ATLANTA (BP)–Two days after launching his bid to lead a new Baptist movement, Jimmy Carter’s leadership of the Carter Center was rejected by 14 members of his advisory board.
The 14 advisory board members at the former president’s human rights center resigned in protest Jan. 11, citing Carter’s controversial book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” and his lopsided advocacy for the Palestinian cause, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
Carter and former President Bill Clinton announced their initiative Jan. 9 to unite moderate and liberal Baptists along issues that align with the Democratic Party’s political agenda. A proposed 2008 confab, “Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant,” will coincide with a U.S. presidential election year when Clinton’s wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D.-N.Y.), is a possible candidate.
The advisory board resignations are the latest departures of key figures from the Carter Center, founded by the former president and his wife on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta.
In December, Kenneth Stein, one of the Carter Center’s Middle East fellows and director of Emory’s Institute for the Study of Modern Israel, resigned claiming that the book was “clearly handicapped” by its failure to provide unvarnished analysis of the Middle East and also by its lack of Hebrew and Arabic sources.
Stein, who claimed that portions of the book also were invented or based on faulty recollections, was the Carter Center’s first executive director and a former aide to Carter during his administration.
The departing board members issued two letters explaining their action, the first being addressed to fellow members of the center’s Board of Councilors. In a brief letter, the 14 board members said they are “deeply troubled by the President’s comments and writings.”
In a lengthy letter to the former president, the board members said they could “no longer in good conscience continue to serve the Center.”
“In its work in conflict resolution the Carter Center has always played the useful and constructive role of honest broker and mediator between warring parties. In your book, which portrays the conflict between Israel and her neighbors as a purely one-sided affair with Israel holding all of the responsibility for resolving the conflict, you have clearly abandoned your historic role of broker in favor of becoming an advocate for one side,” the resignation letter said.
“Your book has confused opinion with fact, subjectivity with objectivity and force for change with partisan advocacy,” the letter also said. “Furthermore the comments you have made the past few weeks insinuating that there is a monolith of Jewish power in America are most disturbing and must be addressed by us. In our great country where freedom of expression is basic bedrock you have suddenly proclaimed that Americans cannot express their opinion on matters in the Middle East for fear of retribution from the ‘Jewish Lobby.’ In condemning the Jews of America you also condemn Christians and others for their support of Israel. Is any interest group to be penalized for participating in the free and open political process in America? Your book and recent comments suggest you seem to think so.”
Carter claims in his book, “There are constant and vehement political and media debates in Israel concerning its policies in the West Bank but because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the U.S., Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned, voices from Jerusalem dominate our media, and most American citizens are unaware of circumstances in the occupied territories.”
The 14 board members also claimed that Carter had condoned violence against Jews when he wrote that the Arab community at large and all Palestinian groups should end homicide attacks “when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel.”
“In this sentence you clearly suggest that you are condoning violence against Israelis until they do certain things,” the letter to Carter said. “As a result it seems that you have turned to a world of advocacy, including even malicious advocacy. We can no longer endorse your strident and uncompromising position. This is not the Carter Center or the Jimmy Carter we came to respect and support.”
In a letter to media following the announcement of the board members’ resignations, John Hardman, executive director of the Carter Center, offered few comments on the resignations. Instead, he indicated that the 200 members of the Board of Councilors “are not engaged in implementing the work of the Center.” The board meets on average four times per year, providing advice and building public support but no binding policies.
Several of the board members who resigned Jan. 11 reportedly have known Carter for decades. William Schwartz Jr. was U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas during Carter’s tenure. And Stephen Selig III, who also signed the letter, was chairman of the host committee for the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Selig also was an aide to the former president.
Since Carter’s book was released in mid-November, more than 450,000 copies have been sold. The book sparked protests from the Anti-Defamation League and several other Jewish groups and also was criticized by conservative commentators such as David Horowitz.
Carter’s last book, “Our Endangered Values,” which has 760,000 hardcovers and 200,000 paperbacks in print, also came under fire for inaccuracy and harshness toward those holding opposing beliefs. Carter was challenged and later apologized for writing that former SBC President Adrian Rogers once told him to “abandon secular humanism as your religion.” Carter also used the word “fundamentalist” to equate the resurgence of electing conservative leaders in the SBC with the rise to power of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.
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Compiled by Gregory Tomlin.
