Jimmy Carter, the only US president who called out Israel for apartheid

Jimmy Carter – the one-term US president (1977-1981) who breathed his last on December 29 at age 100 – was the only American head of state who publicly confronted Israel for its crimes against Palestinians and identified it as an apartheid state.

“Israel’s continued control and colonisation of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land,” wrote Carter in his 2006 book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid – a deliberately provocative title that drew criticism from pro-Israel segments of US society.

His pro-Palestine stance stands in sharp contrast to the rock-solid pro-Israel policy of successive US administrations over the decades.

The outgoing Biden administration has firmly backed Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza – which has killed over 45,000 people, mostly women and children – by not only blocking UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions but also providing Israel with funds and weapons over the last 14 months.

Carter wrote that Israeli forces “deprived their unwilling subjects of basic human rights” in order to perpetuate their occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

“No objective person could personally observe existing conditions in the [occupied] West Bank and dispute these statements.”

Carter, a peanut farmer from the US state of Georgia who served as the country’s 39th president, is widely recognised in the Arab world for his commitment to peace in the Middle East long after leaving the White House.

His most significant contribution to the Middle East peace process was the negotiation of the Camp David Accords in 1978. He mediated the negotiations between Egypt and Israel at the presidential retreat in Maryland, resulting in the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.

The agreement, which included provisions for Palestinian autonomy in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, marked the first time an Arab nation recognised Israel.

Tel Aviv “reconfirmed” in the Carter-mediated 1978 peace accords that Israeli borders must coincide with those prevailing from 1949 to 1967 and withdraw from the occupied territories.

Even after leaving the White House in 1981, Carter continued his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East through his think tank, The Carter Center. He advocated for a two-state solution while highlighting Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories in violation of international law.

Apartheid analogy

Carter’s use of the term “apartheid” for Israel ruffled more than a few feathers in the US and beyond.

His forceful comparison of South Africa’s historical system of racial segregation with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians invited the wrath of political leaders from even his own Democratic Party.

The main difference between the two apartheid systems, according to Carter, was the Israeli zeal for the acquisition of land.

“Utilising their political and military dominance, [Israelis] are imposing a system of partial withdrawal, encapsulation, and apartheid on the Muslim and Christian citizens of the occupied territories,” he wrote in his book.

“There has been a determined and remarkably effective effort to isolate settlers from Palestinians, so that a Jewish family can commute from Jerusalem to their highly subsidised home deep in the [occupied] West Bank on roads from which others are excluded, without ever coming in contact with any facet of Arab life.”

He describes how the Israeli separation barriers restrict Palestinian movement and access to resources, isolating communities and limiting economic opportunities.

“The wall and checkpoints create an unyielding barrier to any form of normal life for Palestinians,” he wrote while referring to the life of Palestinians around the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that Tel Aviv has used as an excuse to delay the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state.

About three million Palestinians live in the occupied West Bank under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Fatah-controlled government body, exercising limited control in population centres.

The presence of Israeli settlements and the accompanying infrastructure, such as settler-only roads and military checkpoints, restrict the movement of Palestinians, thus reducing employment opportunities and hindering trade and commerce.

“Palestinians are deprived of basic human rights, their land has been occupied, then confiscated, then colonised by the Israeli settlers,” he said.

Engaging with Hamas

Unlike most Western leaders, Carter took the bold step of engaging with Hamas, the Palestinian group that gained control of Gaza after defeating the Fatah-backed Palestinian Authority in 2006.

Despite its designation as a terrorist organisation by the US and other countries, Carter argued that excluding Hamas from peace talks undermined prospects for a comprehensive resolution.

He observed that the people of Palestine had a “clear preference for Hamas candidates” even in historically strong Fatah communities during the 2006 elections, which his Carter Center monitored as an international observer.

He wrote that he was “surprised at the size of the Hamas victory” even though Israel imposed “the same rigid restraints” to minimise voting.

In 2008 and subsequent years, Carter met with Hamas leaders, underscoring his willingness to take political risks for the sake of peace.

In his dealings with Hamas, Carter told an interviewer in 2009, he found that Hamas demanded only one thing: Israel must open supply routes in the “enormous wall that surrounds Gaza” in order to let one and a half million people in the besieged enclave have sufficient food and water.

US role in perpetuation of violence

Carter reserved the harshest criticism for his fellow countrymen and -women for enabling Israel’s aggressions in Palestine.

He wrote that the condoning of illegal Israeli actions from a “submissive White House” and Congress has contributed to the perpetuation of violence in the Middle East.

Decisions by the Israeli government are “rarely questioned or condemned” in the US, he wrote, adding that most American citizens are unaware of the condition in the occupied Palestinian territories.

He held “powerful political, economic, and religious forces” responsible for the favourable public opinion of Israel in the US.

“If you had a candidate for Congress running either Democratic or Republican and they announced to the general public, ‘I’m going to take a balanced position between the Israelis and the Palestinians,’ they would never be elected. That’s an impossibility in our country,” Carter told an interviewer in 2006.

Carter criticised the Trump administration in 2017 when it recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and shifted the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the city that most countries consider part of the Palestinian territories.

He said the change to the status of East Jerusalem without the consent of the Palestinians “jeopardises any prospect for peace”.

“East Jerusalem is a lynchpin of Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own,” he said.