Former US President Jimmy Carter dies at 100

After serving in the military, Carter took over his family’s peanut farm in rural Georgia in the 1950s, and later entered state politics as a Democrat, subsequently becoming Governor of Georgia in 1971.

He then ran for president, defeating Gerald R. Ford. He served a single term as the US president from 1977 to 1981. The foreign policy highlight of his presidency was the 1978 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel.

That achievement was followed by a series of setbacks, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and the Iran hostage crisis during which US embassy staff in Tehran were taken hostage for more than a year.

Those crises, coupled with high inflation in the US, was widely seen as leading to Carter’s loss to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.

Carter won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his decades-long efforts in seeking peaceful solutions to international conflicts and his work in advancing democracy and human rights.

He was treated for cancer in 2015 after having a small mass removed from his liver. After using an experimental drug, he announced he was cancer-free in 2016.

In his home state, Carter was widely respected for his work post-presidency through The Carter Center, which he founded with his wife in 1982.

The Atlanta-based organization promotes global democracy and human rights, monitoring elections around the world and helping to negotiate peace agreements. It also plays a prominent role in disease eradication efforts. In 1986, for example, The Carter Center began an international effort to eradicate Guinea worm disease at a time when there were about 3.5 million cases worldwide. Last year, just 13 cases were reported.

Carter was also known for his work with Georgia-based Habitat for Humanity. For decades, into his mid-90s, he and Rosalynn joined volunteers to build affordable housing. In a widely shared video from 2019, Carter was seen helping build a Habitat for Humanity house in Tennessee, one day after suffering injuries from a fall at his home.

The Carters eventually retired and returned to Plains, where Jimmy was born in 1924. He made a public appearance at the Plains Peanut Festival after turning 99.

In a statement, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock called Carter “one of my heroes” and a “Matthew 25 Christian” who “has now graduated into immortality.”

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer paid tribute to Carter’s ”decades of selfless public service,″ adding that the former president would be remembered for brokering the “historic” Camp David Accords — signed between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978 — and his “lifelong dedication to peace.”

“Whether supporting elections around the world and spreading healthcare solutions through the Carter Center or still building homes with Habitat for Humanity into his nineties, Jimmy Carter lived his values in the service of others to the very end,” Starmer wrote in a statement posted on X.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Carter’s role in overseeing the Camp David Accords, describing the peace treaty as offering “hope to future generations.”

The “brevity” of the message perhaps reflects “longstanding tensions” between the Israeli government and Carter, The Times of Israel noted. The former president published the book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid in 2006, which warned that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constituted apartheid and was obstructing the possibility of a two-state solution.