re: #344 Expand Your Ground

One can be against Israel’s settlement and security policies without being anti-Semitic.

Yes the can. Jimmy Carter takes that to a new level.

Rabbi Levi Brackman - Carter’s book: Anti-Semitism, not peace

The Israel–Egypt negotiations resulting in the Camp David accords in the late 1970s were before my time. My negative perception of former United States President Jimmy Carter came from reading detailed accounts of the negotiations and the bully-boy tactics he used against Israel during that time.

I do not use the term anti-Semite lightly; in fact, I am fundamentally against equating legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. However, Carter’s latest book, “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid” takes my antipathy for the man to an entirely new level, for in my view with this book he has shown himself to be an anti-Semite.

This article is not the place to delve into the details of the book and refute it line by line - this has already been done. However, it is important to consider the general impression a book makes on the reader.

…In fact, Carter’s book reads as if it was written by a Palestinian propagandist, not by a former United States President who has been engaged in the Arab–Israeli conflict for nearly thirty years.

To conclude, as some have, that, rather than being an anti-Semite, Carter is just an ignoramus who has a tendency to “always root for the underdog” is as absurd as the book itself. In an interview, Carter claimed that while writing this book he read almost every book on the subject. If this is indeed the case - and there is no reason to doubt it - then his intentional omissions and insinuations against Israel start to take on a more sinister face.

…Being an anti-Semite is not a reasonable state of mind it is pathological. As an anti-Semite Carter cannot stand the fact that Israel is so overwhelmingly supported by the American people and he has therefore published a dishonest and poorly written book in a cynical attempt to change this. In doing so he has not only brought shame upon himself but also, as a former president, profoundly dishonored the presidency of the United States. By extension, he is a disgrace to America.