Jewish leader doubts Carter apology on Israel

ATLANTA — A prominent Jewish leader said Monday he doubts the sincerity of former President Jimmy Carter’s recent apology to the Jewish community after Carter said in a speech this month that the U.S. government has “yielded excessively” to Israel.

Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in December he was encouraged that Carter had sent an open letter to the Jewish community a few months earlier to offer an Al Het — a prayer said on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

But he said Monday that the comments Carter made at a two-day conference on U.S.-Arab relations, in which he encouraged President Barack Obama to take a more “balanced” position in its relations with Israel, “leave little doubt of the insincerity of his apology.”

“Nothing has changed. None of his views have been recalibrated,” said Foxman, who said he spoke with the Georgia Democrat by telephone last week about his comments. “He hasn’t really changed his views and I don’t understand what this Al Het letter was all about.”

Carter, who could not immediately be reached for comment, issued his apology in hopes of improving an often-tense relationship with the Jewish community.