Five readers have filed a $5 million lawsuit against former president Jimmy Carter, alleging that his 2006 anti-Israel book, “Peace Not Apartheid,” was so riddled with inaccuracies and misleading statements that it violated consumer-protection laws:
The suit accuses Carter and his publisher of violating New York consumer protection laws because they engaged in “deceptive acts in the course of conducting business” and alleges that they sought enrichment by promoting the book “as a work of non-fiction.”
In a press release, one of the attorneys, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner stated: “The lawsuit will expose all the falsehoods and misrepresentations in Carter’s book and prove that his hatred of Israel has led him to commit this fraud on the public. He is entitled to his opinions but deceptions and lies have no place in works of history.”
The plaintiffs don’t seem to have much of a legal case here. The spokesperson for Simon & Schuster told the Washington Post that the lawsuit would have “a chilling attack on free speech,” and he’s probably right. Carter’s anti-Israel tome may be a disgraceful distortion of reality, but if that was illegal, then there would be a lot of bankrupt authors.
The main point of the case seems to be to publicize how Carter’s anti-Semitic and anti-Israel views have shaped much of his misleading “advocacy” work in recent years. And that certainly will be fun to watch.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment