Five readers have filed a class-action lawsuit against former President Jimmy Carter for his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”
His publisher, Simon & Schuster, also was named in the lawsuit, Unterberg et al. v. Jimmy Carter et al.
The lawsuit, filed Feb. 3 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that the book contained “numerous false and knowingly misleading statements intended to promote the author’s agenda of anti-Israel propaganda and to deceive the reading public instead of presenting accurate information as advertised,” according to the Washington Post.
The plaintiffs are asking for at least
$5 million in compensatory as well as punitive and exemplary damages for the $27 book, according to the Post. Their suit charges Carter and Simon & Schuster with breach of contract, unjust enrichment and deceit.
The named plaintiff, Stephen Unterberg, is one of two dual U.S.-Israeli citizens living in New York and Israel pressing the suit. The others are from New Jersey, Minnesota and California.
Adam Rothberg, a spokesman for Simon & Schuster, called the lawsuit “frivolous” in a statement. “It is a chilling attack on free speech that we intend to defend vigorously,” he said. — jta