The people behind Jimmy Carter’s letter on Israel
Last month, while much of the world was distracted by the holidays, former President Jimmy Carter issued what he called “an open letter to the Jewish community.”
In four paragraphs, Carter expressed his hopes for the state of Israel. He ended the letter with a fifth paragraph that the world quickly came to call an apology.
“We must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel,” the former president said. “I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.”
The statement might be better termed a confession. Al Het refers to the Yom Kippur prayer recited by a supplicant who begs God to forgive a sin.
In the weeks since, the abrupt nature of the Carter statement has led many to speculate about its purpose and the former president’s motives.
What very few know is that this first step toward reconciliation was the private initiative of several influential members of Atlanta’s Jewish community, whose ties to Carter date three decades and more. Conversations behind the confession/apology lasted a full year.
The former president’s grandson Jason Carter, a Decatur attorney, served as go-between.
This was a case of Jewish outreach to the former president, not vice versa. Which puts Jimmy Carter’s statement in a different light, and no doubt makes it more significant, not less.
The episode is also an example of the connections that make Atlanta work.
You’re probably familiar with much of the background. In November 2006, Carter published his 21st book, “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.” (The former president insists there is no punctuation in the title.)
Many Jews — along with others — viewed the book as one-sided and thinly researched, but were perhaps most outraged by use of the word “apartheid” and all its implications. Fourteen members of a 200-member Carter Center advisory board, most of them Jewish, resigned in protest.
The former president, who said he was trying to provoke a discussion of Arab-Israeli relations, declared himself shocked by the reaction and hurt by accusations that his work bordered on anti-Semitic.
The rift between the Jewish community and the man who engineered the Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt bothered Emmet Bondurant, a well-known Atlanta attorney who sits on the regional board of the Anti-Defamation League. He is not Jewish.
Bondurant’s career stretches back four decades — in the 1960s, he was the lead litigator in the U.S. Supreme Court case that brought the concept of “one man, one vote” to Georgia. More recently, he has led the legal opposition to the state’s requirement that voters supply photo ID before casting a ballot.
Serving with Bondurant on the ADL board was Miles Alexander, co-chairman of the Kilpatrick Stockton law firm — and perhaps the most influential behind-the-scenes figure in Atlanta politics that you’ve never heard of. The low-profile Alexander, who is Jewish, has backed the winner in every mayoral race since Sam Massell. His wife, Elaine Alexander, was co-chairman of the campaigns for both Kasim Reed and Shirley Franklin.
Bondurant persuaded Alexander to join him on the Carter Center advisory board in June 2008. It did not go over well with many of Alexander’s friends. In December of that year, as a member of the advisory board, Bondurant said he and Alexander began talking about the need to reconcile the former president with the Jewish community.
“Some way needed to be found to heal this wound and bring back people who were once together, and should be together again,” Bondurant said.
Attending the same meeting was another member of Bondurant’s law firm, who had been helping Bondurant in the voter ID case: 33-year-old Jason Carter.
“Miles and Emmet came to me to see if my grandfather would be open to a discussion of this type of outreach to the Jewish community,” the grandson confirmed. The grandfather agreed, and so began a careful exchange of letters and e-mail.
(The timing here is critical. Some have speculated that President Carter, in issuing his statement, was trying to clear an obstacle for his grandson, who is now engaged in a state Senate campaign. But Jason Carter began his role as go-between months before the seat became available.)
At this point, Bondurant drops out of the picture. Alvin Sugarman, the retired senior rabbi of The Temple in Atlanta, was recruited into the effort. Others involved included former Congressman Elliott Levitas. President Carter would later single out Sugarman, Alexander and his former White House aide, Stuart Eizenstat, who began his career here.
One confidence-builder may have occurred last February. The ADL gave Jason Carter its young-attorney-of-the-year award for his pro bono work on voter ID litigation. Bill Nigut, the ADL’s Southeast regional director, said the award came at the recommendation of a panel of independent attorneys.
But there’s the possibility that the award also served as proof to former President Carter that the Jewish community would not hold the grandson to account for the actions of the grandfather. “I have no proof,” Nigut added.
A September deadline of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, was missed. But a single face-to-face meeting occurred in early December. In attendance were Alexander, Sugarman, Jason Carter and the former president. A few tears were shed.
The Al Het followed days later.
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111 comments Add your comment
?
February 1st, 2010
6:42 am
Neil
January 31st, 2010
5:47 pm
Maybe if you would Post a link to your facts, I would agree but I can’t find it. I have posted a Christian Science Monitor article that states different facts than what you claim. Please try to post your link again again..
I am not solely opposed to aid to Israel please read my 1:54 post before you start throwing rocks. This situation is a hole and the 1st rule of how to get out of a hole is to stop digging
? 1:54 …”The way to middle east peace is to stop our foreign aid to Israel, Egypt and Jordon”
On the other side thanks for not calling me a coward or anti semitic.
Wackolibhack
February 1st, 2010
2:45 pm
It is Bush’s fault that Carter is being nice to the Jews. I hate Bush!!!
Billy McKinney
February 1st, 2010
2:45 pm
Carter, you “ain’t no Zionist, is ya?”
Joseph
February 2nd, 2010
6:55 am
Tina,
Israel was not the first responder in Haiti. Cuban doctors and Haitian medical students from Cuba were the first in along with oil from Venezuela. Get your facts straight. The Israeli lobby and the American press did not want us to know this.
Chris Mathews is covered in his own spittle because he is drinking, again
February 3rd, 2010
2:49 pm
Venezuela sent 30 people and Cuber sent 20. Wow!!!!! What a garantuan humanitarian lift.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/01/27/msnbcs_matthews_on_obama_i_forgot_he_was_black_tonight.html
Abe Bird
February 27th, 2010
3:22 am
Shirl McArthur ignores some important facts:
1. The 3 B$ a year are paying back mainly in US military compounds and give huge “blood” to elevate those factories and keep the jobs of the employees.
2. Israel keeps close ties with the factories she buys from and with the US army / navy / air force and advice back how to improve military projects and to adjust them to the battle needs.
3. Israel new inventions, adjustment, know-how, technologies and developments flow to the US almost for free and help the US industries and armies. The “Arrow” project is not just partially subsidized by the US but the ownership and the future profits too. So apart from the US benefits its dollars again she also benefited from acquiring the new technological breakthrough of the system. This is only the most known example, but there are some others which didn’t get yet to the public eyes (One hint mentioned: the Laser bean system).
4. Let’s take for example the UAV drone projects. Israel was the first country that took this matter seriously in the early 70th and developed huge and fascinating UAV industries that lead the world with new developments and breakthrough concepts and technologies. The US wake up only 20 years later and Israel just gave some UAV’S to the US in order to study the tactic and strategic benefits of the vehicle. Now the US and other coalition armies in Afghanistan use Israeli drones that save lot of their soldier’s life. Israeli know-how and expertise is used by the American military and industries when developing new version of drones.
5. More than Israel wants the military aid the US wants to give it to Israel. The 3B$ a year turns Israel to be more tied to the US interests and makes the US more influential over Israel, which gives her more political value and strength in the eyes of the Muslims states.
6. Israel combatant expertise were taught in the US, Britain, Australia, France military units, and some of the combatants came to Israel to be trained at Israel military facilities. Not to mentions that this expertise is saving lot of the coalition lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
7. Israel industries produce lot of technology and military excellent products which are well sold everywhere. But she can’t sell these goods to countries that the US thinks will harm her, while the US sells almost everything to everyone, even to the enemies of Israel, without asking Israel’s opinion. This is the best that the US can wish for, and that is one of the reasons for the US policy to give Israel this annual aid which let her almost control the Israeli security selling market. The US even influencing to stop Israeli military projects that may weakened the Israeli military ties with the US such as the closure of the fighter ‘Lavi’ project in late 80th. Too military Independence Israel doesn’t serve the US interests.
8. I’m sure that I can raise more issues to explain that very wide US-Israel connection but I’ll let others to add, for now.
steve
March 3rd, 2010
2:02 pm
The anti-Israel commenter ? keeps bringing up his talking point -Israel’s link to S.Africa. It wasn’t Israel that provided most help to S.Africa, it was S.Africa’s mother country, Britain that provided most of the military and other support. The facts are available in published trade figures if you wanted to actually know them. But I know you don’t.
steve
March 3rd, 2010
2:05 pm
Enter your comments here
ADL chief reverses himself, calls Jimmy Carter's apology for statements about Israel 'insincere' | Political Insider
March 29th, 2010
8:15 am
[...] The Al Het was the result of a years’ worth of negotiations, initiated by leaders of the Atlanta Jewish community. [...]
DanS
April 22nd, 2010
11:17 pm
Israel does not deserve Carter’s rebukes. She has made substantial sacrifices for peace: withdrawal from southern Lebanon (2000), from Judea and Samaria (Oslo, 1990’s) and Gaza. She received in turn not peace but its antithesis: unprecedented onslaughts of terrorism and unremitting rocket attacks on innocent civilians. She suffered 1000 persons killed and thousands more wounded or maimed.
Under Prime Minister Netanyahu Israel also made substantial concessions: agreeing to a two-state solution, removing various road-blocks, thus promoting the Palestinian Arab economy, and agreeing to a ten-month moratorium on Judea and Samaria construction-a concession Secretary Clinton called “unprecedented.”
The modern State of Israel is also justified by historic right. The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and “the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country…”
Finally, Israel is one of our most reliable allies.
First, Israel provides us with real-time, vital intelligence including intelligence dealing with anti-U.S. terrorist organizations and regimes. Second, Israel participates with the U.S. in joint military exercises. Third, Israel has jointly developed with the U.S. an advanced anti-ballistic missile defense system. This provides America with the research and experience to develop additional defensive weapons systems and also protects US personnel throughout the region. Fourth, Israel’s location on both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea is strategic. It is critical that Israel continue to serve as a port of call for American troops, ships, aircraft and intelligence operations. Israel also permits the U.S. to stockpile arms and other vital supplies on her soil. Fifth, about 70-75% of American aid to Israel is spent in the U.S., providing American jobs, supporting the American defense industry and generating economic growth. Sixth, Israel was also one of the first countries to cooperate with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She continues to help America develop counter-terrorism techniques and prevent threats. (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs internet, “Israel and teh United States: Friends, Partners, Allies, June 1, 2007; Congressman Steve Rothman, “The dividends of U.S. Support for Israel,” The Record, April 13, 2010). Let’s not weaken Israel’s ability to defend herself and to continue to be one of our most reliable allies.
Jason Carter smeared in anonymous campaign flier | Fresh Loaf
May 7th, 2010
1:07 pm
[...] for his grandfather’s views. Months before Adelman’s seat opened up, the younger Carter served as a go-between in discussions between his grandfather and the Jewish community to mend the [...]