Former US President Jimmy Carter. Photo: Department of Defense.

Alumni and pro-Israel supporters of Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law have launched a campaign to prevent to the university from awarding former President Jimmy Carter with the school’s “International Advocate for Peace Award.”

The award is being presented by the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution.

In reaction to the award, a group of leading alumni and pro-Israel supporters calling itself “The Coalition of Concerned Cardozo Alumni” has established a website, shameoncardozo.com, which accuses Jimmy Carter of “anti-Israel bigotry” and urges Cardozo alumni to contact the Dean of Cardozo and the President to Yeshiva University to express their outrage.

Carter has been criticized by many in the Jewish community for his 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which criticizes Israel’s presence in the West Bank. Many leading Jewish scholars, including former top Mideast diplomat Dennis Ross, Emory University Professor and Middle East historian Kenneth Stein, and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, have pointed out inaccuracies in Carter’s book.

“I can’t imagine a worse candidate for any kind of a human rights award,” Dershowitz told the Washington Free Beacon on Monday. “He has more blood on his hands than practically any other president.”

Yeshiva University and Cardozo Law School have defended their choice, and told the Jewish Press in a statement that they plan to honor Carter for his “lifetime of work, from the historic Camp David Peace Accord between Israel and Egypt, to monitoring some 90 elections around the world and supporting fledgling democracies to resolve conflicts without violence.”

Meanwhile, a number of Cardozo alumni plan to use civil disobedience to block Carter from attending the event.

“Mr. Carter ain’t going to get anywhere,” Daniel Rubin, 62, told the Forward. “There’s no reason for a school that has any sense of Jewish integrity to have a guy like that around,” he added.