In his 2007 forward to the book “The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control,” written by then-ADL director Abe Foxman, former Secretary of State George Shultz slammed former President Jimmy Carter for “damaging the well-being and security of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.”
Schultz’s assessment was on the money. Many Jews will remember former President Jimmy Carter who died on Sunday at age 100 at his home in Plains, Ga for his occasional use of antisemitic stereotypes, as Deborah Lipstadt, Special State Department Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism put it. But the damage Carter inflicted on the State of Israel and consequently on world Jewry is only now fully coming to light.
The reality of the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, mushrooming into a global campaign of rabid antisemitism can be traced back to the Camp David Accords, which President Jimmy Carter forced with all the power of an American president on the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin in September 1978, established the framework for a treaty under which a US-armed Egypt is now in a position to join forces with the US-armed Turkey to deliver a devastating blow to Israel.
The Camp David discussions also covered the future of Israeli settlements, and the most challenging issues were Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. The Israeli and Egyptian delegations were particularly divided on whether United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 should apply to a long-term agreement in these territories and on the status of Israeli settlements during the anticipated negotiations on Palestinian autonomy following a peace treaty.
That was the beginning of the end. The Carter team attempted to force Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai in favor of Egypt, and the other liberated territories in favor of a Palestinian state. Egypt insisted on an Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 borders in exchange for security arrangements and minor border modifications. Israel rejected Egypt’s insistence on withdrawal, especially from Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.
The Begin team argued instead for a Palestinian autonomy during a five-year interim period followed by the possibility of sovereignty after the interim period expired.
Ultimately, the Summit “Framework” documents outlined the principles for a bilateral peace treaty and proposed a framework for Palestinian self-governance in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.
On Dec. 18, 1978, the immortal William Safire wrote in the Times:
“The blame‐the‐Jews orchestration from the Carter men will continue while the President himself refrains, Kissinger‐style, from saying so publicly. Joel Sherman, the U.S. spokesman most despised by the Israelis, is expected to let it be known on background that Mr. Begin is a liar; White House aide Ed Sanders will dutifully bring in groups of Jewish leaders to be told that Jimmy knows best about the survival of Israel; and news manager Gerry Rafshoon will arrange for foreign policy announcements — like the accommodation of China’s wish for us to terminate our Taiwan defense agreement — to distract attention from the failure of the last big stunt.”
GEORGIA NO PEACE I FIND
The mainstream media are flooding the airwaves this morning with hails to the US president who succeeded in establishing peace between the old enemies Israel and Egypt. But in reality, there is no peace between the two countries, there are no cultural ties, no common endeavors, it all remains on paper. And when President Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, won the election in 2012, that peace treaty was on its way to being torn up and dumped in the garbage if not for the coup that reinstated military rule.
Israel has won nothing from the Camp David Accords, not even militarily. For the past 50-some years, Egypt has been encouraging arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip, bolstering daily attacks on Israel. Egypt has also fostered one of the biggest armies in the region, some of it with Israeli support. Meanwhile, Syria, which didn’t sign anything and didn’t take back any land, has been subdued by the IDF to the point where today it does not pose a threat – at least for the foreseeable years.
Since October 7, we’ve been confronting the Iranian “Ring of Fire” strategy of surrounding Israel with armed proxy militias that would combine to incinerate the Jewish State. The groundwork for that strategy was established in Camp David by Jimmy Carter. The next Democratic administration, under President Bill Clinton, moved to develop Palestinian self-governance into a detailed schedule for establishing a Palestinian State that would choke Israel from the east and from the west.
It took one selfish, idiotic move on the part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to clear all Israeli presence from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria to usher in Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. It took a blind and deaf––but oh, so chatty––IDF leadership to dwarf Israel’s security into a complacent mechanism of containment while the plan to destroy the country which was hatched in 1978 raged on.
Former Secretary Shultz attacked Jimmy Carter’s book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” with prophetic zeal:
“Under sharp reactive criticism, President Carter has disavowed his choice of words, but the tendency of mind that lies behind such repulsive analogies remains and is reinforced by the former president’s views, spread across his book, which come down on the anti-Israel side of every case.”
“Once false analogies start, it is only a short step to the cartoons in the Arab press and European media which portray Israelis as contemporary versions of Nazi stormtroopers.”
AL HET
In late 2009, just before Christmas, Jimmy Carter publicly sought forgiveness from the Jewish community for any harm or negative perceptions he may have caused toward Israel through his past statements or actions.
“As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.”
By “Al Het” (“for the sin”) Carter was referring to the string of confessions Jews utter on Yom Kippur while clapping their chests. There were probably enough Jews in his administration to prepare him for his bar mitzvah.
Abe Foxman responded, “As far as I’m concerned, there is no Al het.” Foxman was reacting to a March 18, 2010 Carter speech at a conference on US-Arab relations in Atlanta, in which the former president accused the Obama administration of being “much more attuned to the sensitivities of the Israelis” and of having “yielded excessively to the circumstances in the Holy Land as Israel has confiscated several lands within Palestine.”
Even Barack Obama was too pro-Zionist for the one-term peanut farmer who lost his presidency to Ronald Reagan by a margin of 44 to 6. He called Obama’s treatment of Israel “feeble.”
On March 25, Foxman wrote Carter, “I do not believe further discussions between us will be fruitful. I continue to hope the day will come when you have truly repented of your insensitive views of Israel and the Jewish people.”
Sounds like a proper eulogy.
