President Jimmy Carter Has Died

President Carter's legacy is one of human rights and justice, and he leaves behind an example elected leaders should observe and follow

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"We kept our country at peace. We never went to war. We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet. But still we achieved our international goals."

— President Jimmy Carter (1924-2024)

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President Jimmy Carter has passed away at the age of 100. His legacy is one of unrelenting commitment to human rights. While many will rightly focus on his legacy on human rights broadly, or how he prevented a nuclear meltdown while in the Navy, or his legendary work with Habitat for Humanity after his Presidency—I want to focus on one critical human rights issue in particular that resonates with current world affairs—his stance on Israel and Palestine. And while no President is perfect, President Carter’s interview linked below exemplifies why he is so beloved, and why history will remember him so generously. Let’s Address This.

President Carter upon graduation from the Naval Academy in 1946. [Credit: A.A. Bradley/AP]

In 2007 President Carter sat down with Democracy Now! to discuss what motivated him to write, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” In this book, President Carter cogently argues that the main obstacle to peace in Israel and Palestine is in fact the hundreds of thousands of illegal settlements that Israel continues to build, all with U.S. backing and support. As you watch the short clip below, note that President Carter warns how “powerful forces” remove any member of Congress who speaks out against this unjust policy. Then note how those “powerful forces” that he names have only since grown in power and influence to the detriment of U.S. democracy and world peace.

Contrast President Carter’s clarity and courageous voice with the cowardice and complicit nature of every President since, including their appeasement of the Israeli government’s settlement expansion, land annexation, and apartheid enforcement. And far beyond lip service, President Carter continued to walk the walk on human rights well into his final chapter of life. At the ripe age of 86 he visited Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem to condemn the Israeli government’s forced evictions of Palestinian civilians.

At the rally President Carter declared loudly:

On behalf of The Elders, we have come here to give thanks and congratulations to those Israelis and Palestinians and Christians, all of whom are trying to resolve this injustice peacefully and with demonstrations of commitment to justice and to equality and to fair treatment.

The “injustice” to which President Carter referred, was the Israeli government forcibly evicting three Palestinian families in the year prior.

In 2002 President Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize, "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." Imagine how much better the world would be if we had elected political leaders today who acted with his conviction and compassion? We certainly would not be witnessing what every major human rights organization globally calls a genocide inflicted upon the Palestinian people. Instead, we just might have made meaningful progress to achieve true justice and lasting peace.

Now, as President Carter departs, we reflect on his wisdom and his compassion for the marginalized and maligned, and can only hope, pray, and work to our best, to ensure future leadership follows in his path—one of unrelenting commitment to justice and human rights. Rest in peace, President Carter.