Jimmy Carter backtracks on his public apology

Former President Jimmy Carter gets no love around here and rightfully so. Reasons like this are why Jimmy Carter only served for one term.

Former President Jimmy Carter continues to make biased remarks about Israel, despite a public apology via JTA late last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

In an Op-Ed distributed Monday, ADL National Director Abe Foxman charged that "Rather than focusing on Israel as the only democracy in the region, the one that protects individual rights, including for women and gays, through the rule of law and that has been under siege from the Arab world since its birth, Mr. Carter views the Jewish state through the prism of Western guilt for centuries of racism, colonialism and supremacist ideas."

Carter in a public apology published last December by JTA rued his comments "stigmatizing Israel" and implied that he would refrain from such remarks in the future.

"In sum, by any objective measurement, Mr. Carter has gone back on his public word to the Jewish community not to stigmatize the Jewish state," Foxman wrote.

Foxman pointed to Carter's recent visit to the Middle East with a delegation of The Elders in which "The majority and intensity of his criticisms ... were directed at Israel."

"I want to take Mr. Carter at his word when he made his statement. He may well have intended to apologize for the hurt he may have caused, and he may really have believed that he would in the future act differently," Foxman wrote in conclusion.

"The fact that he hasn't doesn't have to signal disingenuousness as much as how really difficult true atonement is. It takes not only a statement of commitment but, critically, a change in one's thinking. Unfortunately, Mr. Carter's worldview works against Israel and leads to the bias we have seen time and again."