Excerpts:
Jimmy Carter urges Canada to press Israel
TORONTO — Canada needs to speak out forcefully and press Israel to leave the occupied territories, because only a complete withdrawal will bring lasting peace to the region, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said on Monday.
...“Ultimately, Israel is going to have to withdraw from all the occupied territories, except as mutually negotiated.”
In his latest book, Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid, Mr. Carter pulls no punches criticizing Israel for continuing to confiscate and colonize Palestinian lands with the tacit approval of the Bush administration.
“The policy that Israel is pursuing now in the West Bank and Gaza is one of apartness or apartheid,” Mr. Carter said.
“It's a subjugation of the occupied people, their deprivation of human rights, their isolation in a mandatory way from inter-relationships with Israelis.
“There'll be a law going into effect in January that will prohibit any Palestinian even from riding in an automobile that has an Israeli licence plate on it.”
The book also blames Washington for helping incite anti-American violence and terrorism in the Middle East by its failure to denounce Israel where warranted.
Mr. Carter said his book was intended to be provocative, to prompt debate in the United States about Israel's continued refusal to abide by UN resolutions calling for a withdrawal from the occupied territories.
It's also about the refusal of U.S. President George W. Bush to pursue Middle East peace, he said.
Even though the Democrats won control of the House and Senate in this month's mid-term elections, Mr. Carter said it was unlikely American politicians would be willing to criticize Israel given that both Democrats and Republicans are “almost full and unanimous” in supporting whatever the Israeli government does.
He noted the United States has used its veto more than 40 times to block United Nations' resolutions critical of Israel, and Mr. Carter said there has been no push from the Bush administration to promote peace talks in the past six years.
“Some of these vetoes have brought international discredit on the United States and there is little doubt that the lack of a persistent effort to resolve the Palestinian issue is a major source of anti-American sentiment and terrorist activity throughout the Middle East and the Islamic world,” he writes.
“This is the first time in the history of Israel that in the United States you haven't had a presidential effort to bring about an accommodation between Israel and its neighbours.”
The Nobel laureate who helped negotiate an historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt said steps must be taken for Israelis and Palestinians to share the Holy Land without a constant fear of terrorism or system of apartheid.
“I'm not basing this on racism,” he said.
“It's based on the desire of a small minority of Israelis for land as a preference to peace.” (Source: Globe and Mail, Nov 27, 2006)
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