It was Jimmy Carter whose voice I heard first, regarding the plight of our Palestinian cousins. I never believed for a moment that he was anti-Semitic. I figured that if he used “apartheid” he had a good reason.
I have his book. I will reread it. Thank you for this tribute to him. He is a wonderful man and was not afraid to be on the correct side of history. Thank you for this tribute to him.
Thank you Peter Beinart for sharing this with your your gentle and true thoughts and observations . I see you are a just man also willing to go against the Lobby and all who apparently don't have a grip on the Words of Jesus and the many other spiritual teachers over centuries whether they are religious or philosophers or just Human Beings.
Carter throwing a Black man under the bus for meeting with the PLO was hardly honourable or a demonstration of solidarity with the Palestinian people. So little ultimately...
His support for the Shah may be an even more consequential moral and politico-historical error earning the US long term enmity in Iran.
Tit For Tat never ends well for either party! Tell me what have you done that even comes close to what Jimmy Carter did in his life to help people. He's a person not a saint.
Co-founding the Green Party comes to mind as an alternative for voters to consider versus the Zionism-supporting and domestic Republican fascism-tolerating Dems as something I have done.
It does not. One can be both progressive in some respects and benighted in others. See Hamas' reactionary social agenda coexisting with its liberatory stance vs colonialism. His errors will prove more consequential than his insights despite being sort of enlightened regarding Palestine, primarily after his presidency though.
Thank you so much Peter. As a white southern raised during the civil rights era, being among the first to go to fully integrated schools, I have always believed that my own ability to get past the Zionism in which I was raised to a deep sorrow and empathy for today’s horror against the Palestinians, comes in large part by the chalenge to my word view that came from growing up during a time of struggle for equality by my Black neighbors.
Thank you. What a tragedy that the Zionists turned out who they have showed themselves to be as they perpetrate the similar cruelties and death as the Nazis did. Proving that Violence begets more Violence. Is it going to end with atomic bombs or climate catastrophe?
Chris Hedges listed a number of morally counterintuitive and damaging actions Carter took as President (as contextualized through the course of history), but admitted his post presidency stances are commendable.
In Thinking Like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman highlights how Jimmy Carter’s administration embraced an “economic style of reasoning” focused on efficiency and cost-benefit analysis.
Influenced by RAND Corporation’s methods, like the Planning-Programming-Budgeting System (PPBS), this approach prioritized market-based solutions in policy-making. Carter’s team, including figures like Charles Schultze, applied these principles to areas like environmental regulation, economic stimulus, and foreign policy often sidelining broader goals like equality and universal rights. Berman argues this shift narrowed policy debates, embedding a technocratic emphasis on economic metrics in American politics.
This can help explain why some of his decisions as President may be viewed as disingenuous or counter to his moral underpinnings.
"Carter wasn’t actually accusing Israel of being an apartheid state in 2006. All he was saying was that it risked becoming one"
This isn't correct. Carter was asked about "apartheid" in many of the interviews he gave about the book, and he always said that Israel is *not* an apartheid state, nor was it at risk of becoming one. Instead, he would explain, "apartheid" was his characterization of the *current* (as of 2006) situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, and hence the title of his book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid", where by "Palestine" he meant the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
Despite the title, the book itself actually uses the word "apartheid" only a single time in reference to Palestine, where it says that "Israeli leaders ... are imposing a system of partial withdrawal, encapsulation, and apartheid on the Muslim and Christian citizens of the occupied territories." The book goes into detail about the separation wall, property evictions, and resources such as "exclusive highways" made available to Jewish settlers but not to Palestinians in the West Bank, but nowhere does the book say explicitly, "Here is why I'm calling this apartheid." That's an unfortunate omission, because that one word in the title was grabbing most of the attention, and he had to explain it in every interview. Not that those explanations made any difference to reviewers like Slate's Michael Kinsley.
It was Jimmy Carter whose voice I heard first, regarding the plight of our Palestinian cousins. I never believed for a moment that he was anti-Semitic. I figured that if he used “apartheid” he had a good reason.
May his memory be a blessing!
Thank you again - a question, maybe, of acceptance of a kind of loneliness? The willingness to stick to something one believes is true and necessary..
I have his book. I will reread it. Thank you for this tribute to him. He is a wonderful man and was not afraid to be on the correct side of history. Thank you for this tribute to him.
Thank you Peter Beinart for sharing this with your your gentle and true thoughts and observations . I see you are a just man also willing to go against the Lobby and all who apparently don't have a grip on the Words of Jesus and the many other spiritual teachers over centuries whether they are religious or philosophers or just Human Beings.
Carter throwing a Black man under the bus for meeting with the PLO was hardly honourable or a demonstration of solidarity with the Palestinian people. So little ultimately...
His support for the Shah may be an even more consequential moral and politico-historical error earning the US long term enmity in Iran.
Tit For Tat never ends well for either party! Tell me what have you done that even comes close to what Jimmy Carter did in his life to help people. He's a person not a saint.
Co-founding the Green Party comes to mind as an alternative for voters to consider versus the Zionism-supporting and domestic Republican fascism-tolerating Dems as something I have done.
Agreed. But... does that wipe out the other things?
It does not. One can be both progressive in some respects and benighted in others. See Hamas' reactionary social agenda coexisting with its liberatory stance vs colonialism. His errors will prove more consequential than his insights despite being sort of enlightened regarding Palestine, primarily after his presidency though.
Thank you so much Peter. As a white southern raised during the civil rights era, being among the first to go to fully integrated schools, I have always believed that my own ability to get past the Zionism in which I was raised to a deep sorrow and empathy for today’s horror against the Palestinians, comes in large part by the chalenge to my word view that came from growing up during a time of struggle for equality by my Black neighbors.
Thank you. What a tragedy that the Zionists turned out who they have showed themselves to be as they perpetrate the similar cruelties and death as the Nazis did. Proving that Violence begets more Violence. Is it going to end with atomic bombs or climate catastrophe?
Chris Hedges listed a number of morally counterintuitive and damaging actions Carter took as President (as contextualized through the course of history), but admitted his post presidency stances are commendable.
In Thinking Like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman highlights how Jimmy Carter’s administration embraced an “economic style of reasoning” focused on efficiency and cost-benefit analysis.
Influenced by RAND Corporation’s methods, like the Planning-Programming-Budgeting System (PPBS), this approach prioritized market-based solutions in policy-making. Carter’s team, including figures like Charles Schultze, applied these principles to areas like environmental regulation, economic stimulus, and foreign policy often sidelining broader goals like equality and universal rights. Berman argues this shift narrowed policy debates, embedding a technocratic emphasis on economic metrics in American politics.
This can help explain why some of his decisions as President may be viewed as disingenuous or counter to his moral underpinnings.
"Carter wasn’t actually accusing Israel of being an apartheid state in 2006. All he was saying was that it risked becoming one"
This isn't correct. Carter was asked about "apartheid" in many of the interviews he gave about the book, and he always said that Israel is *not* an apartheid state, nor was it at risk of becoming one. Instead, he would explain, "apartheid" was his characterization of the *current* (as of 2006) situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, and hence the title of his book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid", where by "Palestine" he meant the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
Despite the title, the book itself actually uses the word "apartheid" only a single time in reference to Palestine, where it says that "Israeli leaders ... are imposing a system of partial withdrawal, encapsulation, and apartheid on the Muslim and Christian citizens of the occupied territories." The book goes into detail about the separation wall, property evictions, and resources such as "exclusive highways" made available to Jewish settlers but not to Palestinians in the West Bank, but nowhere does the book say explicitly, "Here is why I'm calling this apartheid." That's an unfortunate omission, because that one word in the title was grabbing most of the attention, and he had to explain it in every interview. Not that those explanations made any difference to reviewers like Slate's Michael Kinsley.