Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine

By Jimmy Carter
LA Times
December 8, 2006

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 and on my consultations with Israeli political leaders and peace activists.

We covered every Palestinian community in 1996, 2005 and 2006, when Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and members of parliament were chosen. The elections were almost flawless, and turnout was very high - except in East Jerusalem, where, under severe Israeli restraints, only about 2% of registered voters managed to cast ballots.

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 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.

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. 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.

With some degree of reluctance and some uncertainty about the reception my book would receive, I used maps, text and documents to describe the situation accurately and to analyze the only possible path to peace: Israelis and Palestinians living side by side within their own internationally recognized boundaries. These options are consistent with key U.N. resolutions supported by the U.S. and Israel, official American policy since 1967, agreements consummated by Israeli leaders and their governments in 1978 and 1993 (for which they earned Nobel Peace Prizes), the Arab League's offer to recognize Israel in 2002 and the International Quartet's "Roadmap for Peace," which has been accepted by the PLO and largely rejected by Israel.

The book 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.

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. 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 organizations 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. 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." Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me "anti-Semitic," and others accuse the book of "lies" and "distortions." A former Carter Center 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. 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. 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. I have been most encouraged by prominent Jewish citizens and members of Congress who have thanked me privately for presenting the facts and some new ideas.

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 blacks 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 colonize choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens. Obviously, I condemn any acts of terrorism or violence against innocent civilians, and I present information about the terrible 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 to help restart peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. Another hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this same goal might be motivated to express their views, even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad to help with that effort.

By Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States. His newest book is "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," published last month. He is scheduled to sign books Monday at Vroman's in Pasadena.

Pentagon Fomenting the "Civil War" in Iraq

by La Voz de Aztlan

Global Research, December 7, 2006
La Voz del Aztlan

The Pentagon's "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)" is behind many of the terrorist attacks in Iraq. The car bombings, assassinations, sabotage, kidnappings and attacks on mosques are designed to cause violence and discord between Sunnis and Shiites. P2OG in collusion with Israeli IDF and MOSSAD operatives are responsible for a series of secret covert operations whose purpose is to create an all out civil war in Iraq. The ultimate purpose is to dismember the country, achieve complete control and make it easier for the USA and Zionist Israel to profit from Iraq's vast oil resources.

As part of the Pentagon's well funded programme, the CIA and Israeli MOSSAD have been training and arming the Kurds for terror raids inside Iraq. The Israeli operatives are also helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, prominent Iraqi academics, scientists, politicians and religious leaders. .

Their first major operation was the bombing on February 22, 2006 of the Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra, also known as the Golden Mosque. The mosque was a very well thought out target that holds the tombs of two revered 9th-century imams of the Shiite branch of Islam. The attack on the Golden Mosque began at 7 a.m., when a dozen men dressed in paramilitary uniforms entered the shrine and handcuffed four guards who were sleeping in a back room. The attackers then placed a bomb in the dome and detonated it, collapsing most of the dome and heavily damaging an adjoining wall.

The covert operation against the Golden Mosque was designed to provoke Shiite groups into committing violent acts and retaliations against the Sunnis. Sunni political leaders said retaliatory attacks hit more than 20 Sunni mosques across Iraq with bombs, gunfire or arson. Authorities reported at least 18 people killed in the aftermath, including two Sunni clerics. In one incident, in Basra in southern Iraq, police said gunmen in police uniforms broke into a jail, seized 12 Sunni men and later killed them. These attacks against the Sunnis were also carried out by operatives under the Pentagon's "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group".

The Pentagon blamed the bombing of the Golden Mosque on al-Qaeda but cleric Abdul Zara Saidy had another explanation. He said the mosque attack was the work of "occupiers," or Americans, "and Zionists".

U.S. tracks Canadians for terror traits

Monitoring system stores data on flights, licence plates, credit cards, addresses

Dec. 2, 2006. 08:47 AM
TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON—The U.S. government knows where you sat on your last cross-border flight, how you paid for your ticket, your email address, your phone number, even your special meal requests in the past.

They won't let you look at the information but they can share it with law enforcement agencies, foreign governments, even public health agencies and they can keep the dossiers compiled on millions of Canadian travellers for up to 40 years.

It's all in the name of assigning you a score as a potential terrorist under a program known as the Automated Targeting System (ATS).

U.S. privacy advocates and some legislators promised to fight to kill the program yesterday, but the Department of Homeland Security was unapologetic, saying the ATS is really just a continuation of a program overseen by another agency for more than a decade.

Every traveller from every nation, arriving by land, air or sea, is screened under the program.

There was no official reaction from Ottawa to the U.S. program yesterday.

A consultation period inviting comments on the plan ends Monday at which time Washington will determine whether it needs to modify it before publishing the final rules, said homeland security spokesperson Jarod Agen.

Details of the program were placed on the electronic Federal Register here in early November, but the department did nothing to publicize it, Agen said, because it was not seeking new information, merely bringing existing programs under the homeland security umbrella.

The information remains in the government's possession for up to 40 years, he said, because it can sometimes take 10 years or more for terrorist plots to develop.

"If you booked your flight by cellphone and that cellphone shows up at a terrorist's safe house, you will be under greater scrutiny," he said.

Privacy advocates say the Bush administration was trying to hide the program.

"The Automated Targeting System mines a vast amount of data to create a `risk assessment' on hundreds of millions of people per year, a label that will follow them for the rest of their lives, as the data will be retained for 40 years,'' said the Electronic Privacy Information Centre.

"Yet the system is deeply flawed, and the funds spent turning ATS into a citizen profiling program would be better spent in perfecting its cargo screening process, so that port security can be stronger than a `house of cards,'" the privacy centre says.
The centre's executive director, Marc Rotenberg, said if the information is used for any other reason than to assess security risks, and it cannot be accessed by its subjects, "then I think the program should be shut down.''

Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, the judiciary committee chair in the new U.S. congress, said data banks such as ATS are due for oversight.

"That is going to change in the new congress,'' he told the Associated Press, which first revealed the existence of ATS.

David Sobel, senior counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the proposal "frightening'' and urged homeland security to "allow for an informed public debate on this dangerous proposal.''

The program was used to screen cargo in the early 1990s under the supervision of the American treasury department, then expanded to include passengers in the mid-1990s.

Following the 2001 terror attacks, however, the scope of information sought by the U.S. was greatly expanded and was the subject of much debate in Ottawa because it involved Canadian air carriers.

In its detailed privacy posting on its website, homeland security said data must be retained for up to 40 years "to cover the potentially active lifespan of individuals associated with terrorism or other criminal activities.''

It said, however, it would delete files if they are no longer relevant. But you won't know whether your file is active or deleted because the proposed rules also prevent any access to the data the U.S. has stored.

Most of the information comes from air carriers, Amtrak, the U.S. national rail carrier, chartered sea vessels and information provided by motor vehicle registration when your licence plate is scanned as you drive across the border.

According to the homeland security proposal, the information collected on you includes:

The date of your reservations and your travel dates.

Your name and the names of your travelling companions.

Your address, your credit card information, your billing address, your cellphone number and email address.

Where you like to sit on the plane and any special services — meals or otherwise — you request.

Your frequent flyer points and your travel agency.

The number of times you have booked one-way tickets.

How many bags you check and their tag numbers, and whether you have ever booked a flight and not shown up.