Former President Jimmy Carter visited Brandeis University yesterday. You’ll recall he refused to appear if it meant that he had to debate Alan Dershowitz with regard to Carter’s recent book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” (Although he persistently says he wrote the book in order to provoke debate.) Dershowitz came on for a rebuttal after Carter had safely left the building. I didn’t get to hear very much of the event. The New York Sun blogs on it today.

The Boston Globe also reports on some backtracking by Carter in this appearance:

In response to a question, Carter apologized for a sentence in his book that he acknowledged seemed to justify terrorism by saying that suicide bombings should end when Israel accepts the goals of the road map to peace with Palestinians.

“That sentence was worded in a completely improper and stupid way,” Carter said. “I’ve written my publishers to change that sentence immediately in future editions of the book. I apologize to you personally and to everyone here.”

But.

But he defended the use of the word apartheid in his book title.

“I realize that this has caused great concern in the Jewish community,” he said. “The title makes it clear that the book is about conditions and events in the Palestinian territory and not in Israel. And the text makes clear on numerous occasions that the forced separation and the domination of Arabs by Israelis is not based on race.”

The Globe quotes some of Dershowitz’s follow-up too:

“Had he written a book similar to what he said on stage, I don’t believe there would have been much controversy,” he said. “I wish I didn’t have to be here today to respond to President Carter.”

Dershowitz later added, “We are not that far apart in our views.”

I heard enough of Dershowitz’s talk to know that the above is not a fair representation of the overall tone of his remarks. He did make the point that Carter appeared to be different person in this appearance at Brandeis, but spent some considerable time tackling the other Jimmy Carter: the one who wrote the book and the one who gives interviews to al-Jazeera which feed into their anti-Jewish worldview.

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