Jimmy Carter’s cheating heart

I have no doubt that the uber-punitive Christian former president of the United States James Earl Carter thinks he means well when he brings the little-known cause of the long-suffering Palestinians to the attention of the world in a book called Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.

Carter may have the best intentions toward the Palestinians; he certainly does not mean well when it comes to Israeli Jews or, for that matter, American Jews. Let’s leave aside the question of why Carter chose this particularly sensitive moment in geopolitical upheaval to publish an aggressively provocative and vicious attack on Israel. Let’s just focus on why he lied about the “facts” he printed—about which Dennis Ross, whose work Carter stole and misrepresented in order to publish those “facts,” had this to say on the Situation Room last Friday evening:

ROSS: I haven’t had a chance to read [Carter's book] yet, but I looked at the maps and the maps he uses are maps that are drawn basically from my book. There’s no other way they could — even if he says they come from another place. They came originally from my book.

BLITZER: We’re going to put them up on the screen on the wall behind you. But the whole notion, what’s the big deal if he lifted maps from your book and put them in his book?

ROSS: You know, the attribution issue is one thing, the fact that he’s labeled them as an Israeli interpretation of the Clinton idea is just simply wrong. The maps were maps that I created because at Camp David and then with the Clinton ideas, we never presented maps, but we presented percentages of withdrawal and we presented as well criteria for how to draw the lines. So after I left the government, when I wrote this book, I actually commissioned a mapmaker, to take those and produce them for the first time.

BLITZER: And then he put virtually the same map in his book without saying this came from you. I want you to listen to what he said specifically about this. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: I’ve never seen Dennis Ross’ book. I’m not knocking it, I’m sure it’s a very good book, but my maps came from an atlas that’s publicly available. And I think it’s the most authentic map that you can get.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: You heard his explanation how– would you say your maps wound up in his book.

ROSS: Well, the reality is the place he got it from, had to get it from mine. I published it before, number one. Number two, you would think that if you wanted to write about the facts of what went on, you would go to a book where a participant actually wrote them and then developed the maps in light of what we had put on the table. Now, again, if the purpose is to say, you’re presenting facts, then you should present facts. To say that his map is an Israeli interpretation of the Clinton ideas is simply not true. These were the Clinton ideas. If he were to say that…

BLITZER: On that point, he’s told me that he understands better what happened at Camp David, where you were one of the principal negotiators, than the former president himself. I want you to listen to this exchange that we had the other day, right here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: I hate to dispute Bill Clinton on your program, because he did a great and heroic effort there. He never made a proposal that was accepted by Barak or Arafat.

BLITZER: Why would he write that in his book if he said Barak accepted and Arafat rejected it?

CARTER: I don’t know. You can check with all the records, Barak never did accept it. (END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSS: That’s simply not so.

BLITZER: Who is right, Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton on this question which is so relevant as to whether or not the Israelis at Camp David at the end of the Bill Clinton administration accepted the proposals the U.S. put forward?

ROSS: The answer is President Clinton. The Israelis said yes to this twice, first at Camp David, there were a set of proposals that were put on the table that they accepted. And then were the Clinton parameters, the Clinton ideas which were presented in December, their government, meaning the cabinet actually voted it. You can go back and check it, December 27th the year 2000, the cabinet voted to approve the Clinton proposal, the Clinton ideas. So this is — this is a matter of record. This is not a matter of interpretation.

BLITZER: So you’re saying Jimmy Carter is flat wrong.

ROSS: On this issue, he’s wrong. On the issue of presenting his map as an Israeli interpretation of the Clinton ideas, that’s simply not so.

Rick Richman at Jewish Current Issues, in a lengthy, detailed post, explains why Carter had to lie: because it was only by twisting the facts that he could substantiate his extravagant claim—the underlying argument of his book—that it is the Israelis, not the Palestinians, who are and always have been the intransigent obstacle to peace (hat tip Power Line):

But notice that while the map is in identical to Ross’s in almost every respect, Carter has significantly altered its title. Carter calls his map not an illustration of the Clinton Parameters by the U.S. Ambassador who developed them, but rather the “Israeli Interpretation of Clinton’s Proposal” (emphasis added) — as if it were simply one side’s “interpretation.” He also omits Ross’s explanatory note, which made it clear the map “actually understates the Clinton ideas by not showing an additional 1 to 3% of territorial swaps to the Palestinians” (emphasis added).

I know I shouldn’t breathe more life into this—that in all likelihood even the minimal attention it’s likely to get from this lonely blog will be counterproductive, because more controversy only serves Carter’s purpose: it draws attention to his un-Christian cause—which, as Jeffrey Goldberg notes in the Washington Post, is to dismantle American evangelicals’ support for Israel.

Why is Carter so hard on Israeli settlements and so easy on Arab aggression and Palestinian terror? Because a specific agenda appears to be at work here. Carter seems to mean for this book to convince American evangelicals to reconsider their support for Israel. Evangelical Christians have become bedrock supporters of Israel lately, and Carter marshals many arguments, most of them specious, to scare them out of their position. Hence the Golda Meir story, seemingly meant to show that Israel is not the God-fearing nation that religious Christians believe it to be. And then there are the accusations, unsupported by actual evidence, that Israel persecutes its Christian citizens.

Interestingly, though, I picked up on Carter’s appeal to evangelicals without knowing quite what I was picking up on when I quoted his outrageous anti-Semitic innuendo the other day:

“There’s a tremendous intimidation in this country that has silenced our people [about Israel]. And it’s not just individuals, it’s not just folks who are running for office. It’s the news media as well,” he said.

Silenced our people? I asked. Which people was he referring to? How exactly are “they” being silenced? I wondered. Indeed I still wonder. Was he referring to “real” Americans? to evangelicals? What did he mean?

I wish an enterprising journalist would pursue the matter. Meanwhile, here’s what it looks like: The oh so pious Carter is using his considerable moral authority as a prominent Christian former president of the United States

1) to smear Israeli Jews with lies;

2) to spread crass anti-Semitic innuendo (undue influence of and intimidation by AIPAC) about American Jews;

3) to cover up for and excuse the braying donkeys and pestilential thugs and murderous gangsters who live and thrive among the long-suffering, beaten-down Palestinian Arabs.

Which Palestinians do you support, Jimmy Carter?