The accusation followed Carter's meeting with Damascus-based Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal several days earlier as Carter attempted to help broker a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in an endeavor to spare civilians on both sides of the divide.

Carter also met with other Hamas leaders in Cairo after Israel refused to allow him to enter Gaza to meet the Islamic organization's leaders there.

Gillerman stated that Carter had gone "to the region with soiled hands and come back with bloody hands" after shaking the hand of Meshaal.

Gillerman also referred to the meeting as "a very sad episode in American history" and said it was "a shame" to see the encounter by Carter, who had done "good things" as a former president.

Carter, a former Nobel peace price winner and the broker of Israel's peace treaty with Egypt, has been unpopular with Israel after he authored the book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid," which compared Israeli policies with those of apartheid South Africa.

Rather than attacking and refuting the book's content, Israel attacked the author, who has won the respect of many around the world with his credible peace efforts internationally. He is also possibly the most popular ex-U.S. president to date.

Furthermore, Carter got substantial support from many Israelis who have argued that Hamas can not be ignored and that if negotiations lead to a ceasefire then communication with the Islamists is worth it.

There have been a number of Jewish-American intellectuals, historians and academics such as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein who have also strongly criticized Israel's human rights abuses, which are on public record due to meticulous research and detail by international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

While Israel has been able to write off these critics as either "self-hating Jews" or "anti-Semites," somebody with Carter's clout and credibility has made this harder for the Israeli government to do.

Gillerman's attack on Carter followed on the heels of Israel refusing to allow the new U.N. human rights envoy to the Palestinians, American Jewish law professor Richard Falk, entry into Israel a few weeks earlier after he accused Israel of being responsible for a "Holocaust in the making" in Gaza.

Falk, who will assume the U.N. post of special rapporteur in June, refused to apologize or retract his comments. His statements were made during an essay he wrote last year in which he condemned Israel's economic siege on the coastal strip.

Falk's predecessor, South African law professor, John Dugard, a stinging critic of South Africa's racial policies under the apartheid system, was also singled out for verbal abuse from Israel.

Dugard, who served on the International Law Commission and regularly defended black South Africans during the apartheid era, also commented on the similarities between the former racist policies of his homeland and the discrimination Israel applies to both Israeli-Arabs with Israeli citizenship and Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Dugard said although Israel and apartheid South Africa were different regimes, "Israel's laws and practices in the occupied territories certainly resemble aspects of apartheid."

After describing the discriminatory situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, with closed zones, demolitions and settler-only roads, with building rights and by the army, he asked, "Can it seriously be denied that the purpose of such action is to establish and maintain domination by one racial group [Jews] over another racial group [Palestinians] and systematically oppressing them? And we went on to say: "Israel denies that this is its intention or purpose. But such an intention or purpose may be inferred from the actions described in this report."

He further dismissed Israel's argument that the sole purpose of the vast concrete and steel West Bank barrier is for security. "It has become abundantly clear that the wall and checkpoints are principally aimed at advancing the safety, convenience and comfort of settlers," he said.

Ultimately Israel's attack on Carter and individuals such as Falk and Dugard could well backfire due to the instant dissemination of information through the media and Internet, the detailed documentation of human rights abuses by international human rights organizations and a growing number of individuals refusing to accept the "anti-Semite" or "self-hating Jew" label slapped on them for any valid criticism of Israeli policy.