Informed Speculation

As D’08 reader Julie Trevor noted in the comments to my previous post on Jimmy Carter’s controversial new book, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, there is now a plagiarist angle to the story.  Dennis Ross, former U.S. Envoy to the Middle East, and noted author on Israeli/Palestinian issues, created some maps for his book The Missing Peace that Carter appears to have lifted without attribution, according to both former Carter Center fellow Kenneth Stein, and Ross himself:

Q: Did Jimmy Carter, in his new book, appropriate some of your work without attribution?

ROSS: The maps that are in his book, it certainly appears as if they were taken from my book. Those maps are maps that I created. They didn’t exist. The fact is, when we did the Clinton ideas, when we did Camp David, we presented ideas, percentages, criteria. After the fact, I created maps based on that, and he’s used maps that look they’ve been drawn from my book without attribution.

Contrary to appearances, I don’t enjoy slamming Carter.  I am one of those Americans who harbors a lot of respect for the institution of the Presidency.  However, Carter is becoming a real embarrassment. It’s one thing to present both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian troubles, and there are two sides, of course.  It’s quite another to put out a slipshod piece of work that is, from all indications, both factually incorrect and hastily thrown together.

Carter needs to learn the art of personal diplomacy to go along with his globetrotting efforts…