‘Naive in the International Arena’: Israelis Reflect on Jimmy Carter’s Complex Legacy

Jerusalem, 30 December, 2024 (TPS-IL) -- Israelis primarily remembered Jimmy Carter for the Camp David Accords, the Iranian Revolution, and his advocacy for Soviet Jewry.

Carter, who was president from 1976-1980, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday at the age of 100.

“It’s difficult to say how sad it is when a person 100 years old passes away,” former Soviet dissident and refusenik Natan Sharansky told The Press Service of Israel. “We all dream to be in a clear mind and live so long.”

Sharansky was arrested in 1977, convicted of spying and treason in a trial denounced by human rights activists. After nine years in prison, he was released in 1986 as part of a prisoner exchange involving several spies. Sharansky’s imprisonment drew attention to the plight of Soviet Jews being denied the right to emigrate.

Sharansky told TPS-IL, “I can say we as Israelis had a lot of problems with Carter in the last 30 years. But at the same time, I have to say that in the very beginning of his presidency, he really raised the question of human rights on the top of the agenda.

“When I was arrested, it was unprecedented then that the President of the United States, against the advice of his own people, went public and said, ‘I checked all the materials, Sharansky is not a spy, we demand the Soviet Union will release him.’ So always, whenever I met him and was critical about his statements about Israel, at the same time, Hakarat Hatov [gratitude], I was saying to him how grateful I am for that statement.”

He added, “Carter’s statement wasn’t important for the KGB. They knew the truth anyway. But it was very important for those Jews all over the world who were fighting for my release. And they wanted to be sure that they were fighting for the right cause. So at this moment that he passed away, I prefer to think about the good things which he did. And the bad things — let’s put them away.”

Herzl Makov, president of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem told TPS-IL, “Carter was a man of faith and he believed that peace and justice are issues that he should dedicate as an American, and the United States should promote those values in the world. We have to give him that. But he was naive and inexperienced in the international arena and how international politics works sometimes.”

Makov credited Carter with helping broker the Israel-Egypt peace agreement by hosting Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for an unprecedented two weeks at the Camp David presidential retreat. But he stressed that Begin and Sadat made their breakthrough by first keeping Carter out of the loop.

“Just after Begin came to power, he started secret negotiations with the Egyptians through, in the beginning, Romania and Iran and then through Morocco,” Makov explained. “They agreed on starting the process and about Sadat coming to Jerusalem, and the White House heard about the visit of Sadat like everybody else.”

The reason Begin and Sadat initially went around Carter was because “Carter wanted to involve the Soviet Union in talks between Israel and Egypt,” Makov said. The Soviet Union was hostile to Israel and had broken relations with the Jewish state in 1967 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, while Sadat was trying to take Egypt out of the Soviet-bloc, Makov explained.

Only after the initial breakthrough was Carter was brought in because Begin understood the need for American guarantees on certain issues, Makov said.

The Iranian Revolution is also part of Carter’s legacy, Makov noted. “Although none of us thought that the Iranian Shah was the example for democracy and human rights, Carter didn’t realize he was letting radical Islam take over Iran. Of course, it didn’t bring democracy to Iran and it really brought a lot of instability to the Middle East. And he didn’t know how to handle it in the beginning. He failed, you know, in the issue of the hostilities as well.”

In his 1980 State of the Union address, Carter insisted the US would use force to defend its interests in the Persian, which became known as the Carter doctrine.

“It wasn’t successful because nobody took it seriously,” Makov said. “When you threaten to use force, you have to prove that you are serious, that you’re ready to do it. And I guess the parties in the area didn’t take it seriously.”

But the peace accords Carter helped bring about marked a “dramatic change” in Israel’s strategic position, Makov insisted.

“Egypt was the leader of the Arabic world in all the wars against Israel in 1948, 1956, 196 and 1973,” Makov told TPS-IL. “Taking out Egypt from that circle was a turning point in the State of Israel’s history.”