The Jewish press and now the general press is awash in commentary about Jimmy Carter's newest book, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid," and deservedly so. The term "apartheid" is so dead wrong that a debate might give it legitimacy. Apartheid was a vicious racial practice by the Union of South Africa involving the worst kinds of state-sanctioned murder, imprisonment and social laws. No one who has lived in both countries would make that comparison.

So, if it is not apartheid, what is it? Take this example: Imagine that every time you wanted to go to Boston to see a doctor, go to work or for any other reason, you had to pass a security checkpoint at every bridge, tunnel or road leading to the city.

Imagine that Mexicans manned the security points, soldiers between 19 and 24 years old, some with a 15 word English vocabulary, most with fewer than a hundred words, and few of them fluent.

Imagine as well waiting as long as two hours for the inspection, but never knowing in advance how long you'd be delayed by young soldiers with the authority to send you home for reasons you did not understand, or that Mayor Menino had declared a Boston closure for St. Patrick's Day.

You would not take this lightly or passively, nor would I. The Palestinians call it harassment and degradation; the Israelis call it protecting innocent civilians from being killed by suicide bombings. Nobody I know calls it apartheid.

Events and practices take place in a context, and in the Middle East, since 1948, the villains include the Palestinian leaders, Arab states, Islamic religious leaders, the United Nations, and, yes, Israel, as well as the Palestinian people themselves.

While using the inflammatory term apartheid may sell more books, a book shelf life of a couple of months is standard. The danger is that this is a device by which pro-Palestinian zealots can request their cities and universities disinvest from the Israeli economy.

We also need to be wary of giving undue publicity to the book. "Blasted by Jews" has replaced "Banned in Boston" as a great way of increasing sales.

Though Mr. Carter leans to the Palestinian cause, he, unlike others, especially a whole host of college professors and self-proclaimed progressives, has the standing and the experience to make his case.

By standing, I mean that Carter convinced Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to sign a peace treaty in 1979. That Egyptian-Israeli peace accord, as lukewarm as it has been, has saved countless lives on both sides. That alone gets him my applause.

By experience, I mean he has visited the Middle East, including Israel, countless times. During a three-hour CSpan 2 video appearance last week, he acknowledged the vibrant democracy within Israel proper and the opportunities available to Arab citizens. And when he told the Atlanta Press Club, "The greatest commitment in my life has been trying to bring peace to Israel," I believe he means it.

Mr. Carter is also wrong in claiming that more discussion in America about his book will help bring change to the Middle East. Sadly, few people really care about what happens in other countries. Are people outside the affected communities debating Northern Ireland, Cyprus, India and Pakistan, honor killings, forced prostitution, and the worst, genocide in Darfur? The answer is a resounding, no.

Carter and others blame Jewish organizations for using power to stifle debate. Jews cannot be blamed for censoring debate on the above topics. In fact, nobody works harder on Darfur than the Jewish community. Still, public debate remains negligible.

Conversely, even if public opinion could be roused in one nation, would that change the laws or behaviors of another country?

The world, almost in unison so they say, decried President Bush's withdrawal from the Kyoto environmental treaty six years ago. So far, a big yawn in Washington.

And so it will be in Jerusalem, Beirut, Damascus, and Cairo, even if a percentage of the American people start taking the Middle East more seriously. As they say, all politics is local.

Sad, but if, and there are a lot of ifs, Ariel Sharon had not suffered a stroke, if Hezbollah had not provoked last summer's 34-day war, if Gazan militants were not lobbing rockets into Israel, a Palestinian state might today be coming into existence. President Carter's book would not have been published.

That chance for peace will come again. Meanwhile, those security checkpoints will tragically need to remain in place..