Atlanta, USA— Former American President Jimmy Carter has died peacefully at the age of 100, according to a statement from the Carter Center released on Sunday.
“Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, died peacefully Sunday, Dec. 29, at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family. He was 100, the longest-lived president in U.S. history,” the Center said.
The late president Carter did whatever he could to bring peace to the Palestinian people in their homeland during his four years in office and as an active, relentless peacemaker afterwards. He once said Israel’s policies amounted to an apartheid worse than South Africa’s.
“President Carter is survived by his children — Jack, Chip, Jeff, and Amy; 11 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Rosalynn, and one grandchild,” it added.
“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son as quoted by the Carter Center.
“My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs,” Chip Carter said.
There will be public observances in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., followed by a private interment in Plains, Georgia. The final arrangements for President Carter’s state funeral, including all public events and motorcade routes, are still pending.
He spent precious time at the White House trying to find a lasting peace for the Palestinian people whose rights have been denied by the Zionist state, which is continuing today an unprecedented genocide against them in Gaza.
President Carter came under tremendous pressure and so much criticism from the Zionist lobby in the United States America for telling the truth and voicing concern as to the disastrous state in which Palestinians were living and the denial of their rights as a people under foreign occupation.
However, he had never given up speaking out against Israeli apartheid policies in occupied Palestine or, in that matter, comprised his humanitarian principles and faith.
In remarks broadcasted over radio in November 2006, focusing on his use of the word “Apartheid” in the title of his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid”, President Carter said that Israel’s policies amounted to an apartheid worse than South Africa’s:
“When Israel does occupy this territory deep within the West Bank, and connects the 200-or-so settlements with each other, with a road, and then prohibits the Palestinians from using that road, or in many cases even crossing the road, this perpetrates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even in South Africa.”
