You have to feel bad for Jimmy Carter. Having written a book about what he calls “the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories,” he can’t get anybody to pay attention to it.

Sure, “sales are brisk,” he tells us. The problem, as he writes in the Los Angeles Times, is that he has seen “few news stories in major newspapers about what I have written.” But that can’t surprise him. After all, he writes, “For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts.”

Blocked by the mainstream media, Carter has instead had to console himself with interviews on alternative outlets like Larry King Live. And Hardball. And Meet the Press. And The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. And The Charlie Rose Show. And C-SPAN. Any day now, he may be forced to settle for 60 Minutes.

And it is not just the newspapers that don’t want to talk about his new book. “My most troubling experience,” he writes, “has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors.”

Carter doesn’t mention which universities, or whether he extended the same offer to goyische universities. But on this one, I admit, I’m as troubled as he is. If it’s true that he can’t get a hearing at a university, that’s a loss for the Jewish kids who go there.

In recent years, various pro-Israel advocacy groups have fretted about the “crisis on the campus,” which they define as an “alarming” rise in pro-Palestinian activity. You can imagine how some of these groups would react if Carter were to speak at, say, Columbia or Brandeis.

Actually, you don’t have to imagine: Remember what happened at Rutgers University in 2003, in the months preceding a pro-Palestinian conference organized by New Jersey Solidarity. The Rutgers administration came under pressure to ban the group, with alumni threatening to withhold their contributions if the pro-Palestinian students were given a hearing.

The most reasonable of the conference’s opponents suggested that a university was under no obligation to provide accommodations for a group that supported terror. More worrisome were those who suggested that a weekend of pro-Palestinian advocacy would create a “hostile atmosphere” for Jewish students, as if it is the responsibility of a university to protect students from ideas with which they might disagree. That gets it almost exactly backward: The university is supposed to be a place where one hears contrary ideas. Even if you are not inclined to change your mind, an able opponent whets your intellect, sharpening your own arguments and strengthening your cause.

And that’s exactly what happened as a result of the Solidarity conference. You could even say it was the best thing that happened to the Rutgers Jewish community in decades. Outside Jewish organizations rushed in to help. Student leadership was mobilized as never before. A pro-Israel rally attracted more than 5,000 people, including most of the state’s political leaders. The “Israel Inspires” response became a model of Jewish campus activism around the country.

The lesson of Israel Inspires is one that activists have always known: Nothing motivates like a good opponent. Steven M. Cohen, the veteran Jewish sociologist, says he learned that lesson as a Jewish student activist at Columbia in the 1970s. Last weekend I heard Cohen suggest that inviting Carter could be the very thing to mobilize another generation of Jewish activists.

“The needs of Israel advocacy, to help Israel in the short run, can run counter to the needs of Israel education, which will help Israel in the long run,” Cohen wrote me in a follow-up e-mail. “In that context, for the purposes of Israel education, we are better off inviting Jimmy Carter to air his repulsive and odious views in public, where they can be discussed and rebutted. We have been losing pro-Israel supporters over time — not to the anti-Israel camp, but to the camp of those apathetic to Israel. Speakers such as Jimmy Carter will certainly counter indifference and get Jewish young people talking about, learning about, and supporting Israel.”

I would add that inviting Carter is not just about activism, but intellect. Israel is a much more complicated place than is often depicted by some of its most vocal American supporters. The Israeli press is a hotbed of self-criticism. Some of the most damning reports on Israel are released by its own human rights organizations. (I said damning, not accurate: Advocates on all sides are known to oontz the evidence for maximum effect.) And despite the dichotomy of labels, it is possible to be both a hawk and dove on security. Yes, the Palestinians hate us and too many want to kill us, says the hawkish dove. And that’s why we need separate countries.

The way to counter Carter is not to shun him, nor to present Israel as a pristine, powerless democracy in a bad neighborhood, but to remind him, in public, that Israel’s missteps must be weighed against decades of Palestinian and Arab rejectionism. And that while there is a deep divide within Israeli and Jewish opinion over the settlements, disengagement is moot so long as Hamas continues to call for Israel’s destruction.

You don’t have to “win” the debate, only make sure that it is conducted on a higher intellectual plain. The goal is not to enlighten Carter. It is to remind a Jewish kid out there that Israel matters, and that engaging with its opponents is not a sign of weakness but of strength.

So how about it? Is there a campus Hillel out there willing to host the 39th president for a freewheeling discussion about the Middle East? C’mon — it’s free. And the payoff could be huge.