Jordan Times,
Jordan
President Carter's Book 'Peace, Not Apartheid' is Well-Named
"Continuing to ignore the humiliation, indignities and racism against Palestinians has never served our national interests. Neither has it served
Israeli interests."
By Sherri Muzher*
December 3, 2006
Jordan - Jordan Times - Home Page (English)
Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid is the title of a new book by former President
Jimmy Carter. According to this statesman who oversaw the first Middle East
peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, the title was meant to provoke a
much-needed discussion which rarely ever transpires in U.S. politics and media.
Not surprisingly, before it was even released some American
politicians took issue with the book's title, including a cherished friend of
the Arab-American community, Michigan Congressman John Conyers. He said that
the use of the word "Apartheid" in the title "doesn't serve the
cause of peace - and the use of it, against the Jewish people in particular,
who have been victims of the worst kind of discrimination, discrimination
resulting in death, is offensive and wrong."
Conyers went as far as to call Carter "to express my concerns
about the title of the book, and to request that the title be changed.
President Carter does not build upon his career as a proponent of peace in the
Middle East with this comparison and I hope he and his publisher will
reconsider this decision."
Perhaps he felt that South Africans who lived under a brutal
apartheid regime would be offended. Yet interestingly, South Africa's Bishop
Desmond Tutu and others have referred to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian
Christians and Muslims as "Israeli apartheid."
How are the two situations similar? Well, in a 2002 speech in the
United States, Tutu said he saw "the humiliation of the Palestinians at
checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented
us from moving about."
Back in 1999, South African statesman Nelson Mandela told the
Palestinian Assembly: "The histories of our two peoples correspond in such
painful and poignant ways that I intensely feel myself at home amongst my
compatriots."
South African author Breyten Breytenbach, who spent nine years in prison for resisting
apartheid, wrote in 2002: "I recently visited the occupied territories for
the first time. And yes, I'm afraid they can reasonably be described as
resembling Bantustans, reminiscent of the ghettoes and controlled camps of
misery one knew in South Africa."
Consider more examples: more water is given to Jewish citizens than
to Palestinians; non-Jewish Israelis cannot buy or lease land in Israel; Israel's
policies have involved planning regulations prohibiting Palestinian building on
70 percent of the West Bank and 80 percent of East Jerusalem. While restricting
Palestinian development, Israel builds housing for its people in the occupied
territories; imprisonment without charge is commonplace for Palestinians,
whereas this would be forbidden for Jews; there are Jewish-only highways that
cut through the West Bank.
A few years ago, the Israeli government was shown to have a 70:30
policy in the City of Jerusalem, to maintain a 70 percent Jewish population
over 29 percent Muslim and 1 percent Christian minorities. This has been
accomplished through house demolitions, denial of building permits, ID card
confiscations and residency revocations.
This year also saw many Palestinian-Americans denied by Israel
entry into the occupied territories to visit families or attend weddings and/or
funerals. And then there's the ugly concrete wall, built far into Palestinian
territory under the guise of security and ruled illegal by the International
Court of Justice in 2004. Laypeople who've seen it nickname it the Apartheid
Wall or the Landgrab Wall.
Nobody expects instant miracles to come from Carter's book, but
hopefully, it will spark the sort of robust discussion that even Israeli
society and media already engage in - discussions that many are afraid to raise
in our own country for fear of being labeled "anti-Semitic."
The reality is that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict must be
resolved if we ever hope to see stability in the Middle East. Continuing to
ignore the humiliation, indignities and racism against Palestinians has never
served our national interests. Neither has it served Israeli interests.
It was Henry Katzew, a former South
African journalist now living in Israel, who once stated in South Africa: a
Country Without Friends: "What is the
difference between the way in which the Jewish people struggle to remain what they
are in the midst of a non-Jewish population, and the way the Afrikaners try to
stay what they are?"
There is no difference. That's why former president Carter and
revered South African figures are willing to call a spade a spade.
*The Palestinian-American writer, J.D. with emphasis in
international law, is director of Michigan Media Watch. She contributed this
article to The Jordan Times.
VIDEO FROM LEBANON: MUFTI CRITICIZES
ATTACK ON ISRAEL, SAYS IT'S NO VICTORY
Al-Arabiya TV, Lebanon: Excerpts excerpts from an interview with the Mufti of Mt. Lebanon, Muhammad Al-Jozo, Oct. 31, 00:03:33, MEMRI
"Victory means either the liberation of occupied land or the occupation of enemy land. This did not happen. We defended our land with courage and steadfastness. True, the entire Lebanese people was steadfast in the face of the Israeli attack, but to say this was a divine victory is to blow it out of proportion."
Mufti of Mount Lebanon, Muhammad Al-Jozo