Jimmy Carter Snipes at Israel Again

Israelis, former president Jimmy Carter worries, seem inclined to “resume” war with their neighbors. But he trusts that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood — its leaders having “assured me personally” — will keep their country’s peace treaty with Israel.

So the one-term chief executive (1977 – 1981) told “America’s Morning News,” the radio affiliate of The Washington Times (“Carter: Netanyahu seems too eager for war on Iran,” March 7). Of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Carter said “I don’t think that’s [war with Iran] his first preference, but I think he’s much more eager to go to war with Iran than President Obama (is). And I was glad to see President Obama discourage that immediate resumption of hostilities between Israel and its neighbors that the Israelis seem to be inclined to do.”

Carter, who as president suggested Americans had an inordinate fear of communism, then professed to being shocked by the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, said “I think the economic sanctions would be adequate. … War with Iran can and should be avoided.”

He was equally sanguine about the Muslim Brotherhood, which — with the even more fundamentalist Salafist party — holds two-thirds of the seats in Egypt’s influential lower house of parliament. Carter said he recently met with Brotherhood leaders and “they know it’s very important to Egypt to maintain peace with Israel. They assured me personally … that they will honor the peace treaty that I helped to negotiate back in 1979 … and I don’t have any doubt they will carry out their promise to me.”

Leave aside Carter’s chronic narcissim. Forget his past apologia for Hamas after meeting its leaders and gaining another 15 minutes in the spotlight. His faith in the Brotherhood, which has expelled moderates and sounds more anti-American on its Arabic Web site than on its English language version, recalls his ineffectuality in dealing with the Islamic revolutionaries who overthrew the Shah of Iran, seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held more than 50 American diplomats captive for 444 days.

The Washington Times article notes that “Carter’s use of the word ‘apartheid'” in the title of his 2006 book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid “prompted rebukes and criticism of varying degrees, most notably from former President Bill Clinton and then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and an unwanted endorsement from Osama bin Laden.”

CAMERA’s 2007 monograph, Bearing False Witness: Jimmy Carter’s Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, exposed more than 20 major errors of fact in the ex-president’s anti-Israel polemic, none of which he corrected.

Imply that Israel is eager for war with Iran. Don’t focus on the issue — Iran’s covert pursuit of nuclear weapons combined with its overt threats to destroy the Jewish state. Apparently Jimmy Carter can’t help himself; when his animus toward Israel begins to itch, he must scratch, especially when doing so will make a headline or two.