Unlike Donald Trump, Jimmy Carter Was No Friend Of Israel
In the wake of former President Jimmy Carter’s death, he has been hailed as a bringer of peace, with tributes often mentioning his role in the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt.
But Carter’s animus for Israel was on display for much of his entire professional career. It’s a stark contrast to former and soon-to-be president Donald Trump, whose record of support for Israel is unmatched by any other president, and includes moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights, and brokering the historic Abraham Accords.
Although Carter was not reticent to claim credit for the Camp David Accords, in which Israel and Egypt made peace with each other, the truth is that Israel’s Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat had already essentially agreed to make peace, and had their meeting brokered by Romania’s dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. Sadat had been speaking about making peace with Israel since 1971; he flew to Israel and made a historic speech there in 1977. Carter wanted the PLO, led by arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, to be part of a Geneva conference with Egypt and Israel.
As Yossi Alpher wrote in a 2008 piece titled, “How Jimmy Carter Almost Derailed Peace With Egypt,” “By December 1, 1977, three weeks into the Sadat peace initiative, the Carter administration had offered only the faintest approval for the Egyptian president’s visit to Jerusalem, and had not yet abandoned its support for Geneva in favor of the bilateral Egyptian-Israeli process that Sadat, Begin and Dayan were actively proposing.”
Sadat suggested that an Israeli serve in the American embassy in Cairo who could communicate between Israel and Egypt.
“Sadat’s liaison initiative spoke volumes about his reasons for wanting to make peace with Israel,” Alpher noted. “He wanted an alliance with the American superpower and he wanted to kill Carter’s Geneva initiative. His trip to Jerusalem signaled a major reorientation of Cairo’s place in the global scheme of things, from the Soviet to the American camp. Carter’s acceptance of the proposed liaison scheme would have signaled American backing for Sadat’s unprecedented peace initiative. But Carter said no. Try as he might, though, Carter couldn’t thwart the Israeli-Egyptian peace push.”
In 2002, Jay Nordlinger noted in “Carterpalooza!” that “No one quite realizes just how passionately anti-Israel Carter is. William Safire has reported that (Carter’s Secretary of State) Cyrus Vance acknowledged that, if he had had a second term, Carter would have sold Israel down the river.” Nordlinger noted of Carter’s close friendship with Arafat, “At their first meeting — in 1990 — Carter boasted of his toughness toward Israel, assuring Arafat at one point, ‘. . . you should not be concerned that I am biased. I am much more harsh with the Israelis.’” Carter even “drafted on his home computer the strategy and wording for a generic speech Arafat was to deliver soon for Western ears,” Carter biographer Douglas Brinkley noted in “The Unfinished Presidency.”
In 2015, Carter said of Hamas terrorist leader Khaled Mashaal, “I don’t believe that he’s a terrorist. He’s strongly in favor of the peace process.” Carter declared he wouldn’t meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because it would be “a waste of time.”
Twelve days after the Hamas massacre of 1200 Israelis, Mashaal was asked to comment about Hamas’ slaughter of Israeli civilians by an interviewer, who said, “What the people in the West have seen on their TV screens, was transgressions by Hamas against Israeli civilians. You are responsible for Hamas’s image abroad. Hamas is now being compared to ISIS.”
“This is an accusation fabricated by Netanyahu, and unfortunately, the West is collaborating with this,” Mashaal answered.
In 2006, Carter published his book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” which charged Israel with imposing apartheid on Palestinians.