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Any controversy seemed to be lost on the 700 or so people who lined up Wednesday to get their copies of former President Jimmy Carter's latest book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," signed by the author.
As he signed, Carter occasionally stopped and smiled for pictures, answered general questions from well wishers and asked most of the children their names.
"I think it is the boldest thing an ex-president has ever done," said Muhammad Aljariri of Jordan. "He wrote a book about Palestine and the suffering that they have been through. There has not been one day of peace since [Bill] Clinton left office."
Asa Ackall, a native of Ramallah, purchased two copies of the book.
"It is about time that someone has come out and said that the Palestinian side has always been swept under the carpet," said Ackall. "This is the first time that somebody has shown proof that there is extremely racist policies against the Palestinians."
The book signing, at Books-A-Million at Discover Mills in Gwinnett County, came a day after longtime Carter Center associate Kenneth Stein publicly severed his ties with the center in a blistering e-mail. He said Carter's book was "replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions and simply invented segments."
Jewish groups also have blasted the book, which accuses Israel of creating an apartheid system in the West Bank and Gaza.
"The deep concern for this book begins on the front cover. The title itself is an outrage," said David Harris, executive director of the New York-based American Jewish Committee.
"The effort to introduce the word apartheid, which was a racially motivated policy in South Africa, and try to superimpose it on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is flat out wrong and mischievous. This is a political conflict over borders and competing national claims. It has nothing to do with race."
Carter, who earlier attended a memorial in Roswell for his aunt who died Saturday, said the intent of the book was to provoke discussion and debate about what is going on in the Middle East and to promote renewed efforts to bring peace to Israel, a discussion that he says hasn't taken place since President Bush came into office.
"The book is not about Israel at all," Carter said.
"The book is about Palestine and what is happening to Palestinian people. Which is a terrible affliction and oppression of these people," Carter said before his signing. "There is no doubt that in Palestine, the people are treated with, in many cases, much more harsh treatment than existed in South Africa, even in the apartheid years."
Carter said while he doesn't agree with the criticism of the book, during parts of the writing process, he was at times reluctant to write it because his Middle Eastern views are so different than what is generally spoken in America. "Not only members of Congress and politicians are afraid to speak out against Israel or for protecting Palestinian rights, but even sometimes major news media is reluctant to write an article or op-ed piece critical of Israel," he said.
Carter's ties to the Middle East run deep. While he was the president, he negotiated the historic Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, which led to Nobel Peace Prizes for Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin.
"Our concerns have to be seen against the backdrop of the respect we have for President Carter and the role he played in the Camp David Accords," said Harris. "But he seems to have adopted the Palestinian narrative hook, line and sinker. He makes dubious claims and false assumptions."
Stein, a professor of Middle Eastern history and political science at Emory University, said he was disappointed when he read the book. "I know about his thinking about the Middle East and his capacity for knowing information," Stein said. "It wasn't the man I knew in the '80s. There were things in the book that were uncalled for."
Stein, who served as the Carter Center's first-ever executive director, is listed by the center as a fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs. But he said he had not been to the center in more than a year and that Carter stopped being advised by Emory faculty members and fellows in the mid-1990s.
"He kept some of us in name only," Stein said. "I am not writing memos shaping ideas. Not preparing him for interviews. Not helping him construct ideas that can be used in the Middle East."
Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
