Friday, March 9, 2007 11:53 a.m. EST
Despite the storm it ignited, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter held fast on Thursday to his accusation that Israel oppresses the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza and seeks to colonize their land.
Speaking at The George Washington University to a polite but mostly critical student audience, Carter offered no second thoughts on his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid...
"I defined apartheid very carefully as the forced segregation by one people of another on their own land," he said.
A local group called the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation distributed a four-page brochure that said:
"without U.S. aid Israel could not continue to discriminate against its Palestinian-Israeli citizens nor violate international rights in the occupied territories."
On the West Bank, Carter said, Palestinians were victims of oppression, their homes and land confiscated to make way for subsidized Israeli settlers.
"The life of Palestinians is almost intolerable," he said.
"And even though Israel agreed to give up Gaza and remove Jewish settlers from the territory, there is no freedom for the people of Gaza and no access to the outside world."
"They have no real freedom of all," Carter said.
By apartheid, Carter said he meant the forced segregation of one people by another.
He said Israel's policies in the territories are contrary to the tenets of the Jewish faith.
"There will be no peace until Israel agrees to withdraw from all occupied Palestinian territory," he said, while leaving room for some land swaps that would permit Jews to remain on part of the West Bank in exchange for other Israeli-held land to be taken over by Palestinians.
"Withdrawal would dramatically reduce any threat to Israel," he said.
Courtesy Of:
NewsMax.Com
No comments:
Post a Comment