Jimmy Carter: Bought and Paid For?

Cross-posted from WhereIStand

Liberal Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz has a disturbing report on former President Jimmy Carter:

It now turns out that Jimmy Carter–who is accusing the Jews of buying the silence of the media and politicians regarding criticism of Israel–has been bought and paid for by Arab money. In his recent book tour to promote Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Carter has been peddling a particularly nasty bit of bigotry. The canard is that Jews own and control the media, and prevent newspapers and the broadcast media from presenting an objective assessment of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that Jews have bought and paid for every single member of Congress so as to prevent any of them from espousing a balanced position. How else can anyone understand Carter’s claims that it is impossible for the media and politicians to speak freely about Israel and the Middle East? The only explanation – and one that Carter tap dances around, but won’t come out and say directly – is that Jews control the media and buy politicians. Carter then presents himself as the sole heroic figure in American public life who is free of financial constraints to discuss Palestinian suffering at the hands of the Israelis.

Yes, folks, Jimmy has made that age old discovery that seem to be made by a number of folks who have anti-semetic leanings. Got a problem? Blame the Jews. However, Dershowitz argues that Carter is making a claim of freedom from self-interest that allows him to make an honest judgment, when Carter himself has taken large subs from Anti-Israel groups and persons:

Journalist Jacob Laksin has documented the tens of millions of dollars that the Carter Center has accepted from Saudi Arabian royalty and assorted other Middle Eastern sultans, who, in return, Carter dutifully praised as peaceful and tolerant (no matter how despotic the regime). And these are only the confirmed, public donations.

Carter has also accepted half a million dollars and an award from Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, saying in 2001: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." This is the same Zayed, the long-time ruler of the United Arab Emirates, whose $2.5 million gift to the Harvard Divinity School was returned in 2004 due to Zayed’s rampant Jew-hatred. Zayed’s personal foundation, the Zayed Center, claims that it was Zionists, rather than Nazis, who “were the people who killed the Jews in Europe” during the Holocaust. It has held lectures on the blood libel and conspiracy theories about Jews and America perpetrating Sept. 11.

Another journalist, Rachel Ehrenfeld, in a thorough and devastating article on "Carter’s Arab Financiers," meticulously catalogues Carter’s ties to Arab moneymen, from a Saudi bailout of his peanut farm in 1976, to funding for Carter’s presidential library, to continued support for all manner of Carter’s post-presidential activities. For instance, it was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), founded in Pakistan and fronted by a Saudi billionaire, Gaith Pharaon, that helped Carter start up his beloved Carter Center…

As Ehrenfeld concluded:

“[I]t seems that AIPAC’s real fault was its failure to outdo the Saudi’s purchases of the former president’s loyalty. There has not been any nation in the world that has been more cooperative than Saudi Arabia," The New York Times quoted Mr. Carter June 1977, thus making the Saudis a major factor in U. S. foreign policy.

”Evidently, the millions in Arab petrodollars feeding Mr. Carter’s global endeavors, often in conflict with U.S. government policies, also ensure his loyalty.”

It is particularly disturbing that a former president who has accepted dirty blood-money from dictators, anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and supporters of terrorism should try to deflect attention from his own conflicts of interest by raising the oldest canard in the sordid history of anti-Semitism: namely, that Jews have dual loyalty and use their money improperly to influence the country they live in, in favor of the country to which they owe their real allegiance.

I’m disturbed that a President’s position and prestiege could be bought like this. It ought to bother all Americans. While, I’ve disagreed with Mr. Dershowitz many times, one thing we can agree on is the need for answers by President Carter.

Hat Tip: Instapundit

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