Carter defends book, says character attacks hurt

WALTHAM, Mass., Jan 24 (Reuters) Jimmy Carter defended his controversial book on Tuesday, telling a predominantly Jewish university that his goal was revive West Asia peace talks and that attacks on his character had hurt him and his family.

Jewish groups have expressed outrage at ''Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,'' arguing that its comparison of Israel's treatment of Palestinians with South Africa's reviled apartheid system of racial segregation could undermine perceptions of Israel's legitimacy.

The former US president, in his first direct address to Jewish Americans on his book, said yesterday the title referred to human rights in the Palestinian territories, not in Israel.

He said the word ''apartheid'' was intended to provoke debate on the rights of Palestinians, who he said were being treated unfairly by Israel.

He said he never asserted that Jewish money was controlling the US media, as some critics have charged, but only that the pro-Israel lobby was strong.

''I've been hurt and so has my family by some of the reaction,'' Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, told about 1,700 students at Brandeis University, a secular school founded by the American-Jewish community, outside Boston.

''I've been through political campaigns for state senator, governor and president, and I've been stigmatised and condemned by my political opponents. But this is the first time that I have ever been called a liar. And a bigot and an anti-Semite and a coward, and a plagiarist. This is hurtful,'' he said.

''I can take it,'' he added, joking that he could handle the attacks because as a former US president he still had Secret Service protection.

APOLOGY Carter, 82, has been dogged by protests during a promotional tour. In the book, Carter traces traces the history of West Asia from the 19th century to the present via the Camp David Accords in 1978, a year into his presidency.

He apologised for a passage that can be interpreted as supporting suicide bombings as a negotiating tactic, saying it was a ''mistake'' and would be removed from future editions.

But he said a full Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories was crucial for lasting peace.

The event was tightly controlled and closed to the public, preventing one of Carter's more scathing critics, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, from openly questioning him.

Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor who was on OJ Simpson's legal defense team, wanted to ask Carter why he had accepted money from Saudi Arabia and why the Carter Center, an Atlanta-based humanitarian organization, had criticised Israel while not looking into human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia.

Instead, a student asked those questions.

Carter responded in part by saying all donations were audited with Arab nations contributing a tiny fraction with most of the money going to humanitarian programs.

About 60 protesters, detractors and supporters, gathered outside, some holding Israeli or Palestinian signs and flags.

''We support what Jimmy Carter is saying,'' said Alan Meyers, 56, a Jewish doctor from Boston. ''We feel that there is not enough attention being paid to dissenting Jewish voices in the United States.'' Nearby, Israeli-American Gilend Ini, 29, handed out fliers identifying what he said were errors in Carter's book. ''We're trying to let the public know that much of what he said in his book was factually incorrect information.'' Reuters PB DB0907