Former President Jimmy Carter. Photo: www.reddogreport.com.

The Anti-Defamation League and The Simon Wiesenthal Center have weighed in on the decision by a journal at the Cardozo Law School, which is affiliated with Yeshiva University, to honor former U.S. President Jimmy Carter with its “International Advocate for Peace” award.

Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s National Director, told The Algemeiner: “The students were wrong – they are entitled to be wrong and inappropriate and we are entitled to say that honoring former President Carter is wrong, especially for  a Jewish institution…and indeed for any institution.  Desmond Tutu, who is more problematic than Jimmy Carter when it comes to issues relating to Israel, was also honored.  I wouldn’t do it.  I wouldn’t vote for it, I wouldn’t support it.  We need to do a better job educating – wrongly stigmatizing Israel does not help to resolve the problems.  Hopefully if we instill those values, future mistakes like this will not be made.”

Foxman added that “the University responded properly,” to the controversy.

Likewise Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Algemeiner that the students did not “exercise due diligence .”

“Had they done so,’ he added, “they would have discovered that Mr Carter has never resolved his conflict with the Jewish state. His serial bias against Israel is well-documented. That alone should have led tomorrow’s lawyers, whatever their ethnicity or religion,  to conclude  that President Carter should not receive such an honor.”

Many in the Jewish community have expressed their outrage at the honor being bestowed upon Carter, who is widely considered to be a hostile critic of the Jewish state having often referred to it as an “apartheid state” and encouraging the U.S. to embrace terror group Hamas as a legitimate peace partner. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who wrote extensively about Carter in his book “The Case Against Israel’s Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace,” told The Algemeiner in an interview Monday that he “can’t imagine a worse person to honor for conflict resolution. Here’s a man who has engendered conflict wherever he goes. He has encouraged terrorism by Hamas and Hezbollah. He was partly responsible for Yasser Arafat turning down the Clinton-Barak peace offer.”