Carter: Zero Credibility

By HonestReporting.com
January 11, 2007

At the beginning of December 2006, we drew attention to criticism of former US President Jimmy Carter's book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Since then, in the face of a huge amount of criticism, Carter has resorted to cheap accusations that Jews and the "Israel Lobby" have been responsible for the negative book reviews and for stifling debate, despite the fact that Carter himself has refused invitations to debate Alan Dershowitz. In addition, many of those book reviews were not written by members of established Jewish or Israeli organizations.

Carter has variously been accused of fabrications, distortions of facts and historical revisionism. Professor Kenneth Stein of Emory University severed his 23-year association with the Carter Center in protest saying that the book:

is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments.

Clinton administration Mideast envoy Dennis Ross writes in the NYTimes:

To my mind, Mr. Carter's presentation badly misrepresents the Middle East proposals advanced by President Bill Clinton in 2000, and in so doing undermines, in a small but important way, efforts to bring peace to the region.

The credibility of Carter's book continues to fall. For a complete roundup of op-eds and articles on the book, see this detailed overview by our colleagues at CAMERA.