Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid: My Review of the book

*** The Title Does NOT Tell the WHOLE Story, The People Who Live There, December 15, 2006

Reviewer: Barbara Rose, PhD "Born To Inspire" (Borntoinspire.Com, USA, Editor, inspire! Magazine)

I have long been a great supporter of Jimmy Carter, whom I view as a decent man of peace. However, from the contents of this book, my own long academic study in Middle Eastern affairs, as well as my month long stay in Israel in July, 2000 personally interviewing ALL sides, the Israeli Jewish people, The Christian people, and The Palestinian people, what they ALL have in common is that they all want peace among each other.

This fact is not addressed in this book at all.

The leaders on all sides who are either putting up fences for protection, waging war against each other in a tiny country to hold or claim more land, and to attack each other strictly due to religious ideology are facts that the people who are living there feel powerless over, as well as ALL sides living in fear from attack and death without a moment’s notice.

The Palestinian people deserve to have a piece of land, a place they can call “home.”

In the center of Jerusalem, (about the size of a postage stamp) witnessing all sides having their markets to sell their wares and goods, the vast majority of the PEOPLE all got along. They just stayed in their own sections and did not bother each other.

The title of this book is misleading. What Carter fails to point out is that ALL of the “Leaders” of their people from all sides need to come to an agreement to live among each other. Yes, Israel would need to give up part of the Gaza, a fact they fear due to water supply, and a few other countries outside the borders of Israel putting that in grave danger. This is NOT addressed at all.

In a nutshell, the book sends a positive and clear message that Palestinian people must have their own rightful place. However, there are other governments outside of Israel who play a larger role with an ever consistent threat of wiping out the Jewish AND Christian population;
Namely, Hezbollah, who was performing genocide against Christians in Southern Lebanon, many of whom I personally interviewed.

The Christians who fled INTO Israel for protection against genocide with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, were PROTECTED by the Israeli government, given safe harbor, a place to live and food to eat.

This book does NOT address this fact at all.

Bottom line: the leaders of ALL sides have to come to terms with the fact that human beings are entitled to worship as they choose – it’s called live and let live – in a democratic land. When the blame games stop, and win/win solutions are sought by all sides for all people concerned, then, there will be peace for all in that region.