Numéro 60--- ÉTÉ 2007 - Vho

GAZETTE DU GOLFE ET DES BANLIEUES / 60 / ÉTÉ 2007
normally sedate "Book TV" program on C-Span2, being called a racist and an anti-Semite by an
indignant caller.
Such backlash is triggered by Mr. Carter's assertions that pro-Israel lobbyists have stifled
debate in the United States over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; that Israelis are guilty of human
rights abuses in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories; and that the editorial pages of American
newspapers rarely present anything but a pro-Israel viewpoint. But the bulk of outrage has come
from his use of the word apartheid in the title, apparently equating the plight of today's
Palestinians to the former victims of government-mandated racial separation in South Africa.
Jewish groups have responded angrily, saying that Mr. Carter's claims are dangerous and
anti-Semitic. But Mr. Carter is steadfastly defending the book, saying he believes there is a valid
comparison between Israelis and the white South Africans who oppressed blacks. "It was
obviously going to be somewhat provocative," Mr. Carter said of the title. "I could have said 'A
New Path to Peace' or something like that." But Mr. Carter said he felt apartheid was the most
pertinent word he could use, and in retrospect he would not change any of the book's content.
His book details his version of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, beginning with
the 19th century. He concludes that Israel is now following a "system of apartheid," in which
Israelis are dominant and Palestinians are deprived of basic human rights.
The book was published Nov. 14 by Simon & Schuster. It is at No. 7 on The New York
Times's best-seller list, and has sold more than 68,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan,
which measures 60 to 70 percent of a book's sales. In the interview Mr. Carter defined apartheid
as the "forced separation of two peoples in the same territory with one of the groups dominating
or controlling the other." Under that definition, he said, the United States practiced a form of
apartheid during its "separate but equal" years of segregation.
Opposition to the book has appeared widely on newspaper editorial pages, including in The
Washington Post and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In an essay titled "It's Not Apartheid," Michael Kinsley lambasted the book in The
Washington Post on Tuesday. "It's not clear what he means by using the loaded word 'apartheid,'
since the book makes no attempt to explain it, but the only reasonable interpretation is that
Carter is comparing Israel to the former white racist government of South Africa," Mr. Kinsley
wrote.
In The Jerusalem Post, David A. Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish
Committee, called the book "outlandishly titled." Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the
Anti-Defamation League, said: "The title is to de-legitimize Israel, because if Israel is like South
Africa, it doesn't really deserve to be a democratic state. He's provoking, he's outrageous, and
he's bigoted."
This week the Anti-Defamation League began running ads criticizing Mr. Carter in major
newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Mr. Carter has also fought off charges that he misappropriated
material in a book by Dennis Ross, a former envoy to the Middle East who is now a foreign affairs
analyst for Fox News. And Kenneth W. Stein, an adviser to Mr. Carter, resigned last week from
the Carter Center after calling the book "replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited,
superficialities, glaring omissions and simply invented segments."
Mr. Carter contradicted those claims, saying he had never read Mr. Ross's book The Missing
Peace. "I wrote every word myself," he said. "I didn't plagiarize anything." Mr. Carter has a
longstanding interest in the Middle East conflict. When he won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the
prize committee cited his role in the 1978 Camp David accord between Israel and Egypt.
Mr. Carter wrote in an essay in The Los Angeles Times on Friday that the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee's lobbying efforts have produced a reluctance to criticize the politics of
the Israeli government. The editorial boards of major American newspapers and magazines, he
continued, have exercised self-restraint on the subject of Israel and the Palestinians. A vocal pro-
Palestinian viewpoint, he said, is "nonexistent in this country to any detectable degree." Which is
the claim that Mr. Foxman said he found most offensive. "The reason he gives for why he wrote
this book is this shameless, shameful canard that the Jews control the debate in this country,
especially when it comes to the media," he said. "What makes this serious is that he's not just
another pundit, and he's not just another analyst. He is a former president of the United States."
12.14.2006 | The New York Times
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