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http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01112007.html
An Honest Man Refutes Propaganda - Carter's Inconvenient Truths
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS --@-- Counterpunch dot org
Jimmy Carter, probably the most decent man to occupy the White House, received a lot of grief during his term in office, most of it undeserved. His latest book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid has brought him even more grief, none of it deserved.
My own appreciation of Jimmy Carter is new found. It began with his previous book, Our Endangered Values, in which Carter criticized the direction in which George W. Bush was taking America with his assaults on the Constitution and international law. His latest book, currently a best seller, shows that Carter has the courage to match his decency and commitment to peace in the Middle East.
A case can be made that while other US presidents focused on the Soviet or communist threat, Carter perceived that the greater threat to world peace and US interests was in the Middle East. With America's backing Israel was a rising military power whose policies and existence were viewed as a threat by Arab countries. After Israel's military successes and Carter's success in arranging peace between Egypt and Israel, new Arab-Israeli tensions arose from Israel's refusal to leave occupied Palestine and return to its own borders.
Over time the occupied lands have been appropriated by Israeli settlements and now by a massive wall and special roads on which no Palestinian can travel. Palestinian villages have been cut off from water, from their fields and groves, from schools and hospitals, and from one another. Essentially, what was once Palestine has become isolated ghettos in which the Palestinian inhabitants cannot enter or depart without Israeli permission.
Israel's policy is to turn Palestinians into refugees and to incorporate the West Bank into Israel. Slowly over time the policy has been implemented in the name of fighting terrorism and protecting Israel. Had Israel tried to achieve this all at once, opposition would have been great and the crime too large for the world to accept. Today Israel's gradual destruction of Palestine has become part of the fabric of everyday affairs. More -->
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01112007.html
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You will know you have spoken the truth when you are angrily denounced; and you will know you have spoken both truly and well when you are visited by the thought police.
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