In early April, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller (photo courtesy of the New York Times) discussed his recent book "The Tree Shaker: The Story of Nelson Mandela," a children's book on the life of the South African leader Nelson, on the Times' "Ask A Reporter" site.
The project is aimed at schoolchildren, who submit questions to selected Times reporters about the job of reporting. The reporters generally respond with bland, follow-your-dreams stuff to the audience of aspiring journalists or curious students, but Keller's response to one student's question might raise some eyebrows.
A New York City 12th grader asked Keller:
"What do you think of the analogy between apartheid South Africa and Israel-Palestine? I remember hearing about a lot of controversy last year regarding Jimmy Carter's book, 'Peace Not Apartheid.'"
Keller responded in a post dated April 4 by saying that one has to be careful with analogies, but also suggested that that one had some validity:
"How you feel about Jimmy Carter's book, I guess, depends on whether you think it is a way to shed light on a complicated situation, or just a way to insult Israel. Was he trying, as he says, to provoke a legitimate discussion of the imbalance of power between relatively rich and powerful Israel and the relatively poor and weak Palestinians? Because it is not wrong to see some resemblance to South Africa in the way Israelis drew up Palestinian homelands that serve Israeli interests while leaving the Palestinians poor and divided. Or was he trying to portray the Israelis as evil racists and the Palestinians as innocent victims? Because most experts would say that distorts the reality in Israel."
—Clay Waters is the director of Times Watch, an MRC project tracking the New York Times.
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Hmmm
April 17, 2008 - 14:34 ET by Humblepie"Because it is not wrong to see some resemblance to South Africa
in the way Israelis drew up Palestinian homelands that serve Israeli
interests while leaving the Palestinians poor and divided."
I thought Jimmy Carter helped draw up the lines during his famous "Camp David Peace Accord?" Israel made concession after concession to both Carter and the Palestinians. As to Israeli's interest, I believe it's called self preservation.
During this time with political correctness at its zenith, I reserve the right to let you know you're an idiot.
I guess you could draw that
April 17, 2008 - 16:10 ET by Dan The Man 2I guess you could draw that distinctiopn of poor verses rich in any analogy using 2 countries. The USA and Mexico perhaps? It is not a good comparison as the country of SA is just that one country and its peoples have to work their own differences out. Palestine and Israel are two countries just as Palestine and Jordan are 2 seperate countries.
It always mystifies me why Palestine is not attacking the countries like Jordan or even better merging with them. Israle should cut off Palestine com[pletely and claim the Holy city and temple for the Jews. I mean it was so til Islam took it by force.
Nuke em til they glow then shoot em in the dark.
Great similarity between the two...
April 17, 2008 - 17:18 ET by ExtirpaterBoth are stories that have appeared in or been "researched" by NYT staff.
The similarity comes to a screeching halt on everything else.
How does one correctly describe the similarities, if any, between matter and anti matter in the article, then declare the two are, in fact, identical.
Current South Africa and
April 17, 2008 - 18:34 ET by merkavaCurrent South Africa and "Palestine" certainly share some common ground.
South Africa has the highest murder rate in the world, "Palestine" everyday attempts to beat that record.
arab propaganda
April 18, 2008 - 03:53 ET by JWFI see someone is eating up arab propaganda for lunch. Israel did not "draw" up Palestinian homelands, the U.N did in 1945.
The land around Israel is unclaimed land. It has been unclaimed since the Ottoman empire disbanded in WWI .
That land was offered to the Arabs in 1945 and was refused. It was occupied by Jordan and Egypt after the war with Israel shortly after the creation of Israel and the first Arab attempt to take her down. No one seemed to complain about this. It was only after Israel took over this land after a war in 1967 that the compaining took off.