Carter: Israeli apartheid 'worse'

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Former US President Jimmy Carter says some Israeli restrictions imposed on Palestinians in the West Bank are worse than apartheid-era South Africa.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6169107.stm

Israel has blocked a UN fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip that was to be led by South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, the UN says.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6168309.stm

As Jimmy Carter wrote the other day: "It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine ... Very few of them would ever deign to visit the cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...968965,00.html

[Ferre]

Ah, what's new? The Israeli government is treating the Palestinians as sub-humans since decades. They take their land, destroy their houses, poison their water supplies, destroy their crops and prevent the Palestinians from farming, destroy their roads, power sources, assasinate and/or kidnap their politicians, etc. The list of crimes goes on and on since the past 40+ years.

No one cares...and the few people who dare to mention this are labeled anti-semites or sometimes even fascists.

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Israel, Palestine, peace and apartheid

Americans need to know the facts about the abominable oppression of the Palestinians

Jimmy Carter
Tuesday December 12, 2006
The Guardian

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. For the past 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticise policies of the Israeli government is due to the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.

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 defence of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents.

What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the US exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.

My new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, is devoted to circumstances and events in Palestine and not in Israel, where democracy prevails and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed equal status. It is already possible to judge public and media reaction. Sales are brisk, and I have had interesting interviews on TV. But I have seen few news stories in major newspapers about what I have written.

Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organisations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel. Two members of Congress have been publicly critical. Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me "anti-semitic," and others accuse the book of "lies" and "distortions". A former Carter Centre fellow has taken issue with it, and Alan Dershowitz called the book's title "indecent". Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. 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. 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 black people lived under in South Africa during apartheid. I have made it clear that the motivation is not racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonise choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens. Obviously, I condemn acts of terrorism or violence against innocent civilians, and I present information about the casualties on both sides.

The ultimate purpose of my book is to present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and help restart peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbours.

Another hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this goal might be motivated to express their views, even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad to help with that effort.

· Jimmy Carter was US president from 1977-81. His book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid was published last month. This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the Los Angeles Times

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...970058,00.html

[it career]

I am just wondering what may happen after Iran acquires a nuclear bomb

[Ferre]

Originally Posted by it career

I am just wondering what may happen after Iran acquires a nuclear bomb

Maybe the Israeli's and Americans will stop bullying them?

[CoralRain]

What Iran wants to do to Israel and the rest of the world is a lot worse than any "bullying" they are doing.

[Ferre]

Originally Posted by CoralRain

What Iran wants to do to Israel and the rest of the world is a lot worse than any "bullying" they are doing.

LOL, As most people in the western world, you are being fed with fearmongering stories about how dangerous Iran is for Israel.

For one, people really believe that the Iran president wants to whipe out Israel from the map. NOT true. He has NEVER said anything like that.

Whet he has said is that the current Israeli policies (towards Palestinians and Lebanese people) have no right of existance. This is "translated" by the us-wars-friendly-mainstream-media as if he has said that "Israel has no right of existance" which is not true. The dude doesn't want to whipe out Israel, he wants Israel to behave like humans, like we all do.

Iran has a long history of being harassed and manipulated by the US and UK. The Brits and CIA placed the Sjah there decades ago untill he turned his back on them and then they replaced him with Khomeiny, all the problems of hostility towards the US and UK in Iran are caused by the UK and the US themselves. What they need to do is stop harassing the Arabs and let them live their lives the way they want it. They could start buying their oil like the rest of the world instead of overthrowing governments and waging wars for it all the time.

I think that Iran has no intention to start wars, I think they want peace like everyone else.

[ewomack]

Yes, as expected, Carter has already been labeled an anti-semite, a supporter of terrorism, and a "friend to Hamas" by many already. Apparently he wanted to open the debate in the United States on Israel-Palestinian relations because he sees the debate here as one sided, namely, Israel is good, Palestine is bad. Carter doesn't think that Israel itselfis an apartheid, he gives that name to the occupied territories only. People in the US, at least the ones I've spoken with, tend towards fanatical polarization on this issue. Sigh... like most political debates here. I don't know if Carter's book will make things better or worse, but perhaps it will level the playing field somewhat - I have a copy but haven't read it yet.

[John Scott]

On October 23, 2005 Ahmadinejad gave a speech that contained antagonistic statements about Israel. According to widely published translations, he agreed with a statement he attributed to Ayatollah Khomeini that the "occupying regime" had to be removed, and referred to Israel as a "disgraceful stain [on] the Islamic world" that would be eliminated.[54]

Ahmadinejad's comments were condemned by major Western governments, the European Union, Russia, the United Nations Security Council and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.[55] Egyptian, Turkish and Palestinian leaders also expressed displeasure over Ahmadinejad's remark.[56] Canada's then Prime Minister Paul Martin said, “this threat to Israel's existence, this call for genocide coupled with Iran's obvious nuclear ambitions is a matter that the world cannot ignore.”[57]

The translation of his statement has been disputed. At a news conference on January 14, 2006, Ahmadinejad claimed regarding the October speech "There is no new policy, they created a lot of hue and cry over that."[58] In June, 2006 The Guardian columnist and foreign correspondent Jonathan Steele cited several Farsi speakers and translators who state that the phrase in question is more accurately translated as "eliminated" or "wiped off" or "wiped away" from "the page of time" or "the pages of history", rather than "wiped off the map".[59] Reviewing the controversy over the translation, New York Times deputy foreign editor Ethan Bronner observed that "all official translations" of the comments, including the foreign ministry and president's office, "refer to wiping Israel away".[60] Further, when asked point-blank by 60 Minutes's Mike Wallace, Ahmadinejad made no denial of the statement.[47] The fact that the unabridged statement expresses a desire to see the "occupying regime" in Israel become history like the Soviet empire, Saddam Hussein and the Shah regime in Iran is often overlooked by his critics, however.

Ahmadinejad also compared Israel's actions in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict to Adolf Hitler's actions during WWII saying that "Just like Hitler, the Zionist regime is just looking for a pretext for launching military attacks" and "is now acting just like him."[61]

On August 8, 2006, he gave a television interview to Mike Wallace, a correspondent for 60 Minutes, in which he talked about what he views as Israel's culpability for Lebanese suffering and the moral justification for Hezbollah's missile attacks. Later on in the interview Ahmadinejad was pressed on his views regarding the state of Israel, and asked to explain his previous statements questioning its right to exist, and suggesting that it should be relocated to Europe, since Europeans should have been forced to bear primary culpability for the Holocaust.[47]

On December 2, 2006, Ahmadinejad met with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah in Doha, Qatar. At that meeting, he said that Israel "was created to establish dominion of arrogant states over the region and to enable the enemy to penetrate the heart Muslim land." He called Israel a "threat" and said it was created to create tensions in and impose US and UK policies upon the region

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad

[Ferre]

Hehhe, Iran wants the Israeli government removed for the same reason that the USA wanted Saddam removed. Because of the threath of weapons of mass destruction. With one difference, Israel really has them.

If our neighbors were acting the same way towards us as Israel is doing towards its neighbors I think we wanted them to be removed as well, it's a no brainer.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by Ferre

Hehhe, Iran wants the Israeli government removed for the same reason that the USA wanted Saddam removed. Because of the threath of weapons of mass destruction. With one difference, Israel really has them.

Really? The guy just seems to come off as a raving lunatic who would gladly murder Jews for the fun of it.

[Ferre]

I don't think so.

I see it in the light of the times and the nature of how politics goes in the Arab world. The guys indeed looks like a raving lunatic for us people here in the west but he has support from his own people.

Fact is that we (the west) are harvesting the fruits of decades of manipulation, dividing and looting the Arab world. Anyone who knows just the tinyest bit of history can figure out that this has been a process that could not go without pissing people off over there.

They do not trust us and giving them even more agression won't solve anything for that matter. Those insane world leaders we have now somehow don't realize that we can not whipe them all out and grab their resources, one day we WILL have to come to agreements with them. We can't keep on bombing the Arab world into submission without getting burned in the process. And you don't need to be Einstein to figure that out.

[John Scott]

So you're saying that he is a bloodthirsty murderer, but you're ok with bloodthirsty murdering because it's the West's own fault?

I take a slightly different approach. I think bloodthirsty murdering is a "bad thing". People screwed me over in the past, and I refrained from killing most of them. I think the adult thing to do is to work towards peace. As long as this freak is threatening to wipe Isreal from the map, there will be no peace.

And what's with the hypocrisy? You say that war is evil and we shouldn't have invaded Iraq, but is Iran wants to invade Iraq and murder every single man, woman and child you're ready with the refreshments? I don't get it.

[Ferre]

Originally Posted by John Scott

So you're saying that he is a bloodthirsty murderer, but you're ok with bloodthirsty murdering because it's the West's own fault?

NO, you assume things that I did not at all say. I'm not ok with bloodthirsthy murderers.

What I do say is that the west should realize its own part in causing the problems and adjust their policies. Instead of bombing the Arab world into submission they could for once try a different approach.

Einstein's definition of being stupid comes to mind here; doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

When you analize the problems in the middle east you will find that those problems are rooted in anger towards how the west has been treating them on their own soil since generations. All we do is comming on to them with more sofisticated and deadly weapons when time passes. That's what we have been doing for the past decades. Of course they don't like us, of course they don't trust us, you don't need to be smart to figure that out.

Originally Posted by John Scott

I take a slightly different approach. I think bloodthirsty murdering is a "bad thing". People screwed me over in the past, and I refrained from killing most of them. I think the adult thing to do is to work towards peace. As long as this freak is threatening to wipe Isreal from the map, there will be no peace.

Down here we say: Barking dogs usually don't bite.

I'm not impressed by threathening speeches, it's political rethoric and Iran is not the only country that, in general, uses strong language to express their points. Besides, exaggerating is not uncommon in politics and some countries are louder than others.

I think that Iran makes a lot of noice because they feel threathened by America, I think diplomacy could work a lot better than threaths for both sides, again, we can not whipe them all out and one day we WILL have to come to a diplomatic and peaceful solution.

Originally Posted by John Scott

And what's with the hypocrisy? You say that war is evil and we shouldn't have invaded Iraq, but is Iran wants to invade Iraq and murder every single man, woman and child you're ready with the refreshments? I don't get it.

I don't get what you are talking about. I never said anything like that. All I say is what a lot of other people also say and that's to change approach because history shows that the current one only provoces more violence and hatred towards the western world.

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Originally Posted by John Scott

So you're saying that he is a bloodthirsty murderer, but you're ok with bloodthirsty murdering because it's the West's own fault?

Bloodthirsty murderer??? Has Iran invaded any nations lately?? As far as you can remember, has Iran ever attacked any nation?

If you want to find a bloodthirsty murderer, I suggest you look closer to your own backyard.

By the way Ferre, you are one of a smart dude. You are very intelligent, very informed and are able to seperate the propaganda fed by the jewish-controlled US media from the real facts.

[CoralRain]

Iran hasn't invaded anyone not because it doesn't desire to, but because it can't. They would get there behinds kicked even if they attacked teeny tiny Israel. The difference in the deaths caused by America and those caused by Iranian supported terrorists is that the former were not intentional.

Originally Posted by adspace-auctions.com

By the way Ferre, you are one of a smart dude. You are very intelligent, very informed and are able to seperate the propaganda fed by the jewish-controlled US media from the real facts.

LOL, adspace you would fit right in with the terrorists. You either have to believe the "propaganda fed by the jewish controlled media" or you have to believe the propaganda that jews are the cause of and in control of everything. America supports Israel for reasons far beyond any Jewish lobby.

However, the west should try to help the middle east instead of force it into submission. Violence only leads to more violence.

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