I hope that the people who need to take this message to heart do so. Condemning an entire nation based on a one word lie is counter productive and downright dangerous as this article points out. The last word everybody blindly subscribed to was "Occupation". No matter that the Palestinian Liberation Organization formed in 1964, 3 years before there was an occupation. Please help stomp out the attempt of those who are trying to now pin the label 'Apartheid' on a nation that has many struggles as democracy but is in no way a racist apartheid state. All citizens have equal rights under Israeli law. When Muslim states give any rights to Jews and Christians or to their own people for that matter - then we will be making real progress in our world.

Hmmm..we want to talk about human rights here?
Suicide bombings - people blowing up buses full of people, weddings, Passover celebrations, and teenages at a disco don't seem to believe in human rights, do they?
How about shooting rockets from civilian areas, schools, and hospital roofs in hopes that Israeli army will not fire back? Somehow I feel that using civilians as shields doesn't exactly respect their human rights.
Honor killings and human rights don't seem to mix eaither.
In addition, 9/11 was not that long ago for us to forget how terrorists killed thousands of civilians in a barbaric attack that made the Palestinians dance on the streets - those people believed in the value of life yet celebrated the death of 3000 Americans?
I suggest people concerned with human rights take a closer look at Arab countries as well as terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was a grievous error, largely attributable to the fact that it occurred in the midst of the confusion of a full-scale war in 1967. Ten official United States investigations and three official Israeli inquiries have all conclusively established the attack was a tragic mistake.

On June 8, 1967, the fourth day of the Six-Day War, the Israeli high command received reports that Israeli troops in El Arish were being fired upon from the sea, presumably by an Egyptian vessel, as they had a day before. The United States had announced that it had no naval forces within hundreds of miles of the battle front on the floor of the United Nations a few days earlier; however, the USS Liberty, an American intelligence ship assigned to monitor the fighting, arrived in the area, 14 miles off the Sinai coast, as a result of a series of United States communication failures, whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 100 miles were not received by the Liberty. The Israelis mistakenly thought this was the ship doing the shelling and war planes and torpedo boats attacked, killing 34 members of the Liberty's crew and wounding 171.

When has CJME or SCAI (COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT GROUPS) ever called for the end of Israel? Never. So stop saying that. Both SCAI and CJME have Israeli members who I assure you do not want the Israel just like the rest of the members do not.

We will never know whether Israel meant to attack the Liberty. They did however pay nearly $13 million in humanitarian reparations to the United States and in compensation to the families of the victims, despite never admitting fault. I call that honorable.
Also, when it comes to the Lebonese deaths, while Israel did have a moral-lapse in the case I think you're talking about (the 1982 massacre), you're missing some key facts. The 1982 massacre killed 600 Palestinians, however the killings were conducted by the Lebonese Christian Militia, not Israel or Jews. There are reports that Israel did nothing to stop the killings after learning of such plans, but don't forget Israel didn't fire any shots in this case.
One bottom line, which is actually being discussed this week as Hamas and Hezbollah have appealled to Israel to begin peace talks, is that many Arab nations do not recognize Israel on their maps and actually wish to demolish it as a nation. Israel has no desire to eliminate any existing, legitimate, non-terrorist government.

First of all, there is a major distinction that needs to be drawn between human rights violations and military attacks. While Israeli military attacks with the attempt of attacking strategic enemies and buildings may have accidental casualties, there have never been any attempts by a legitimate Israeli government to exterminate, persecute, etc anyone simply for being Muslim/Arab/any other group. On the other hand, in the last 6 months I've heard many Arab leaders publicly announce that they want to kill Jews simply for being Jews. I consider the deaths in Lebanon, Palestine, etc to be sad but they were unintentional measure s of self defense as opposed to religious cleansing.
More importantly, i'd like to draw attention to the treatment of Jews in Arab countries. Prior to the 1950's there were many Jews throughout the Middle East. With parents from Iraq and Iran, I am all too familiar with the treatment of Jews in these countries. While they were allowed to live in these countries, Jews had much fewer rights simply for being Jews. Jewish communities were also segregated from non Jews. If you want to call whats happening in Israel now an apartheid, then treatment of Jews then was also an apartheid, but i agree that apartheid is by far not even slightly applicable to either situation. Jews lived in this situation since 300 BC when they were exiled from Israel to Babylon. After WWII, almost all Jews were forcefully exiled out of countries like Iraq, where they had lived for in some cases thousands of years. All assets, including millions of dollars in property, business assets, etc were absorbed by the government and people were forced to secretly cross the border and start over somewhere else in the world with nothing more than the clothes on their back. It sucks, but people deal with it. I don't mean to legitimize anything, but its important to be aware of both sides of the argument and the fact that families on both sides were forced to start over.

Dear Prof Rick - CJME does have events that cover other topics in the Middle East outside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Also, I would be hesitant to conflate the "Israeli perspective" with "a side criticizing Israel". Recent CJME events have included an Israeli who moved to Israel from the UK criticizing Israeli apartheid (Susan Nathan) and a former IDF soldier who spoke about his time in the army (Yehuda Shaul, part of the 'Breaking the Silence' project). Both are Israeli, so it's difficult to define a single "Israeli perspective".

Dear CJME defender: Your are right, there is no one single Israeli perspective, that is because Israel is a DEMOCRACY. But, within this democracy, as in most democracies, there is a consensus. And, the consensus is overwhelmingly supportive of Israel's right to defend itself against terrorist attacks and aggression by such groups as Hamas or Hezbollah and its pupper in Teheran, Ahmadinjad (who denies the Holocaust and calls for Israel to be wipes off the map). But, dear CJME defender, you tipped off your bias by announcing that your group does indeed bring only Israelis that represent Israel's fringes, not its mainstream, who come to criticize, as you put it, "Israeli apartheid." Your use of this phrase demonstrates your bias: you assume that Israel practices apartheid, and your group is not interested in inviting as speakers those who would contest this allegation. Your logic is the same as a student group in Paris inviting only members of the American Communist Party because, afterall, it is "American." But, it is hardly representative of America. I think what you and your group are rightfully being criticized for is your refusal to acknowledge that your agenda is a pan-Arab nationalist agenda dressed in the gloss of "peace and justice." If you really cared about peace and justice in the Middle East (as your name suggests) you would look at the whole of the Middle East, and bring speakers in to address those injustices going on in every Arab and Muslim country, injustices that make the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio appear tame by comparison. That is a challenge, CJME, bring a diversity of speakers and programs, and not only Israel-bashing ones. If you can't or won't, you stand exposed.

To re: prof. rick--one can argue with Ms Nathan and her beliefs (I totally diagree with her), however she did not use the words aparthied in her talk and if your read the coverage of her talk, she clearly states that she is not here to bash Israel.

I asked this question of Susan Nathan which was also left out of the Stanford Daily:
Your bio on the flyer says that you moved to Israel to fulfill your dream of living in a Jewish majority state. I take it you weren’t in need of a place of refuge like the Jews who fled pogroms; the Jews who fled persecution in Arab lands; the Jews who fled the Holocaust and the Jews fleeing from ant-Semitism in France and Argentina today.

And here is my question: The international Islamic conference has 57 member nations with Muslim majorities that are not hospitable to Jews. Their voting bloc record in the United Nations shows that they don’t see a need for Jews to have 1 Jewish majority state. Do you see a need for Jews to have a Jewish majority state in the land of their historic beginnings?

Susan’s answer: The world is changing so rapidly that there isn’t really a need anymore. Sadly (yeah, right) she doesn’t think Israel has a future the way the world is developing.

They also brought out the Sudanese ambassador who told the audience that there is no genocide in Darfur.

At my old university, the Israel demonization movement was led by Arab students and their supporters in various Stalinist, Maoist and Leninist organization seeking a peoples revolution to overthrow the dogs of capitalism.

Consequently, I wonder how many of the organizers of this Israel demonization organization are either foreign nationals here on student visas or faculty with an ideological bone to pick with the US and its allies.

It is extremely sad to see Stanford accepting a hate group dedicated to the original and worst form of racism, namely anti-semitism, which has been around in various forms for about 4000 years.
Racism against anyone is wrong. The racism that has been practised against black Americans or others is a twinkling of the eye, compared to the mother of all racism, that is plain to see even in the Bible in Pharonic Egypt.
Before attacking Israel and Jews, people should take the longest, deepest breath possible and look hard in the mirror. The SCAI should be banned forthwith, anything else is pandering to the most abominable prejudice. I am ashamed my former University allows it.

the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East
needs to keep in mind the arab version of justice
and the jews version are based on two diferent sets
of laws islamic law or sharia law under witch only basicly muslim men have full rights and jewish civil law that besicly treats all the same heck the muslims because of the belief Muslims have to invade and occupie any land they chose so they can try and convert the people to Islam and the people there are just supposed to accept it with out questionor acept dhimmitude That the Muslims can never reconcile to any land being liberated from their tyranny is seen today in the cannibalistic instincts they display to devour the state of Israel.There has been a muslim genocide against the Jews and black Africans for centuries.
Abbas dismissed demands that Fatah recognize Israel - just one day before he told Rice that such recognition is a must. According to our religion, any land that we have occupied is our land
the key here is the word occupied abbas in saying this is admitting that the land they are loudly demanding is land that they took by conquest from the jews land the jews have taken back would you have the spanish give their contry back to the moors who over ran spain untill the spanish toosed them out in 1492
Islam is clearly anti-Semitic and racist against the Jews. They scream about the Palestinian right of return, but how about the right of return for Jews to all the places they were murdered or driven from. Places in every Islamic country. Places like Iraq or Saudi Arabia where Medina used to be the Jewish city of Yathrib. :-(
Israel is like a fishbone stuck in the Arab throat and howsoever hard the Arabs try they have not been able to eject Israel. This fishbone Israel, makes the Arabs and Muslim breathless and they have been seething with impotent rage to regain the ancient land of the Jewish people which the Muslims want to devour once again thru the Intifada and the Right to Return

I agree with you, David Ben Ariel's agreement of Ann COulter's description of people of color as being "savages" is outrageous. I wonder if he is who he says he is, or is he an anti-Zionist activist pretending to be a "racist Zionist" so as to make a cheap point?

But, I disagree with your assessment of Arab societies. Yes, all citizens of Arab societies are oppressed, in that none of these societies are democratic. But, non-Arabs are all the more oppressed, to the point of active discrimination, and in a few instances, outright genocide (the Iraqi Arab Ba'athist Party's anti-Kurdish "Anfal Campaign" that killed some 180,000 Kurdish civilians, for example).

The issue here isn't whether or not the Israel government should be criticized for any given policy. Rather, the question is whether or not those who are making the criticism are doing so fairly. Are human rights activists concerned about human rights in the Middle East truly concerned about the rights of all humans in the Middle East, or only those humans who call themselves Palestinians? Are other humans such as Kurds, Copts Berbers, Jews or Darfurians given any attention by these same human rights campaigners? If not, then those campaigners for human rights in the Middle East stand exposed for being partisans of one particular nationalist cause.

That is what this whole debate is about. If CPME and SCAI were truly concerned with universal human rights, they would vary their programming and bring in speakers to address the entirety of human rights issues in the Middle East. But, they don't and they stand exposed for being pan-Arab nationalists, partisans in one particular struggle between two national movements among many in the vast region of the Middle East.

With due respect to Dr. Amichai Magen’s opinion, your reader must confess his profound confusion over some postulates substantiating the article.

To very understanding of an Australian not linked biologically with the British Islands, “Brit” (“British”) is a unified term describing subjects of the English Crown-holders of the UK passports, and a variety of races and ethnicities present in nowadays Britain is to surely contradict a notion of “Nazi” as a common determination of a British society as whole. Not digging into recent already triggered outcry in Down Under Australian mufti’s blames at women for themselves attracting rapists by wearing no hijab, attitudes toward inter-racial “inferiorities” are also far away from consensually-idealistic even in the assumedly most educated “first class world”.

Therefore, speaking of segregation, apartheid and Nazism, for instance, should probably differentiate practical government policies and “domestic” level of inter-ethnic/inter-religious affairs.

It is obvious, while imposing policies, in democratic world governments reflect wishes of electorate majorities with reference to an international legislation.

Understandably, based on the same causes accepted internationally, policy-makers’ decisions and judgments reflect local traditions and customs heavily.
Understandably, nationalism of a particular majority in any country -a cradle of a particular nationality the most of, roughly speaking, Europe’s national entities have been,- is too often justified with all the tribal history runs in particular geographical areas.
Understandably, exercising the same notions majorities in countries established by land grabbing worldwide might be labeled as xenophobic and racist, practicing segregation and apartheid on different levels of tolerance as the very techniques to deploy all sorts of differences to achieve a very personal economical benefit at the end of the pipe.
Let’s recall the South Africa of the last century sixties, unsuccessfully playing “sovereign Bantustans” while having independence from Britain self-proclaimed. And a range of South Pacific national entities enjoy their statehoods since the very same time.

The question remains, are the Jews of Israel and a democratically elected by all Israeli citizens governing structure more hostile towards non-Jews than the Jewish Diaspora is being experiencing with?

My personal living experience tries to believe.

the title of the book is "palestine: peace, not apartheid." palestine. not israel. palestine.
it seems you did not bother to read the book you so deeply criticize. you didn't even read the title. not even the first word of the title.
so how about an emily litella-like "never mind"?

This is an interesting and passionate group. And - as often - passion clouds clear thinking. I'll share my thoughts just for fun; they're logical and lucid but undoubtably offensive to many of the posters on this blog.

1) Carter is eminently better able to judge the situation that ANYONE on this blog!!!! He's met the leaders from both sides across generations. He's been on the ground in both Israel and Palestine over the decades. And he's the only President to have given Israel multiple peace deals (however cold that peace really is). Finally, he's not beholden to anyone - Jews, Muslims, the Christian Right wing in the US, etc. Unbiased views, grounded in unrivalled experience. Enough said...

2) Many senior leaders from South Africa have toured the Occupied Territories and Israel. The vast majority have come to the same conclusions - the Palestinians are enduring conditions close to if not worse than apartheid. Call it what you will, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.....

3) Often, these debates turn into attack sessions with statements on how corrupt Arabs are vs how racist Israel is vs how Arab nations are failed socieities vs Israel being a colonial experiment etc. All of these allegations may have some truth, but they are quite all beside the point. Referendums on Arab nations are fair - just not right now. Explorations of the colonial model to Israel are valid - but not helpful. All these statements are red herrings, meant to distract and delay the debate of the real issues.

It's the Palestinians. Palestinians are suffering deeply because many decades ago, Israel came under the control of expansionist leaders pushing a plan called Greater Israel. Whether you ascribe it's validity to the need to a geographic buffer zone against invasion or Biblical manifest destiny, this plan colored Israeli actions for decades. Confiscation of land, appropriation of economic assets, increasing restrictions on Arab movement and seld determination, etc. There may not actually have been peace in the absence of such a grand strategy, but there certainly can not be peace with Israel continually taking any and everything they can from the Arabs. If you doubt this, check how often Israel constructed settlements on Palestinian land appropriated by its military in the face of Arab protests and US pressure. That's been an unrelenting practice for the last 25 years. And it's just one example of many.

Each peace attempt (including Oslo) witnessed the US adopted language written by Israelis as the US position in the negotiations. That's not fair or right. And obviously - regardless of what you say about their intelligence - not going to fool most Palestinians. The corruption and exhaustion in Fatah's leadership allowed the negotiations to get to the stages they did (culimating in Oslo). The proferred agreements simply weren't in the interests of the Palestinians. If you read the accords closely and ignore the official line from US press agents, the "offered Palestinian state" was a total sham. Very much (here's another zinger) a bantustan. That's why Hamas is on power now.

4) Israel counts on silence/complicity in the Western media to continue its illegal actions. It uses charges of anti-Semitism to muzzle opposition. Zionists also - VERY frequently - distort the words of their challengers for further ammunition in the wars of public perception. If its cause was truly just, Israel wouldn't need this ultra aggressive media management strategy. It's the ultimate in political correctness; there can be NO debate on Israel in the US. NONE AT ALL.


5) As Bob Jones wrote above, the words of the President of Iran was...shall I say misquoted. If he is a bad man (which I believe) let him evidence his own evil by his own hand; don't falsify the record to demonize him, claiming he's world's top advocate for genocide. That's just stupid. (Quick digression - amazingly, there is no uncertainty re the statements by multiple legislators on the floor of the House of Reps and the Senate advocating ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. I find that deeply shameful. How can our political leaders call for the extermination of an entire nation, and get off without so much as mild public rebuke. Official hypocrisy at best).

6) Finally, Peter Giraudo wrote "racism that has been practised against black Americans or others is a twinkling of the eye, compared to the mother of all racism, that is plain to see even in the Bible in Pharonic Egypt."

Mr Giraudo that's the most disgusting and pathetic statement I've ever read. You are an uninformed fool.

Let me enlighten you:

- At LEAST 6 mm Africans were killed, just during the Middle Passage en route to the Americas
- that ignores the suffering of tens of millions of blacks on bondage in 400+ years of slavery in the West, enduring conditions most scholars agree were the worst forms of slavery in history (e.g., lifespan of a healthy African male age 15 once he entered slavery in Brazil = 22 years, i.e. he was literally worked to death in 7 years)
- entire Amerindian cultures were wiped out by colonization
- Armenians lost millions of people, entirely due to racism from the Turks
- Tutsi vs Hutu (90% wiped out in 100 days) [perhaps if they had oil, we would have cared - trite but true]
- 1 mm Algerians killed in a war for their freedom from racist France
- 1 mm+ killed in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge
- wartime Japan
- the Stalinist purges

I can go on and on....but to marginalize the suffering of hundred of millions of people across thousands of years is an act you should be deeply sorry for. You should be embarrassed to have written it.

Incidently, you also try to date Jewish suffering from Pharonic days, but archeological evidence continues to affirm NO Jewish bondage in ancient Egypt. And Jews certainly did not build the pyramids:-)

If you're going to make such idiotic and shamelessly ethnocentric statements, at least have one iota of data to back them up. Otherwise, you just confirm that you're an unintelligent loon.
________________________________

In summary, Carter is exactly right in what he describes re Israel and apartheid. But his bigger point - which is the need for a true debate on the real issues and honestly working to resolve them to the benefit of both peoples - is the only way to have any real hope of peace.

If I may be sold bold as to carry Carter's analogy one step further, Israel has two alternatives: South Africa in 1990 or Zimbabwe in 1980.

"
As for the rest of the comments, while Muslim countries do have human rights issues, they oppress all their citizens, not just one group. Jews are not special in their suffering."
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Muslim countries are superior to Israel because they oppress all their citizens, not just some of them. I thought it was a joke at first.
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The more I think about that comment, the more I realize that you are actually expressing a widespread belief that is very popular throughout Europe and America, mainly due to the way the media presents the Middle East to Western audiences. The BBC, CNN and countless other news sources constantly use phrases like "cycle of violence", "mortal enemies", "region of conflict" to suggest that violence and suffering are a normal state of affairs for anyone who lives in the region. It also justifies every bloody, thoughtless act of violence by classifying it as part of a larger picture. Therefore, in the eyes of an ignorant Western viewer like yourself, Stanford Student, everyone in the middle east deserves to suffer from violence and oppression, and the only just solution to this situation is to ensure that all sides suffer equally.
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BTW, there was a bombing at a Baghdad university about a week ago that killed tens of innocent students. Does that mean that setting off a bomb in the middle of the quad would be good, just to make sure everyone suffers equally?

It's quite saddening to know that you're not simply an undergrad, rather you're a grad student fellow and all that stuff. I think you fail miserably to capture the realities of a situation. You really do, and you incorporate your opinions as if they were facts. Arabs in Israel are second degree citizens by the law: it's fact. Now, to go and compare this with the situation of the Palestinians in other arab countries is simply saying, "we, the Spanish, treated the natives in America better than did the British, yet we totally destroyed their culture, took their land, made their countries Spanish colonies. The establishment of the Jewish homeland meant ethich oppresion against the natives. You sir, are a zionists, and zionism is a COLONIAL idea. GO back and check your colonization books to know that Uganda was an option for the establishment of a Jewish state!