Former US President Jimmy Carter calls for 'balanced' Middle East debate

NEW YORK: In a new afterword to his controversial "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" book, former President Jimmy Carter criticizes the lack of "balanced debate" in the United States about the Middle East and warns officials against being "seen as knee-jerk supporters of every action and policy" of the Israeli government.

Carter's book, a best-seller first published last year, accuses Israel of harshly mistreating the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Carter has said that conditions there merit the word "apartheid," associated with the former system of racial segregation and oppression in South Africa.

Jewish groups and some fellow Democrats strongly objected to the book and more than a dozen members of the Carter Center's advisory board, based in Atlanta, resigned in protest.

"In the course of my life I have done things that have provoked controversy," Carter writes in the paperback edition, which has just been released.

"In some cases, I admit the criticisms may have been justified. Nothing in the past, however, equaled the outpouring that followed the publication of 'Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.'"

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http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/04/arts/NA-A-E-BKS-US-Jimmy-Carter.php

He has more knowledge in his little finger than all of the * administration in their combined brains. Carter flat out knows the ME, and he CARES about a just outcome for all the parties.

Last I checked, the US of A is going under a fascist wave, and all he can yap about is Israel/Palestine. Fuck'm.

:):applause:

and figure out how to get us out of the pickle the dimson has put us in? Bush is in so far over his head that he can't be trusted to do the right thing for our country. We still pay all of these guys a handsome pension - WE NEED YOU NOW.