Jimmy Carter and Academic Integrity

Scott Johnson at Power Line prints an email sent to a reader by Kenneth W. Stein -- Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History, Political Science, and Israeli Studies at Emory University, and Director of the Middle East Research Program and Emory Institute for the Study of Modern Israel -- noting his resignation as Middle East Fellow of the Carter Center of Emory University (emphasis below is added):

This note is to inform you that yesterday, I sent letters to President Jimmy Carter, Emory University President Jim Wagner, and Dr. John Hardman, Executive Director of the Carter Center resigning my position, effectively immediately, as Middle East Fellow of the Carter Center of Emory University. . . .

For the record, I had nothing to do with the research, preparation, writing, or review of President Carter's recent publication. Any material which he used from the book we did together in 1984, The Blood of Abraham, he used unilaterally.

President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook. Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources, I believe, clearly handicapped his understanding and analyses of how history has unfolded over the last decade. Falsehoods, if repeated often enough become meta-truths, and they then can become the erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and for policy-making. The history and interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary. In due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins.

. . . My continued association with the Center leaves the impression that I am sanctioning a series of egregious errors and polemical conclusions which appeared in President Carter's book. I can not allow that impression to stand.

The Emory University student newspaper, The Emory Wheel, contains the following letter to the editor from Etienne Gentin, Emory Law (’96):

I think it's time for Emory to give a moderate as much visibility as it does to former President Jimmy Carter. Carter's anti-Israel rants and his support for some of the world's greatest despots is a disgrace. Emory needs to reassess its relationship with him.

Discussion threads on Stein's email are here and here.

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