[WCUSP] Carter's book didn't go far enough

[yvonne simmons]

Boston Metro (owned by NY Times) published an
interview with Mitchel 
Bard on 
Carter's book. Here is an interview with me they
published 12/13/06 (it 
is 
not quite reflective of what I said but is close)
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/cartersbook/
Palestinian scholar defends Carter’s book
by JASON NOTTE jason.notte at metro.us
For critics of former president Jimmy Carter’s book
“Palestine: Peace, 
Not 
Apartheid,” the former president went too far in
comparing the 
Palestinian 
territories to segregated South Africa. In Dr. Mazin
Qumsiyeh’s eyes, 
however, Carter’s book didn’t go far enough. A former
Duke and Yale 
University genetics professor, Qumsiyeh has written a
book, “Sharing 
The 
Land of Canaan,” and now serves on the steering
committee of the U.S. 
Campaign to End the Occupation and on the board of the
Association for 
One 
Democratic State in Israel/Palestine.

Qumsiyeh firmly believes that the apartheid comparison
is apt, and that 
the 
only real solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
is one similar 
to 
that reached in post-apartheid South Africa. Metro
spoke with Qumsiyeh 
about 
Carter’s book, the state of Israeli-Palestinian
relations and the 
prospect 
of both peoples sharing the same nation.

What did you think of President Carter’s book?

I would say it does a good job of provoking discussion
about the 
territories, but doesn’t go far enough. It is fairly
mild and limited 
to 
only the West Bank and Gaza. They don’t talk about
Palestinians living 
in 
Negev and Galilee who are being displaced. I would
have phrased it 
differently and gone into greater detail about the
situation along 
[sic, I 
said inside] the Green Line.

We had a scholar, Mitchell Bard, say last week that
the comparison to 
apartheid is incorrect because the territories do not
fall under 
Israeli 
rule. Do you agree?

I don’t believe they don’t control those areas. There
is no sovereign 
Palestinian country between the Mediterranean Sea and
the Jordan river. 
The 
Palestinian Authority is basically people in a prison
voting for 
representatives. Part of the West Bank is under
Israeli control and, if 
you 
check with the United Nations, even though Israeli
troops have pulled 
out of 
Gaza, the Gaza Strip is still considered an occupied
territory. They 
control 
movement in and out of the territories, they control
the entrance and 
exit 
of products and they control the skies. If you look up
the definition 
of 
apartheid as dictated by the International Convention
on Apartheid and 
Racism, all the criteria are met by the restrictions
put on the 
territories 
by the state of Israel.

Carter says that the IsraeliPalestinian situation
distinguishes itself 
from 
South Africa in that the two sides are separated
because of security 
concerns. Would that differentiate it from apartheid?

The sides are still segregated. If it is about
security, why are they 
building a wall separating East Jerusalem from the
West Bank? If it was 
about security, why isn’t it built solely on the Green
Line instead of 
around bodies of water and rivers? If you look at
apartheid South 
Africa, 
the land where blacks were living was the poorest in
the country. A 
similar 
thing is going on here. It’s not about security, it’s
about land. 
Bishop 
Desmond Tutu says it’s worse than apartheid. At least
white South 
Africans 
used blacks for labor. Zionists don’t want anything to
do with 
Palestinian 
workers.

Given all of the bloodshed over the ideals and flags
of both sides of 
this 
conflict, do you really think a unified
Israeli-Palestinian state is 
possible?

If we look at history, we see that France and England
had a hatred so 
deep 
that they fought [many wars including] a nearly
120-year conflict. 
Many, 
including myself, predicted South Africa would be a
bloodbath after 
apartheid, but human rights are the biggest thing. If
you look at the 
Baker-Hamilton Group’s report, the four words that
were missing were 
“human 
rights,” and “international law.” Other side of
‘Apartheid’ interview 
Lebanon PM seeks negotiations Prime Minister Fuad
Saniora appealed 
yesterday 
to his opponents engaged in mass protests to return to
the negotiating 
table. AP U.N. wants $450M in Palestinian aid  U.N.
aid groups are 
asking 
for $450 million, saying yesterday that international
sanctions and 
Israel’s 
limits on Gaza exports have devastated the Palestinian
economy.

What is the first step toward making a united Israel
and Palestine 
possible?

The biggest problem is that there isn’t an open
discussion. We need to 
have 
an honest conversation about it, like there is in the
Israeli and 
Palestinian papers, but the Zionists here stifle the
discussion. It’s 
important to have someone like Carter, who gets an
audience because 
he’s a 
former president, but people still try to stifle him —
and there are 
many 
other authors who have written books on the topic that
have been far 
more 
rigorous and academic.


Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
http://qumsiyeh.org



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com