmy Carter helped broker an historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. But he has also since become increasingly critical of the Jewish state and has assumed related positions that many would consider radical.
Nevertheless, by contriving a narrative that promotes only Carter’s “undisputed success” in the Middle East, Associated Press and the news outlets that reproduced Jimmy Carter, trounced in 1980, gets fresh look from history are effectively deconstructing one man’s legacy into a constituent element that is but a part of a much fuller picture.
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Featured Image: Jimmy Carter meets Mahmoud Abbas during West Bank visit via Getty Images
