Carter says majority in U.S. support views in book
By Matthew Bigg Thu Feb 22, 5:36 PM ET
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Jimmy Carter defended his new book on the Middle East on Thursday against sharp criticism from Jewish groups and said a majority of U.S. citizens including many Jews supported its main proposals.
Letters he received since the publication in November of "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid" were largely supportive and included support from many readers who described themselves as U.S. Jews, said the former president.
Jewish groups have expressed outrage at the book, arguing that its title and contents could undermine perceptions of
Israel's legitimacy.
Carter, 82, was addressing a forum at Atlanta's Emory University in which he detailed his involvement in the Middle East culminating in the Camp David Accords in 1978. He gave a robust defense of the book and responded to written questions.
"Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighbor's land and to permit the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights," he said.
Repression of Palestinians and taking of Palestinian land by Israel resulted from policies pursued by a conservative minority within Israel, he said.
Carter said he condemned all violence and he repeated an apology for a passage that critics said could be interpreted as supporting suicide bombings as a negotiating tactic. The passage would be removed from future editions, he said.
Carter denied accusations that he had said Jews controlled the U.S. media, but said the strength of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, whose aims he described as legitimate, acted to stifle debate.
For any member of Congress to call for Israel to withdraw to internationally-recognized boundaries would be "politically suicide," he said.
REACTION
Asked what he had learned from reaction to the book, Carter said he was surprised at the "intensity of feeling and genuine concern that some American Jewish citizens have when anyone questions the current policies of the ... Israeli government.
"I can understand the reasons ... that any shaking of almost unanimous support in America for Israel might weaken Israel's position ... as they struggle for their own safety and their own existence," he said.
The book's main points were that Israel should stop persecuting and abusing Palestinians, withdraw to internationally-recognized borders and conduct intense negotiations with its neighbors to bring peace, Carter said.
"Those premises, which are the major premises in my book, have a strong support of American citizens," including many Jews, he said. He added that he guessed the majority of Jews in Israel also agreed with the book's proposals.
A Public Agenda poll last October with the journal Foreign Affairs found that 70 percent of Americans expressed at least partial support for the view that U.S. policies were too "pro-Israel" for the U.S. to be able to broker a Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, received several standing ovations during the forum. Outside, some people criticized his remarks and the book.
"It seems from what he said today that Israel's occupation is at the root of the problem. But I would argue that Palestinian terrorism is at the root of the problem," said Benjamin Braun, 21, a student at Emory of Middle East studies.