MIDDLE EAST COVERAGE
Robert Novak, Carter Fan? [Tim Graham]
Going back to his decades of column-writing with the late Rowland Evans, Robert Novak has long favored the Arab side of the Arab-Israeli divide. But this support can still take on an extraordinary character, as it did in Monday's Novak column suggesting that Jimmy Carter's profit-seeking/provocative book title is not an outrageous characterization of Israel:
Jimmy Carter raised hackles by titling his book about the Palestinian question "Peace Not Apartheid." But Palestinians allege this is worse than the former South African racial separation. Nearing the 40th anniversary of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, the territory has been so fragmented that a genuine Palestinian state and a "two-state solution" seem increasingly difficult.
Novak arrives at this Carter-assisting intersection by worrying about the declining Christian population in the Holy Land. A sympathetic cause, to be sure, but even the New York Times' reporting from the region suggests that the ascent of Islamic domination, not the "worse than apartheid" regime in Israel, is causing that thorny problem.
04/09 08:19 AM
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