but a Palestinian friend of my husband's family came to visit them nine years ago - his first time in the US ... possibly his only time, come to think of it... he had been here a week or so, and someone asked him what impressed him most about our country and his response was very simple but profound, "no checkpoints".  I think most of us who have never traveled to Palestine (myself especially) cannot begin to understand the kind of conditions people there are expected to live with.  

I don't believe that President Carter wrote this book lightly, or without a good idea of what controversy would follow its publication.  I believe that he is a wise and courageous man who brings honor and dignity to the Nobel Prize he so richly deserved.