President Jimmy Carter's courageous stand on behalf of occupied Palestinians has sparked a surge of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices appearing in the mainstream media. For example the LA Times' News Blog reprinted a story, which was first published in 1957, by the late Ambassador Robert G. Neumann. Neumann, according to the Times was an "Austrian who was held in a Nazi concentration camp for his political activities," and a "UCLA professor who wrote frequently about world events for The Times . . . ."
Neumann's suggestion in 1957 for Middle East Peace:
Arab states must accept existence of Israel as an integral part of the area.
Israel must accept principal responsibility for the return, resettlement or compensation of refugees.
Both sides must recognize that fear of aggression is mutual and genuine.
Arab leaders must realize that their frequent blood-curdling statements render a poor service to their cause.
Israel must recognize that as long as there is worldwide agitation for Jewish immigration into Palestine, Arab fears of Israel's aggrandizement will persist.
Neumann's story was followed the next day with Israeli Knesset member and Palestinian Azmi Bishara's Op-Ed, Why Israel is After Me.
Bishara writes regarding allegations that he passed information to Hezbollah:
These trumped-up charges, which I firmly reject and deny, are only the latest in a series of attempts to silence me and others involved in the struggle of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel to live in a state of all its citizens, not one that grants rights and privileges to Jews that it denies to non-Jews.
He informs Americans about the realities of Israel:
More than 20 Israeli laws explicitly privilege Jews over non-Jews. The Law of Return, for example, grants automatic citizenship to Jews from anywhere in the world. Yet Palestinian refugees are denied the right to return to the country they were forced to leave in 1948. The Basic Law of Human Dignity and Liberty — Israel's "Bill of Rights" — defines the state as "Jewish" rather than a state for all its citizens. Thus Israel is more for Jews living in Los Angeles or Paris than it is for native Palestinians.
Time Magazine's Newsblogger, Andrew Lee Butters reports in Hunger in Eden about the devastating effects of Israel's illegal settlements on one Palestine village:
Though it's hard to believe that food could be scarce in this land of milk and honey, the 24 families who live in Yanoun are being slowly starved. The settlements now control access to about 96 percent of the village's land making commercial agriculture nearly impossible. And though Yanoun could possibly support itself with some kind of highly cultivated garden in the bowl shaped valley beneath, they don't have enough water to do so because the settlements have taken over their rain catching ground cisterns. And even if they could grow produce, the villagers would have trouble getting it to market. The reliable roads to the region are for Israelis only. The rest are clogged with checkpoints. So the people of Yanoun -- like some 400,000 other people in the West Bank -- scrape by with the help from the WFP.
And the reader comments are largely supportive. One commentator writes:
As long as we can't see the whole story in the news, our politicians have no reason to put pressure on Israel to stop the occupation.
Reader comments on stories about Palestine/Israel in the Washington Post also indicate also that Americans are more informed and concerned about the US role in Israel/Palestine; the following comment appears in response to a May 3 op-ed by David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an organization that touts Daniel Pipes as one of its adjunct scholars:
When is Israel going to leave the Golan Heights? When are they going to stop creating new illegal settlements on the West Bank and when are they going to tear down that Wall and finally when is the Washington Post and Slate going to give a voice to people who represent the Arab view of the Middle East conflict?
Despite the mainstream media's progressive reporting about Israel/Palestine, politicians remain reticent. Former Senator James Abourezk offers some insight why:
. . . the Lobby is quite clear in its efforts to suppress any congressional dissent from the policy of complete support for Israel which might hurt annual appropriations. Even one voice is attacked, as I was, on grounds that if Congress is completely silent on the issue, the press will have no one to quote, which effectively silences the press as well. Any journalists or editors who step out of line are quickly brought under control by well organized economic pressure against the newspaper caught sinning.
Senator Barack Obama proves the veracity of Abourezk's observation. According to the May 3 Christian Science Monitor in regard to his earlier expression about Palestinian "suffering" his:
. . . references to Palestinian suffering and Israeli heavy-lifting were gone, replaced by a less nuanced pro-Israel stance nearly indistinguishable from that of his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hilary Clinton.
Based upon reader comments and more exposure for Palestinian voices and their supporters in the mainstream press, Americans are better informed about Palestine/Israel. It is hoped that the fortunes of the Palestinians in the diaspora, in Israel, and in the occupied territories will improve once politicians find the courage that now informs both their constituents and the mainstream media.