[Peace-discuss] Carter at Brandeis

[David Green]

Carter wins applause at Brandeis  

Boston Globe WALTHAM -- Jimmy Carter, in a carefully orchestrated 
visit, received multiple ovations last night during his speech at 
Brandeis University. Loud applause greeted his rebuttal of critics who 
have called him an anti-Semite because of his views on Israel. David 
Abel and James Vaznis January 24, 2007 --

Carter wins applause at Brandeis

Defends stance on Palestinians; critic speaks later

By David Abel and James Vaznis, Globe Staff | January 24, 2007
WALTHAM -- Jimmy Carter, in a carefully orchestrated visit, received 
multiple ovations last night during his speech at Brandeis University. 
Loud applause greeted his rebuttal of critics who have called him an 
anti-Semite because of his views on Israel.

The 82-year-old former president, whose best-selling book "Palestine 
Peace Not Apartheid" has angered many Jewish groups and others 
nationwide, spoke in a gym packed with about 1,700 Brandeis students, 
faculty, and other members of the campus community. About 50 protesters 
gathered outside, but the only protest visible inside the gym was "Pro 
Israel, Pro Peace" buttons worn by about 200 students.

"This is the first time that I've ever been called a liar and a bigot 
and an anti-Semite and a coward and a plagiarist," Carter said to a 
hushed audience at the school, which has a predominantly Jewish student 
body, referring to the reaction to his book.

Carter had turned down an initial invitation to appear after it was 
suggested that he debate Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. Some 
questioned whether the debate proposal was denying free speech and 
whether Brandeis was truly open to views critical of Israel. 
Ultimately, after more than 100 students and faculty signed a petition 
inviting him without strings, Carter agreed to speak. Dershowitz was 
kept out of the gym during the speech, but allowed to give a rebuttal 
after Carter left.

Carter's book, which criticizes Israel's treatment of Palestinians, has 
prompted allegations of errors and omissions and charges of anti-Israel 
bias. Carter's use of the word apartheid to describe the situation of 
the Palestinians has upset many. But Carter has also received support 
from some who say the book raises important questions about US support 
for Israel.

Carter, president from 1977 to 1981, brokered the 1978 Camp David peace 
accord between Israel and Egypt and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 
2002.

At Brandeis, he spoke for about 15 minutes, then fielded screened 
questions from students for roughly 45 minutes.
In response to a question, Carter apologized for a sentence in his book 
that he acknowledged seemed to justify terrorism by saying that suicide 
bombings should end when Israel accepts the goals of the road map to 
peace with Palestinians.

"That sentence was worded in a completely improper and stupid way," 
Carter said. "I've written my publishers to change that sentence 
immediately in future editions of the book. I apologize to you 
personally and to everyone here."
But he defended the use of the word apartheid in his book title.

"I realize that this has caused great concern in the Jewish community," 
he said. "The title makes it clear that the book is about conditions 
and events in the Palestinian territory and not in Israel. And the text 
makes clear on numerous occasions that the forced separation and the 
domination of Arabs by Israelis is not based on race."

As the audience was silent, he spoke of roads Palestinians could not 
use and of the more than 500 checkpoints in the tiny West Bank.

He suggested that a group of Brandeis professors and students visit the 
occupied territories for a few days and meet with leaders and private 
citizens "to determine if I have exaggerated or incorrectly described 
the plight of the Palestinians. "

Early in his speech, he quipped about the controversy over his 
invitation to speak at Brandeis.

"Except for an invitation from the US Congress to deliver my inaugural 
address . . . this is the most exciting invitation I've ever received, 
and it's gotten almost as much publicity," Carter said.

In response to the efforts to have him debate Dershowitz, the former 
president said to loud applause: "I didn't think Brandeis needed a 
Harvard professor to come" and tell them how to think.

After Carter's speech, roughly half of the audience remained to hear 
Dershowitz's rebuttal.

He said that Carter modified some of his viewpoints during his 
appearance at Brandeis and corrected information in his book.

"Had he written a book similar to what he said on stage, I don't 
believe there would have been much controversy, " he said. "I wish I 
didn't have to be here today to respond to President Carter."

Dershowitz later added, "We are not that far apart in our views."

Students left the former president's speech with mixed opinions.

Jake Sebrow, 22, a senior majoring in politics, said he was impressed 
by Carter's talk and supported his message of peace, but still 
disagreed with a lot of what he said.

"I think he showed how to go about creating a dialogue," Sebrow said.

Sara Hammershleg, 19, a freshman wearing a "Pro Israel, Pro Peace" 
button, was upset that there hadn't been a debate, that the questions 
were screened, and students couldn't ask follow-ups.

"I wish he could have been challenged more," she said.

But Nadhava Palikapitiya, 30, a graduate student from Sri Lanka, said 
Carter's message was on the mark.

"I agree with him 150 percent, that people have to try to look at this 
debate objectively, " he said.

Carter's talk was open only to the Brandeis community and the press.

An overflow crowd of several hundred students and faculty members 
watched the speech shown on two large screens in the student center.

Across the street from the gym where Carter spoke, a mix of Carter 
critics and supporters, mostly nonstudents, stood in a designated area 
holding signs with opposing views.

Erik Miller, 26, held a sign that said, "Carter lied, thousands died." 
A few feet away, Karen Klein, held a sign expressing support for Carter.

Miller, 26, who said he had just returned from a 20-day trip to Israel, 
is a campus coordinator of the David Project Center for Jewish 
Leadership, a Boston-area group that supports Israel. He said he 
objected to the title of Carter's book.
"Israel is the most free, the most open country," Miller said. "I saw 
black Jews. I saw brown Jews. I saw white Jews and also non-Jews. The 
true apartheid is in the Arab world, where if you're not Muslim and if 
you're not male, you can be victimized very easily."

Klein, a member of the Workmen's Circle, a national Jewish 
organization, said she believed Carter's view supported peace in Israel.

Several hours before his speech, Carter signed books at the Harvard 
Coop in Cambridge for several hundred people, who were mainly 
supporters.

One woman said, "I wish you were running in 2008."

April Simpson of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

____________ _

At Brandeis, a dialogue Boston Globe It is a delicate balance for the 
academy, trying to promote civility without stifling speech. Until 
President Jimmy Carter's actual appearance at Brandeis yesterday, I had 
been prepared to write that for the second time in a year, the 
university had leaned too far in the wrong direction. Eileen McNamara 
January 24, 2007 --

EILEEN MCNAMARA
At Brandeis, a dialogue

By Eileen McNamara, Globe Columnist
January 24, 2007

It is a delicate balance for the academy, trying to promote civility 
without stifling speech. Until President Jimmy Carter's actual 
appearance at Brandeis yesterday, I had been prepared to write that for 
the second time in a year, the university had leaned too far in the 
wrong direction
.
But something happened on the way to that column: Events proved me 
wrong.

The university's decision to screen the questions posed to Carter and 
to bar a documentary filmmaker from his speech on the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict gave every appearance of an institution 
trying to control a potentially volatile debate. It is true, as 
administrators argued, that some questions are unfocused and that all 
venues have space limitations. But, I was prepared to write, isn't an 
unbridled discussion in the finest tradition of academic freedom?

I still think room could have been found for Jonathan Demme to set up 
his camera in the Shapiro Gymnasium, but there was nothing repressive 
about the selection of questions posed to Carter, whose recent book, 
"Palestine Peace Not Apartheid," has caused such rancor. The 15 
questions, selected by a committee of faculty and students, challenged 
the former president on everything from his use of the word apartheid 
to a sentence on page 213 that some have construed as an endorsement of 
suicide bombing as a tool of political change, an interpretation Carter 
vehemently denied. (The wording will be changed in future editions, he 
said.)

Carter came to Brandeis -- where, in the interest of full disclosure, I 
must mention that I teach a journalism class -- after a challenging 
year for the nonsectarian university that was founded by the American 
Jewish community in 1948, the same year that Israel declared its 
independence. Last spring, administrators took down a student-organized 
exhibit of paintings by Palestinian teenagers from a refugee camp in 
Gaza in a misguided critique of its lack of balance. At commencement, 
several students unfurled Israeli flags to protest the award of an 
honorary degree to playwright Tony Kushner, who has criticized Israel.

Speech and its limits, in short, have been a hot topic on campus.

Carter's appearance turned out to be everything that the controversy 
roiling around his book is not: thoughtful and respectful. The hundreds 
of students and faculty who filled the folding chairs in the gym might 
have disagreed with Carter, but they listened to him and he to them 
when they challenged his assertion that Israel's security would be 
enhanced, not threatened, by withdrawal from the Palestinian 
territories.

No such civility would have prevailed if Carter had shared the stage 
with Alan Dershowitz, whose low opinion of Carter is matched only by 
his high opinion of himself. The Harvard Law professor wrote an op-ed 
piece in this newspaper last month calling the former president a 
hypocrite and a coward and a bully. Carter's sin was not so much 
writing a book that Dershowitz didn't like. It was Carter's refusal to 
debate him about the merits of that book that rankled the smartest man 
in Cambridge. Dershowitz delivered a rebuttal after Carter left the 
building last night.

"You can always tell when a public figure has written an indefensible 
book: when he refuses to debate it in the court of public opinion," 
Dershowitz wrote. "And you can always tell when he's a hypocrite to 
boot: when he says he wrote a book in order to stimulate a debate and 
then he refuses to participate in any such debate."

Carter's refusal looked more like common sense than cowardice to anyone 
who remembers Dershowitz's debate with Noam Chomsky of MIT about Israel 
at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, an exchange 
that degenerated into personal attacks that Chomsky later characterized 
as infantile.

The Brandeis audience was spared that exercise in egotism. They read 
Carter's book. Some came equipped to challenge it. They listened. They 
will make up their own minds. Delicate balance achieved.

Eileen McNamara is Globe columnist. She can be reached at 
mcnamara at globe. com.

© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company


 
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