Carter speaks

This afternoon I went to hear former President Jimmy Carter speak in Zellerbach Hall. He is looking a lot older than he does in photos (although I couldn't see him very well from way up where I was sitting), but he is still a great speaker. Carter seems to have been accused of descending into anti-Semitism in his old age, but unless he says things in his book that he didn't say today, I don't see any support for those accusations. It's really kind of sad when he feels compelled to state (as he did today) that he has never believed that the American media is controlled by Jews. He started the speech by stressing his commitment to the state of Israel and to the plight of Soviet Jews while in office, and the shared values and sacred texts of Christianity and Judaism. Certainly the use of the term "apartheid" is provocative, and I think he made peace between Israel and the Palestinians sound a bit simpler to achieve than it probably is, but this is entirely different from accusing him of having become racist. It was a very well-reasoned speech and I hope his honest message about the plight of the Palestinian people gets more attention in this country. After hearing him speak, I just really can't buy the argument that he is unreasonably biased in favor of the Palestinians.

I was expecting some blunt questions by audience members, but the questions were written on cards and then selected by a moderator from the journalism school, so very few of the questions focused on the Middle East, which was a bit of a disappointment. The questions were wide-ranging. He certainly came out looking way ahead of his time for having advocated energy conservation thirty years ago.