Michael Doran, a historian and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, dives into the complexities of Jimmy Carter's presidency and his impact on U.S.-Israel relations. Doran critiques the Camp David Accords, questioning how much credit Carter deserves compared to Sadat and Kissinger. He discusses the dual perspectives on Israel's role as an asset or liability in American foreign policy, and examines the contrasting diplomatic styles of Carter and Kissinger in addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Carter's presidency is marked by a complex legacy regarding the U.S.-Israel relationship, blending significant diplomatic achievements with moral ambivalence.
His post-presidency focus on Palestinian rights highlights an enduring commitment to moral diplomacy, yet reveals tensions with geopolitical realities in the Middle East.
Deep dives
Jimmy Carter's Early Political Career and Views on Israel
Jimmy Carter's political ascent began in Plains, Georgia, where he served as governor before becoming the President of the United States. His tenure was marked by significant foreign policy challenges, particularly regarding Israel and its neighbors. While he is often credited for brokering the Camp David Accords, his views on the U.S.-Israel relationship were complex and sometimes portrayed Israel as a liability rather than an asset in American foreign policy. This ambivalence towards Israel shaped his administration's approach to peace negotiations in the Middle East.
Carter's Approach to Middle East Peace
Carter approached Middle East peace with a desire for comprehensive agreements that recognized Palestinian interests, which contrasted sharply with previous administrations that prioritized U.S.-Israeli relations. Influenced by Sadat's compelling arguments, Carter sought to shift American foreign policy away from Nixon and Kissinger’s strategies, focusing instead on creating a diplomatic framework that encompassed various regional actors. However, this desire for a broader settlement often clashed with Sadat's immediate needs for Egyptian territorial integrity, leading to potential conflict within their negotiation strategies. Consequently, while Carter achieved the historic Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement, his broader vision for lasting peace faltered.
Carter's Misunderstanding of Middle Eastern Dynamics
Carter's views were shaped by a perceived moral obligation to address issues like Palestinian nationalism, which he often mapped onto American civil rights narratives. His influences led to a foreign policy approach that leaned heavily on moral imperatives rather than an understanding of the complex state relationships in the Middle East. This resulted in a belief that American diplomacy could bridge divides through goodwill and dialogue, overlooking hard geopolitical realities, especially how leaders like Begin viewed negotiations. This miscalculation became apparent as he struggled to align U.S. foreign policy with both regional stability and his domestic moral compass.
Legacy of Jimmy Carter's Post-Presidency Actions
In his post-presidency, Carter remained deeply engaged in Middle Eastern affairs, often advocating for Palestinian rights, which some viewed as contentious given his earlier leadership. Despite his humanitarian efforts, his views sometimes reflected a troubling personal bias against leaders like Menachem Begin, which can be interpreted as evidence of an anti-Israel sentiment shadowing his legacy. This continual focus on Middle Eastern issues illustrated Carter's belief in the moral authority of diplomatic dialogue, though critics argue that it reflected a disconnect from the realities of regional politics. Ultimately, Carter's post-presidency work has shaped the ongoing narrative surrounding his presidency and its controversial components.
Jimmy Carter was born in Plains, Georgia on October 1, 1924. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy and serving in the Navy, he returned to his home state, where in 1971 he was elected governor. He became president of the United States in 1977 and remained in office until 1981.
His legacy on matters relating to the U.S.-Israel relationship is ambiguous and contested. He famously presided over the Camp David Accords, signed by the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and the Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin in 1978 and 1979. This peace agreement with the very country that had been Israel’s most dangerous military adversary for the first three decades of its existence has been rightly celebrated as a monumental diplomatic accomplishment. Some historians, including today’s guest, see it however as primarily an accomplishment of Sadat and Henry Kissinger, the powerful secretary of state under Presidents Nixon and Ford, Carter’s predecessors. But the image of President Carter and his aides playing chess and secretly negotiating with the Israelis and Egyptians late into the night at Camp David continues to hold a powerful grip on the popular imagination.
When Carter was defeated in the presidential election of 1980 by Ronald Reagan, he became a very young former president. Over the next four-plus decades, he would write distorted, savage, strange, tortured books about Israel and the Palestinians, finding virtually everything about Jewish sovereignty and the defense it requires repugnant. President Carter was a devout Baptist, and he often criticized Israel and its leaders in theological terms. On today’s podcast, we look back on President Carter’s view of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and how he understood the essential qualities of the Jewish state.
To discuss this topic we have invited the historian and analyst Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East. The background to this conversation is Doran’s 2018 essay “The Theology of Foreign Policy,” which appeared in First Things magazine. Therein, Doran argues that in order to understand American views about Israel, you have to understand the deeper theological argument inside American Protestantism between modernist and fundamentalist approaches to Scripture. (Doran discussed this topic on the August 10, 2018 episode of the Tikvah Podcast at Mosaic). This week, he applies this framework to the presidency and post-presidency of Jimmy Carter.
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