Alice Walker Interview: Israel And America Are Terrorist States

Foreign Policy:

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker will join the flotilla of ships next week that will try to break Israel's maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip. She says the goal is to bring supplies and raise awareness of the situation there.

Read the whole story: Foreign Policy

Comments

[lawdini]

08:55 PM on 07/05/2011

Calling our United States a terrorist country is an act of treason, imo. Alice Walker should be deported to Gaza and stay there for good. I guarantee she'd come running back home in a matter of days.

[LWDeutsch]

04:35 PM on 07/01/2011

THEY SHOULD CALL THE BOAT, "THE AUDACITY OF ALICE". Are her Jewish friends, business associates so blinded by her "stardom" that they can't see the errors of her "truth" and correct her. I am willing to accept her apology.

[kevrob]

04:07 PM on 07/01/2011

And with that statement, Alice was offered a tenured professorship at Columbia University....

[DeniseA]

09:54 PM on 06/30/2011

America a "terrorist state"? Seems a terrible insult to our veterans.

[Caroleeena]

12:43 AM on 07/03/2011

Only if you choose to blame the troops rather than the government.
I, for one, do not.
I don't believe Ms. Walker does either.

[Demidan]

10:07 AM on 06/29/2011

Yes, yes we are.

[nk5otr]

07:55 PM on 06/28/2011

Policies she can work on changing in Gaza once she arrives:

- Women's rights

UN envoy: Women in Gaza feel coerced into covering their heads

http://www.haaretz.com/news/un-envoy-women-in-gaza-feel-coerced-into-covering-their-heads-1.238259

Gaza study: 88% of women denied inheritance rights

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=266208

Women in Gaza banned from smoking hookah, Hamas claims it leads to divorce

http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/07/18/women-in-gaza-banned-from-smoking-hookah-hamas-claims-it-leads-to-divorce/

- Gay rights

Sexual relations between men illegal in Gaza

http://typo3.lsvd.de/fileadmin/pics/Dokumente/Homosexualitaet/World_legal_wrap_up_survey._November2006.pdf

Palestinian gays flee to Israel

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3211772.stm

- Persecution of Christians

Jihadists persecuting Palestinian Christians in Gaza

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/12/jihadists-persecuting-palestinian-christians-in-gaza.html

[DannyDiamond]

04:30 PM on 06/28/2011

As I've grown older I've come to realize what my father always said is actually true that "the rich usually got there by screwing someone out of something along the way". I just can't bring myself to say or do some of the things required to secure these lofty positions of power and that's what separates the good honest people from the true unfeeling sociopaths. Sociopaths are the ones who'll always rise to the top in any power struggle for the top rung. That's basically what we see today, the madhouse has been overtaken and is being run by the murderous lunatics.

[Amariri]

10:22 PM on 06/27/2011

There are many great people in the United States --like Alice Walker-- who have the courage to criticize their own government (and the two parties if both deserve it), because they know perfectly well that a government is not the same as the people, and that it is never anti-patriotic to criticize the elite who control the resources of the nation, through manipulation, gangsterism and corruption.

[GilGamish]

03:33 PM on 06/28/2011

no people in the US, and Israel for that matter, don't need courage to criticize their own gov't because they have freedom of speech. if AW had real courage when she got to Gaza she'd call out Hamas. this isn't at all about courage or human rights, it's about political agendas.

[amake616]

08:57 PM on 06/27/2011

She didn't say any of that. But hey, keep putting words in people's mouths so you can tell them why what they didn't say was wrong. It makes you look very intelligent.

[Amariri]

09:49 PM on 06/27/2011

Where do you want to get with that fishing rod?
Because it is obvious you are trying to fish with that bait.
That game of yours is very old and very silly.

[DannyDiamond]

04:43 PM on 06/28/2011

Yeah, maybe, but nobody believes what you're selling because their eyes tell a different story. ;) The majority is slowly turning from your view to his I see.

[MelissaQuan]

12:23 PM on 06/27/2011

If Ms Walker thinks the USA is a terrorist state, I wonder why she doesn't emigrate to some other nation that she does like. No doubt she pays a lot of tax dollar$ to this "terrorist state".
If she had a choice where would she prefer to live:
a) West Bank
b) Saudi Arabia
c) Jordan
d) Syria
e) Israel

[Yetsomeotherguy]

04:50 PM on 06/27/2011

America is a terrorist state..
Real Americans work to change their govt. Cowards run.

[tbmuscg70]

10:15 PM on 06/27/2011

How about Mexico or Haiti, both good places to live, YOU THINK?

[misaacm]

10:36 AM on 06/27/2011

She never once mentioned Hamas.

[Json]

04:26 PM on 06/27/2011

She barely seems aware that an entity known as "Hamas" exists.

[Amariri]

10:44 PM on 06/27/2011

Question: What if Hamas did not exist?
Answer: Israel would have to create it.
Question: But they did that. I mean, Israel encouraged the creation of Hamas, right?
Answer: Exactly.
Question: And why did they wanted Hamas to exist?
Answer: Because without Hamas, they would have no excuses.

[misaacm]

09:08 AM on 06/28/2011

Israel did not create Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood did. That is why Mubarak wanted to keep them bottled up. Israel did try dealing with them as a counterweight to Fatah in the 70s and 80s, since Arafat kept stealing all of the international aid money and none of it went to the poor people of Gaza. But then Israel learned that Hamas had been playing them and the clinics were just a front for terrorist training. However if you want to keep playing your silly game of asking foolish questions, and then providing ridiculous answers, go ahead.

[hamsteronwheel]

10:19 AM on 06/27/2011

we are all hamsters on neocon "financially engineered" and "financially innovated" wheels

10/8/10

Neocons Talk Deficit but Won’t Budge on Defense Cuts

"China spends half the share of its GDP on defense as the U.S. — less than $100 billion last year... That’s less than 15 percent of what we spent.

According to SIPRI, the military budgets of EVERY NATION other than the U.S

added together would only come to 46 percent of the total.

In other words, the U.S. defense budget is 54 percent of world military spending.

The idea that we need a defense budget almost 60 percent larger as a share of GDP than a decade ago is ludicrous.

...that isn’t enough to justify spending more than half of the world’s military expenditures.

Almost all our NATO allies get by spending well less than half what we spend as a share of GDP."

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2010/10/08/Neocons-Talk-Deficit-but-Wont-Budge-on-Defense-Cuts.aspx

[kodimirpal]

12:13 PM on 06/27/2011

You have left out the cost of fighting the war on terror. The following is the American definition of terrorism. Let us ask our conscience whether our GOVT. is abiding by or violating our own definition before we ask Talibans whether they strictly follow the true spirit and laws of Jihad or defensive war. There are many lunatic fringes tribal regions but do we have lunatic fringes in American political leadership?

Following is the US DEFINITION of TERRORISM.

"[An] act of terrorism, means any activity that
(A) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life that is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; and

(B) appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping." (United States Code Congressional and Administrative News, 98th Congress, Second Session, 1984, Oct 19, volume 2; par 3077, 98 STAT. 2707[West Publishing Co., 1984]).

Unless and until we address the root cause of the Western intervention in the affairs of other nations, the defence expenditure is going to go up.

[pomegrante]

10:10 AM on 06/27/2011

Black Americans suffered in this country for many years. Unlike others in the world, THEY NEVER FLED their homeland. They were not cowards.They stayed and fought through nonviolence and sometime violent means.

For those on here who have been viciously slandering Alice Walker, I suggest you read up on Black American history. Perhaps then you will understand the context of her statements.

[Ergon]

09:52 AM on 06/28/2011

And, considering what they suffered, it is only understandable they speak up when others are mistreated. Something Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu also remembered. So Alice Walker is in good company.

[andrewsullar]

07:49 PM on 06/30/2011

Ms Walker did not speak up when Asian students were badly mistreated in Philly for the last 3 years. This went on for 3 years without the school taking action. They recently won a civil rights lawsuit since the school allowed blacks to committ hate crimes against them left and right. Alice was silent. Ditto for what is currently going on with the Hispanic girl who was gangraped in Cleveland TX. Black activists are harrassing her and her family. Alice is silent.

[Want2knowY]

10:01 AM on 06/27/2011

Ms. Walker's statements are over the top. I would like to know what her vision of "peace and justice" is for the region? Doesn't seem like it would include any recognition of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

[messy]

10:30 AM on 06/27/2011

or the jews' right to live in the area as humans.

[Yetsomeotherguy]

04:52 PM on 06/27/2011

What about the Palestinians right to exist? Not even based on religion, just on human rights.

Why are we so ready to subsidize a such an openly racist concept as a "Jewish" state?

[DarkAlchemist]

07:45 PM on 06/27/2011

There are no Jews, just evil Zionist Nazi occupiers who run the world through a banker's cabal that includes the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. They control the media and the world with their 10 million strong numbers. It's amazing how they pull it off, lol.

[pomegrante]

10:48 AM on 06/27/2011

Want2knowY:

The struggle of Black Americans under apartheid ( civil rights ), Black South Africans under apartheid ( civil rights ) and Palestinians apartheid ( civil rights ) is strikingly similar.

Alice Walker is simply making the same comparison. If Martin Luther King was alive, he would no doubt join Ms. Walker, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and others condemning the oppression.

[MelissaQuan]

12:14 PM on 06/27/2011

Actually, Martin Luther King was for Israel and Zionism.
http://rac.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=415

[kodimirpal]

03:10 AM on 06/27/2011

Let us take the specific case of Abdullah Al-Ajmi who was locked up at Guantanamo. After four years of brutal brutal treatment in Guantanamo, he was sent back to Kuwait.

Later he found his way to Iraq to teach terror to Americans. In March 2008, he drove a bomb-laden vehicle into Iraqi military compound killing himself and 13 soldiers.

An act of horrible violence committed by a former Guantanamo detainee. Of course what Abdullah did was a crime in Islam, in any religion, but what caused him to do this.

This was the direct result of his abusive treatment in the hands of civilized Americans. The use of torture by the US elicits no useful information to stop terror but in fact it has proved so counter productive that many more US soldiers have died due to such terror than the number of civilians killed in 9/11.

In short we have to address the root cause of the terror.

[pomegrante]

09:42 AM on 06/27/2011

MODERATORS:

I posted two replies to this poster, kodimirpal. His last statement is "in short we have to address the root cause of the terror."

I replied back in a civilized professional manner. Why were both of my posts deleted?

[pomegrante]

09:57 AM on 06/27/2011

root cause of the terror:

the 60+ years of Israel's brutal occupation of Palestine.

MODERATORS: this is what I posted and one of you deleted it twice.

There have been some ugly comments been posted against Black Americans going on now for several days . The only time they were erased is when they were reposted, protesting the ugliness. When I posted that Black Americans fought for their rights,did not flee our homeland, the United States of America, it got deleted.

Why the disparity?

[messy]

10:31 AM on 06/27/2011

The reason is that is isn't true.

[kodimirpal]

11:43 AM on 06/27/2011

The Jews one of the most intelligent people ever to occupy the earth; look at the people of Palestine from a sinful selfish single perspective.

Will God ever forgive them if they believed in the God whose covenant the Jews broke?

Is it not sad that the Jews who were the persecuted pariahs of Europe, have in turn are persecuting, dispossessing, uprooting the natives of Israel , the natives who had absolutely no role to play in the German holocaust.

And the advanced, industrial and civilized world that gives so much hypocritical lip service to human rights, simply watch the terrible human right violations and the voters of conscience in the West are unable to do anything to change the views of their Govts. Is democracy is a myth?

Israeli Major General Shlomo Gazit (retired) was the head of research at the Israeli directorate of Military Intelligence. He was one of the most intelligent and considerate leaders and thinkers among the Israelis.

Over coffee on morning, Alan Hart said to him, “I have come to the conclusion that it’s all a myth. Israel’s existence has never been in danger.”

Through a sad smile, Gazit replied,

“The trouble with us Israelis is that we have become victims of our own propaganda.”

Zionism the real enemy of Jews, should help Jews to come to terms with that truth and its implications

Until then the peace that the author hopes is not going to materialise.