Jimmy Carter championed Palestinian humanity at a time when few dared

Carter is an enduring inspiration to speak out

The outpouring of praise for Jimmy Carter on his passing has spanned the political spectrum from the MAGA right to the left. Some cited his work as President while many others focused on his post-presidency efforts from monitoring international elections to earning a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 to as—Barack Obama highlighted—"building or repairing thousands of homes in more than a dozen countries with his beloved Rosalynn as part of Habitat for Humanity.”

But to me—as the son of a Palestinian immigrant and who has family currently living in the West Bank--there is something else that must be on that list. That was Carter’s championing of Palestinian humanity and self-determination at a time when he knew it would cause him to be viciously attacked and smeared. And he was. But Carter’s courage must act as an enduring reminder that we must stand up for what is right even if it will cause us to suffer personally—a lesson especially needed now as we head into Donald Trump’s second term and we watch so many bend the knee.

As a reminder, in 2006 Carter wrote the groundbreaking book, “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.” Carter made it clear at the time that he had two-fold goal with this book. First, as he explained to NPR in 2007, the book was intended to “reveal for the first time, to the American public, the horrible oppression and persecution of the Palestinian people and it would precipitate for the first time any substantive debate on these issues.” And secondly, “it would stimulate peace talks,” noting that for the past six years under GOP President George W. Bush there had “not been one single day of good faith negotiations between Israelis and their neighbors, the Palestinians.”

To do so, Carter did something unheard of at the time for a former US President with a huge following. He bluntly wrote and spoke of the conditions Palestinians—like my family—lived under in the West Bank as being "one of the worst examples of human rights deprivation" in the world. He shared something we know today but was not covered greatly then and that was Palestinian land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank was still being “confiscated and then colonized by the Israeli settlers.” (This continues to today as Israeli settlers for the first time—embolden by Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition—are seeking to steal some of my family’s land in the West Bank simply because my family is not Jewish.)

The former President also criticized US administrations for “unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.”

And yes, Carter used the word “apartheid” in the title of the book. Now to be clear, Carter spoke of the apartheid system being in the West Bank—not Israel proper. As Carter explained, the term apartheid was “a very accurate description of the forced separation within the West Bank of Israelis from Palestinians and the total domination and oppression of Palestinians by the dominant Israeli military.”

Carter gave examples of how Israeli settlements were connected by roads in the West Bank that were expressly segregated for Israeli use only--preventing Palestinians from crossing those roads and in some cases accessing their own land. He noted in interviews—even in the Israeli media as he tried to reach Israelis themselves—that these Israeli policies in the West Bank “perpetuates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even in South Africa.”

Carter was not naïve. He knew that he would be demonized by daring to politically criticize Israeli policy so boldly. The attacks on Carter included smears-as NPR noted in 2007—that he was an “anti-Semite and a bigot.” Abraham Foxman, then national director of the Anti-Defamation League, slammed Carter as “engaging in anti-Semitism” and he commissioned ads in papers and billboards attacking Carter and his book. Others also smeared Carter for daring to share the actual suffering of Palestinian Christians and Muslims—something not seen before in US media.

Even then incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed Carter in 2007, stating, “It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously.” She added, “With all due respect to former President Carter, he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel.”

Somehow the same Carter who personally brokered the Camp David Accords in 1978 between Israel and Egypt—that still stands today—had gone from being concerned with the safety of Israelis to a raving anti-Semite. In reality, Carter had not changed, he was the same person who was still a champion of peace and human rights. He had simply dared to speak bluntly about the Middle East conflict that--as the Times of Israel noted today in their obituary of Carter--had “earned [him] pariah status in some corners of the Jewish community for his criticisms of Israel.”

All of this is why my friend, Peter Beinart who is a progressive Jewish activist, penned an article last year when Carter was moved to hospice care: “Jimmy Carter Deserves an Apology Before He Dies.” Beinart detailed additional criticism of Carter when his book was released including a 2007 Washington Post op-ed by Debra Lipstadt--who currently serves as Biden administration’s global antisemitism envoy--titled, “Jimmy Carter’s Jewish Problem.”

In a 2014 interview, Carter who was 90 years old at the time, reflected on his life, telling us, “I’d like to be remembered as a champion of peace and human rights. Those are the two things I’ve found as a kind of guide for my life.”

Carter will certainly be remembered for that. And I’d add for his courage in not backing down in championing causes he believed in—whatever the personal price. The hope is that as we go forward into the challenging times ahead, we are inspired by Carter’s example to do the same.

---