- I signed a contract with Simon & Schuster two years
ago to write a book about the Middle East, based on my personal observations
as the Carter Center monitored three elections in Palestine...
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- The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and
the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and
throughout other nations - but not in the United States.
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- For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced
the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts.
This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is
because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political
Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.
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- It would be almost politically suicidal for members of
Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to
suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense
of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign
to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City
or even Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents.
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- What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the
editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States
exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments
expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.
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- ...Although I have spent only a week or so on a book
tour so far, it is already possible to judge public and media reaction.
Sales are brisk, and I have had interesting interviews on TV, including
"Larry King Live," "Hardball," "Meet the Press,"
"The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," the "Charlie Rose"
show, C-SPAN and others.
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- But I have seen few news stories in major newspapers
about what I have written.
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- Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written
mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely
to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that
the book is anti-Israel.
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- Two members of Congress have been publicly critical.
Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for instance, issued a statement (before
the book was published) saying that "he does not speak for the Democratic
Party on Israel." ...Alan Dershowitz called the book's title "indecent."
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- Out in the real world, however, the response has been
overwhelmingly positive. I've signed books in five stores, with more than
1,000 buyers at each site. I've had one negative remark - that I should
be tried for treason - and one caller on C-SPAN said that I was an anti-Semite.
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- My most troubling experience 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.
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- ...The book describes the abominable oppression and persecution
in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required
passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish
settlers in the West Bank.
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- An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction,
snaking through what is left of Palestine to encompass more and more land
for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks
lived under in South Africa during apartheid.
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- ...the motivation is ...the desire of a minority of Israelis
to confiscate and colonize choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully
suppress any objections from the displaced citizens.
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- ...in (Arab) East Jerusalem...under severe Israeli restraints,
only about 2% of registered voters managed to cast ballots (in the last
election)...
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- Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States.
His newest book is "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," published
last month.
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