Stuart E. Eizenstat refers to Carter's controversial 2006 book, 'Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,' which assailed Israel's policies toward the Palestinians in the territories.
By Mordechai I. Twersky | Jun.29, 2012
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter views Israel's
treatment of the Palestinians as similar to that of the "African
Americans of the 1950s and '60s," a former Carter adviser told Haaretz
during a recent trip to Israel.
According to Stuart E. Eizenstat, who served as Carter's chief White
House domestic policy adviser from 1977 to 1981, Carter "looks at the
conflict through the lens of the Civil Rights movement, as a Southerner
who witnessed discrimination against African Americans, who he equates
with the Palestinians."
Carter, the 39th U.S. president and the recipient of the Nobel Peace
Prize in 2002, believes "the Israeli military has not treated the
Palestinians fairly," Eizenstat told Haaretz while he was in Jerusalem
last week to attend the President's Conference. Eizenstat added that he
took issue with previous public statements by Carter comparing the
Palestinians' "non-violent civil rights struggle" to the U.S. Civil
Rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"In my estimation it's a totally wrong context," said Eizenstat, a
veteran diplomat and a native of Atlanta, Georgia, who has served in
numerous senior government positions, including U.S. ambassador to the
European Union. "I have said to him [Carter], 'If the Palestinians had a
Martin Luther King, they would have a state today - if they hadn't
thrown bombs but held peaceful demonstrations and were willing to live
with Israel.'"
But Eizenstat said Carter, a native of Plains, Georgia, views the Palestinians as "the weak victims."
"I think, again, it's an incorrect dimension to look at it, but I think
it explains that process," Eizenstat said, noting that some 20 years
ago Carter spoke to him "about the fact that blacks had been mistreated
by whites during the Civil Rights era, and that now the Palestinians
were the weaker party."
"I want to try to explain this as best as I can," said Eizenstat, who
said he met last month with the 87-year-old former president, his wife,
Rosalynn, and former vice president Walter Mondale at a White House
staff reunion in Maryland. "I remain very close to the president. But
that hasn't stopped me, however, from being critical, personally and
otherwise, of some of his more recent statements - the apartheid
statements and so forth."
Eizenstat was referring to Carter's controversial 2006 book,
"Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," which assailed Israel's policies
toward the Palestinians in the territories. Upon hearing of the book's
imminent publication, Eizenstat said he wrote to Carter and later phoned
him to convey his concerns that the word "apartheid" in the book's
title would wrongly "invoke images of South African apartheid."
He said he warned Carter at the time that "whatever his feelings about
Israel's settlement policy, it was not historically, legally or morally
the same as the white South African regime's denial of basic rights to
its own black citizens."
Carter responded that he "appreciated my comments and understood my
concerns" but insisted it was too late to change the book's title,
Eizenstat recalled. However, according to Eizenstat, Carter said he
would "try to better explain his views," and a short time later,
following the book's publication, Carter gave a speech at Brandeis
University in which he explained he "was not equating Israel's
settlement policy with South Africa's."
Deep respect for the Jewish people
Eizenstat, who served as the Clinton administration's special
representative on Holocaust-era issues, said Carter's comments should
not be taken to mean he is anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. "He doesn't have
an anti-Semitic bone in his body," Eizenstat said, noting the Carter
Administration's achievements in brokering the 1979 Camp David Accords
between Israel and Egypt; his support for the plight of Soviet Jews; and
his creation of a presidential commission to recommend a Holocaust
memorial in Washington.
"He had Jewish advisers, myself included, and multiple ambassadors,"
said Eizenstat. "He has a deep respect for the Jewish people and a deep
respect for the State of Israel - as a man of the Bible."
"But this Palestinian issue gnaws at him," Eizenstat continued, "and I
wish he had expressed it in different ways." That said, he maintained,
"It's important not to take the next step and say, therefore he is
'anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.' That's not true either."
