Copyright © DOD 2004
by Grace Halsell ...I met with another MacMillan official, William Curry. "I was told to take your manuscript to the Israeli Embassy, to let them read it for mistakes," he told me. "They were not pleased. They asked me, ‘You are not going to publish this book, are you?’ I asked, ‘Were there mistakes?’ ‘Not mistakes as such. But it shouldn’t be published. It’s anti-Israel.’" Somehow, despite obstacles to prevent it, the presses had started rolling. After its publication in 1980, I was invited to speak in a number of churches. Christians generally reacted with disbelief. Back then, there was little or no coverage of Israeli land confiscation, demolition of Palestinian homes, wanton arrests and torture of Palestinian civilians... Speaking of these injustices, I invariably heard the same question, "How come I didn’t know this?" Or someone might ask, "But I haven’t read about that in my newspaper." To these church audiences, I related my own learning experience, that of seeing hordes of U.S. correspondents covering a relatively tiny state. I pointed out that I had not seen so many reporters in world capitals such as Beijing, Moscow, London, Tokyo, Paris. Why, I asked, did a small state with a 1980 population of only four million warrant more reporters than China, with a billion people? I also linked this query with my findings that The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post - and most of our nation's print media - are owned and/or controlled by Jews supportive of Israel. It was for this reason...they sent so many reporters to cover Israel -- and to do so largely from the Israeli point of view. My learning experiences also included coming to realize how easily I could lose a Jewish friend... I could with impunity criticize France, England, Russia, even the United States [and] any aspect of life in America -- BUT NOT THE JEWISH STATE. I lost more Jewish friends than one after the publication of Journey to Jerusalem... |