I don’t understand exactly what he said or did that made these 14 people resign. Please enlighten me.
It’s over this book by Carter in which he compares the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel to apartheid in South Africa.
So in other words, Jewish people are really mad because he’s (more or less? or absolutely?) accusing Israel of segregating themselves from or discriminating against Palestinians in a manner very similar to apartheid South Africa? I thought they all discriminated against each other and were each trying to carve out their own plots of land (in a manner that could be compared to ASA)- this isn’t news, right?
My knowledge of the Middle East conflict is very “green” but i’m trying! I will go dive back into my (two year old and I’m sure already outdated) Idiots Guide to the Middle East Conflict…shuffles off…
Well, it’s news because this is a former President of the United States saying this. I believe the book goes so far as to lay the blame for most (if not almost all) of the violence in the Middle East on Israel and its policies, but must admit that I have not read the book myself and am going on what I have been hearing in the news myself. (I live in Atlanta so all of this is local news for us and we’ve been hearing a lot about it.)
Yes, this is news.
The word “apartheid” in the title of a book by a US President is totally inappropriate.
Apartheid was a legal system that defined its own citizens as dirt and denied them voting rights. Israel’s legal system defines its own Arab citizens as having theoretically full equality under law, and they not only have voting rights–they control 3 political parties in the Israeli parliament .
The Palestinians that Carter writes about are not Israeli citizens.
A US president should know better than to make stupid comparisons.
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(mods–The OP has already been answered(-the 14 people resigned because of Carter’s book.), so I apologize for the hijack to GD territory.
But he also knows that controversy is great for book sales, too. 
We did a loooooong debate on this in GD just a few weeks ago. It wa a thread started by Askia, so if you search for threads he started you’ll find it.
The NYT just reviewed this book last week (pretty unfavorably) and the Washington Post absotlutely skewered it (althought there has been some controversy about the reviewer, who has very close ties to Israel).
Ups, sorry. I did a search for Jimmy Carter and did not see that thread (or if I did, I didn’t realize it was dealing with that very book)…
shuffles off to read thread…
Thanks, everybody!
Under apartheid blacks weren’t considered citizens of South Africa. Legally they were citizens of bantustans most of which where considered independent countries (by South Africa, not anyone else).
I don’t remember the exact title, but it was not very clear what it was about so I’m not surprised.
Yes, but most were citizens at one time and apartheid laws (The Group Areas Act of 1950 in particular) made them non-citizens. The Bantustans came afterwards (Bantu Authorities Act of 1951). Citizens were reclassified and deported-- That’s a key difference. The UN partitioned Palestine and people living outside the borders of Israel wouldn’t be considered Israeli citizens.
I’ve heard Jimmy Carter confronted on this issue, on several TV and radio talk shows. I can’t give a verbatim answer, but he basically says that he chose the title and his stance in the book, to spark debate. If that’s true, and I don’t think Carter is a liar, then he’s certainly been successful. I would guess that the book was inspired, at least in part, by the Bush administration’s lack of action on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Carter does have a history of holding Isreali leader’s responsibly when other U.S. presidents have seemed to be hesitant to critisize them. Critisizing Ireal has long been met with strong and immediate response from the Jewish community. It’s not something aspiring politicians generally do.
As far as Carter encouaging controversy for pesonal financial gain, I think that’s just a ridiculous charge.
Well, if we start with the premise that Jimmy Carter is, and always has been, and always will be, an idiot, then the resignations, book, etc. all magically fall into place.
Indeed. Between the allegations of a former top aide that Carter’s book contained “actual errors, invented segments and, most seriously, copied materials not cited”, and now the resignations of fourteen members the Carter Center, Carter has shown himself to be every bit as incompentent as an author as he was as president.
And regarding his intent to promote debate, I find it laughable that he refused to debate Alan Dershowitz because Dershowitz wasn’t sufficiently schooled in the Palestinan side of things! Isn’t this why people debate…to show a superior grasp of the issues than one’s opponent? If Carter is so knowledgeable and Dershowitz so ignorant, one would think that Carter would be eager to debate the issue with Dershowitz.
What a putz! Easily the most foolish, incompetent, gullible, and absolutely worst president of my lifetime.
Uh, that would be incompetent. Heh.
This is General Questions, not Toss Childish Politically-Based Insults, by the way. “He’s just an idiot” probably wouldn’t even qualify as acceptable in Great Debates (or at least shouldn’t), so they clearly don’t belong here.
Of course, starting with such premise would be a mistake, since no matter how you disagree with the man, he is anything BUT an idiot.
I don’t think anyone’s going to say that the two situations are identical, but there ARE similarities-the Palestinians aren’t devils, and the Israelies are not saints. Life is rarely so black and white.
and that is why Carter is such an idiot: he treats the whole complex issue to black and white.
Apartheid only refers to devils–because it was a truly evil system. If the title of your book automatically labels one side as a devil, then you aren’t going to get any respect. In that one word, he has lost all credibility.
If he chose the title just to spark debate, then isn’t he a troll?
I’m not going to respond directly to any one comment on apartheid here lest I be implicitly seen as arguing against a particular post.
It should be noted that, though we primarily think of apartheid and South Africa hand-in-hand, under the ICC it is a crime against humanity, on a par with genocide. Carter surely knew this full well when writing the book, and those who resigned do not want to be associated with someone levelling such serious accusations against Israel.
Whether the charge is accurate is a completely separate matter, and I’ve gotten too internet-old to get into that sort of screaming match anymore.
Here’s the letter of resignation of the 14 members of the Carter Center Board of Councilors.
The Board has some 200 members, for the record. From the Washington Post:
Carter has also been making public comments questioning the influence of AIPAC (a pro-Israel lobbying group) on America’s foreign policy. Those comments are referenced in the resignation letter, and seem to have intensified the anger of supporters of Israel.
Carter has also been making what sound suspiciously like crazy anti-semitic comments. One was regarding ‘New York money men’, which has always been a codeword for “Jews who control everything”. Another was that he said that the campuses who didn’t invite him to speak had high concentrations of Jews in the student body and staff.