Ex-President Carter For Sale

by Alan M. Dershowitz

Jimmy Carter is making more money selling integrity than peanuts. I have known Jimmy Carter for more than 30 years. I first met him in the spring of 1976 when, as a relatively unknown candidate for president, he sent me a handwritten letter asking for my help in his campaign on issues of crime and justice.

I had just published an article in The New York Times Magazine on sentencing reform, and he expressed interest in my ideas and asked me to come up with additional ones for his campaign.

Shortly thereafter, my former student Stuart Eisenstadt, brought Carter to Harvard to meet with some faculty members, me among them. I immediately liked Jimmy Carter and saw him as a man of integrity and principle. I signed on to his campaign and worked very hard for his election.

When Newsweek magazine asked his campaign for the names of people on whom Carter relied for advice, my name was among those given out. I continued to work for Carter over the years, most recently I met him in Jerusalem a year ago, and we briefly discussed the Mid-East.

Though I disagreed with some of his points, I continued to believe that the was making them out of a deep commitment to principle and to human rights.

Recent disclosures of Carter’s extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia , had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept
the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?

And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strapped Divinity School received from this source.

Initially I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the Divinity School , but then a student at the Divinity School -Rachael Lea Fish — showed me the facts.

They were staggering. I was amazed that in the 21st century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up – a think-tank funded by the Sheikh and run by his son – hosted speakers who called Jews “the enemies of all nations,”
attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States’ own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a “fable.” (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.

Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard’s decision, since it was highly publicized. Yet he kept the money. Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: “This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan.” Carter’s personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot.

In reading Carter’s statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the 1930s, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler’s government became clear. Harvard of the 1930s was complicit in evil. I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the 21st century has become complicit in evil. The extent of Carter’s financial support from, and even dependence on, dirty money is still not fully known.

What we do know is deeply troubling. Carter and his Center have accepted millions of dollars from suspect sources, beginning with the bail-out of the Carter family peanut business in the late 1970s by BCCI, a now-defunct and virulently anti-Israeli bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family, and among whose principal investors is Carter’s friend, Sheikh Zayed. Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the bank, gave Carter “$500,000 to help the former president establish his center…[and] more than $10 million to Mr. Carter’s different projects.”

Carter gladly accepted the money, though Abedi had called his bank-ostensibly the source of his funding-“the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists.”

BCC isn’t the only source: Saudi King Fahd contributed millions to the Carter Center- “in 1993 alone…$7.6 million” as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family. Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000
environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates.

It’s worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government’s myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center ‘s Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia . The Saudis have apparently bought his
silence for a steep price.

The bought quality of the Center’s activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center’s human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea , or in Iran , Iraq ,the Sudan , or Syria , but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center’s website.

The Carter Center ‘s mission statement claims that “The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities.” How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel’s far less serious ones?

No reasonable person can dispute therefore that Jimmy Carter has been and remains dependent on Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia .

Does this mean that Carter has necessarily been influenced in his thinking about the Middle East by receipt of such enormous amounts of money? Ask Carter. The entire premise of his criticism of Jewish influence on American foreign policy is that money talks.

It is Carter-not me-who has made the point that if politicians receive money from Jewish sources, then they are not free to decide issues regarding the Middle East for themselves.

It is Carter, not me, who has argued that distinguished reporters cannot honestly report on the Middle East because they are being paid by Jewish money. So, by Carter’s own standards, it would be almost economically “suicidal” for Carter “to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine .”

By Carter’s own standards, therefore, his views on the Middle East must be discounted. It is certainly possible that he now believes them. Money, particularly large amounts of money, has a way of persuading people to a particular position.

It would not surprise me if Carter, having received so much Arab money, is now honestly committed to their cause. But his failure to disclose the extent of his financial dependence on Arab money, and the absence of any self reflection on whether the receipt of this money has
unduly influenced his views, is a form of deception bordering on corruption.

I have met cigarette lobbyists, who are supported by the cigarette industry, and who have come to believe honestly that cigarettes are merely a safe form of adult recreation, that cigarettes are not addicting and that the cigarette industry is really trying to persuade children not to smoke. These people are fooling themselves (or fooling us into believing that they are fooling themselves) just as Jimmy Carter is fooling himself (or persuading us to believe that he is fooling himself.

If money determines political and public views-as Carter insists “Jewish money” does-then Carter’s views on the Middle East must be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter’s off-key
tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real [integrity] to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter.

The public perception of his integrity is extraordinarily high. His real integrity, it now turns out, is extraordinarily low. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving
public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes.

That is now Jimmy Carter’s sad legacy.

April 20, 2008 | 6 Comments »

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  1. Democracy with Barbarian Germans was what destroyed the Roman Empire.

    Today, democracy with barbarian Muslims is doing the same to Israel, America, and Europe.

    The God of Israel’s decree is ZERO TOLERANCE for foreign gods on the Land of Israel and especially on God’s Mountain! He will not share his glory with another!

  2. What is not surprising but should be is How Dershowitz just now discovered that his leftist hero Jimmy C was and is on the take and from antisemitic and anti Israel (same thing) Arabs yet? I always thought Dershowitz to something of a Hypocrite and an ass licker to mainstream American and Israeli left. There was a periode of time when he seemed to have shifted to a more centrist political position but with his comments from his book about Orthodox Jewish beliefs I have come to final conclusion that he hasen’t really changed his views an iota in past 0 years that I have been following him. I even bought 2 of his books, I too have my weak moments!

    WHO CARES WHY?

    By Obadiah Shohera
    People brought up in the rationalist tradition of Enlightenment seek to understand causes. They are fine with failing to comprehend wave-particle dualism, but sure that social systems are comprehensible. They ask the destructive question, Why?
    Why Jews should not intermarry? Why shouldn’t Raskolnikoff rationally kill the old usurer? Why Muslims fight Israel?

    The question Why gives a false impression that differences can be understood and settled rather than ignored and fought over. Academics with silly theories of the real world perpetuate the Why fraud. Straightforward theories fail to explain myriad complex interrelationships. We cannot explain why the oil price today is such rather than another, but everyone seems an expert of the conflict history. The Muslim resistance to Israel stem from the interplay of many factors: Koran pronouncements on Jews, Mohammed’s battles with Jews, Jewish collaboration with Muslims and Christians, social upheaval in Muslim societies, demographic pressure, nationalism, fear, arrogance, xenophobia, jealousy, insult – you name it.

    The urge to understand one’s enemies is modern phenomenon. Previous generations did not consider national aspirations, human rights, and wishes of others. Understanding leads to compassion leads to defeat. The Allies neither agonized over legitimate national aspirations of German people, nor studied their racial doctrines to find some flaws and persuade the opponent.
    Nothing can be farther from Jewish mindset than Why. Jewish way of life was always about deeds, and rabbis reject attempts at explaining the rules. The rules can be explained, but an attempt to do so undermines their authority. Likewise in politics. The moment Jews start arguing about the Arab roots or legal rights to land in Judea, the fight is lost.
    I think Dershowitz and several postin on this site fit the above description!

    Below are links to debate between Derebshowitz and Kahane at either Harvard or Boston Commons I forget which. The split in Judaism and Below Jews is well represented. Choose your sides and enjoy! Nothing really changes. History I think has shown Kahane correct and Dershowitz still full of himself.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGFk5jVxeWo

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo70FvlBGqI

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiLUnnxiAsI</

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMe08ASETtI

  3. I wouldn’t pay even one penny for that worthless piece of human excrement!

    If they are going to coin Carter, they should put him next to Arafat’s face on Hamas currency!

  4. I’m surprised that Alan Dershowitz is shaken by Jimmy Carter’s reliance on Arab money. Really – if you want to know the real Jimmy Carter, follow the money. Nothing is more applicable here than the old trite and true saying a man is judged by the company he keeps. Carter is no friend of Israel and no philo-semite. Quite the opposite. Who the man is as we have seen, is quite different from his carefully cultivated public image. Carter did more damage to America as President in his short term in office than all its enemies were able to do. The ayatollahs and Afghanistan are his lasting legacy from that time. In his dotage, he wants to legitimize Hamas. That’s a quite a journey for Carter, from mediating peace between Egypt and Israel to meeting with the most extremist people on the entire planet. The only thing about Carter that’s more disturbing than for the causes he shills, is how many people, like Dershowitz, were taken in by his apparent integrity, which has turned out to be as evanescent as a Middle Eastern mirage.

  5. Alan Dershowitz is a good advocate for Israel, as far as it goes. Unfortunately Mr. Dershowitz has adopted the Arab narrative — now also adopted by George W. Bush — that the Jews are illegal occupiers of Arab land. I’ve got a copy of Dershowitz’s book, “The Case For Peace.”

    Most disheartening of all is chapter 15, “More Israeli Than the Israelis,” whereby Mr. Dershowitz takes particular aim at Jews and Christians that believe the land of Israel belongs to the Jews by divine right.

    Dershowitz: “What these narrow-minded religious warmongers don’t seem to understand is that if their dangerous misinterpretation of Jewish law were correct — which it is not — that would be the strongest argument for rejecting Jewish law itself. A religious law that forbids territorial compromise in the interests of peace … is a law not worth following or even studying….How dare a rabbi from Brooklyn or New Jersey, or even a rabbi in a safe neighborhood in Israel whose followers do not serve in the army, choose land over life — and then blame that immoral choice on Jewish law, whose life-affirming morality looks squarely in the opposite direction. These rabbis should be relegated to the dustbin of history along with parochial religious leaders from other faiths who distort the moral teachings of their faiths into immoral recipes for continuous warfare and persistent hate.” page 159

    Dershowitz neglects to mention the many rabbis whose followers do indeed serve in the army (as if this should be the sole standard) that choose land, not over life but over death through jihad. Alan Dershowitz is for relinquishing Judea, Samaria, Gaza and east Jerusalem to the jihadists. Even the Temple mount should be given over to the ‘Palestinian’ jihadists.