Former US President Jimmy Carter, a vocal critic of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, ventured into one such settlement on Sunday and told its hardline residents that their community is among those which should be able to remain in place under a final peace deal with the Palestinians.

Settler leader Shaul Goldstein called Carter “brave” for visiting and said the 85-year-old former president “understood what we said about our heritage here and ties to the land here.”

Carter, who brokered Israel’s 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, has become a controversial figure in the Jewish state after meeting with the anti-Israel militants of Hamas and writing a book warning that Israel’s West Bank occupation risked replicating apartheid South Africa. Carter described his visit to Neve Daniel, located just south of Jerusalem, as a chance to listen and to make his views known.

Despite his belief that Israel should relinquish occupied land to the Palestinians, Carter told Neve Daniel’s residents that he expects their community and others built near the line between Israel and the West Bank to remain in Israeli hands.