The controversy accompanying President Carter’s book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” continues unabated. Full page ads accusing Carter of anti-Semitism appeared in the New York Times. It is interesting and telling that Abraham Foxman, national director of The Anti-Defamation League, did not challenge the accuracy of Carter’s criticism of Israeli policies but resorted to cheap, personal attacks. There is little doubt that Foxman would be hard pressed to find fault with the inconvenient truths of blatant racism and oppression of the Palestinians meticulously documented in Carter’s book. Watch dog committees are carefully monitoring major media outlets such as CNN and NPR. Their goal is not to challenge content but vigorously propagandize pro-Israeli advocacy and silence dissenting voices.
America is not well served when its policies do not receive a respectable hearing by its people who are indirectly funding the Israeli war machine and are therefore complicit in the land appropriation, ethnic cleansing and starvation of its indigenous population. I wonder how vociferous supporters of Israel would respond if a foreign power were to occupy the U.S. and demand legitimacy. How would citizens respond if their homes were demolished to provide land for the occupying power? Drawing on the Israeli model, protests or resistance (by “terrorists”) would be accompanied with curfews, economic deprivation, targeted assassinations, torture, and long term sentences in dungeons. That is the reality of Palestine.
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