Carter accuses Jewish group of slander

Former President Carter implicitly accused the Simon Wiesenthal Center of “falsehood and slander.” Carter’s broadside came after the center mailed Carter some 25,000 signed petitions protesting his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” In a brief note to Rabbi Marvin Hier, the center’s founder and dean, Carter wrote, by hand, “I don’t believe that Simon Wiesenthal would have resorted to falsehood and slander to raise funds.” In his response to Carter, Hier noted that after reading the book, “It is incredulous to me that, after your historic achievement of brokering peace between Israel and Egypt, you could write such a book.” After noting that the United States would react in the same way as Israel if exposed to terrorism and suicide bombings, Hier concluded, “To his last breath, Simon Wiesenthal believed that the only reason there is no peace in the Middle East is because of Islamic extremists who refuse to compromise, not because of the State of Israel.”