Former 39th President Jimmy Carter came to speak at UC Irvine about the Middle East conflict between Israel and Palestine on Thursday, May 3 at 10:30 a.m. in the Bren Events Center.
Carter, president from 1977-1981, is the third president to visit UCI, following Lyndon B. Johnson, who visited while in office in 1964, and Gerald Ford in the late 1980s.
Over 100 universities requested his visit and UC Irvine was one of the six so far that he has attended. One of Carter’s greatest accomplishments was that he presided over the Camp David Accords, in which Israel agreed to give Palestine full autonomy and withdrew forces from the lands of Egypt and Palestine.
‘Last month, almost 27 years later, not a single word has been violated,’ Carter said.
Recently, Carter led the Carter Center Observer Team to monitor elections in Palestine, which, to him, exemplified ‘the most honest, safe and peaceful elections [he has] ever seen.’
Carter’s new book, ‘Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,’ reflects his most important goal ‘to bring peace, justice and righteousness of the Palestinian people.’ In his controversial book, which involved more than 120 interviews, ‘some with discomfort,’ Carter refers to Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians.
‘Forced segregation of the people inside Palestine and extreme persecution is not based on racism,’ Carter said. ‘It’s based on the few Israelis and their occupation.
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