It was not for nothing that the recently deceased Jimmy Carter had long served as the standard by which failed modern U.S. presidencies were measured. “Joe Biden is the worst president since Jimmy Carter” became a staple of political commentary from early on in the Biden presidency.
In fact, Carter is remembered for failing to free American hostages taken by Iranian Islamic radicals, and for rampant inflation and unprecedentedly low approval ratings. Sound familiar?
But we in the Jewish community also had special concerns with Mr. Carter both during and after his one term in office that went beyond those we necessarily shared with our fellow Americans – centering around his feelings about Jews and the Jewish State of Israel.
To be sure, Carter is widely praised for his key role in brokering the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt that has led to peace between the two countries for almost half a century. Yet as the historian Dr. Yvette Alt Miller, has noted, though he pursued some policies that may have helped Jews while he was in office, President Carter also engaged in breathtaking antisemitism and reflexive anti-Israel rhetoric throughout much of his life.
For example, Prof. Alt Miller points out that Carter was instrumental in establishing the U.S. Holocaust Museum but then complained that “too many Jews were involved.”
She also says that that in 1979 President Carter ardently supported the passage of the Israeli Anti-Boycott Act but later in life became a strong supporter of economic boycotts against Israel. On the other hand, Alt Miller says that during the Iranian revolution of 1978-79, Carter offered a lifeline to Iranian Jews in the form of special visas and pressured the Soviet Union to allow more “refuseniks” to emigrate.
However, Alt Miller also says that after losing the presidency to Ronald Reagan in 1980 in a landslide, Carter blamed the debacle on Jewish voters who he said had abandoned him without cause.
And in 2006 Carter turned against Israel, full bore with the publication of his book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” As Alt Miller describes, it was “a bizarre book smearing Israel as uniquely evil and warmongering. It endorsed terrorism against the Jewish State and called Israel the root of all problems in the Middle East.” She goes on to report that “The New York Times, hardly a proponent of Israel, slammed the work, calling it simplistic, ‘tone deaf,’ ‘distorted’ and filled with ‘misrepresentations.’”
So much for Mr. Jimmy Carter, our 39th President. Perhaps it was providential that voters denied him a second term.
