Amazon.com bashing Jimmy
UPDATE: Seems the petition was somewhat successful. Now, Amazon.com has posted an interview with Carter above the rest of the reviews. Doesn't exactly meet the demands of the petition, but it is an improvement, however slight.
Haven't talked about Carter's book, but now seems like a good time. Have you signed this petition? 14,000+ have so far. True, it is a seemingly minor issue for an imperfect, yet very significant book. But with the pro-Israel side throwing everything and the kitchen sink at Carter (and in doing so proving Carter's point), this effort is one way to fight back. Here's part of the press release on this effort:
Contact: Henry Norr
(510) 841-5035
henry@norr.com
Berkeley, CA – More than 10,000 customers of Amazon.com have signed an online petition threatening to close their accounts and take their business elsewhere if the Internet shopping site continues to present a new book by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in an unusually negative light.
The petition, accuses Amazon of treating Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid unfairly by posting a lengthy and unabashedly hostile review on the page where it lists the book, in a section normally reserved for short, even-handed descriptions of the title in question.
In the book Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to bring about a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, points to Israel's 40-year-long occupation of the Palestinian territories as the key obstacle to peace in the region. He compares Israel's treatment of the Palestinian population to the brutal apartheid system that once kept South African blacks subjugated.
The review that provoked the petition, written by New Yorker staff writer and former Israeli prison guard Jeffrey Goldberg, labels the book "cynical," disparages Carter's understanding of the conflict as "anti-historical," and accuses him of being "easy on Arab aggression and Palestinian terror." The review originally appeared in the Washington Post.
According to Henry Norr, a former journalist and initiator of the petition, its purpose is not to challenge Amazon's right to post a negative review, but to demand the same kind of nondiscriminatory treatment most books get on the site. The Goldberg review appears on the Amazon page under the heading "Editorial Reviews," a section that on most Amazon book pages contains only one- or two-paragraph synopses from book-listing services such as Publishers Weekly or the American Library Association's Booklist, or descriptions by the book's publisher or by Amazon itself.
Currently, the "Editorial Reviews" section on Amazon's U.S. site includes a one-paragraph, 198-word blurb from Publishers Weekly followed by the full, 20-paragraph, 1,636-word text of Goldberg's totally negative review.
The petition, which is addressed to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, suggests
several possible remedies: removing the Goldberg review, moving it to a
secondary page Amazon already uses for additional material on the book,
or "restor[ing] a semblance of balance by giving comparable space and
prominence to a more positive evaluation of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."
If
Bezos doesn't choose one of these options by January 22, petition
signers pledge to stop shopping at Amazon, to completely close their
accounts, and to urge friends, family, and associates to do likewise.
Other
international Amazon sites also present the book even-handedly,
according to reports by signers of the petition. So does the U.S. site
of Amazon's chief competitor, barnesandnoble.com .
The petition
also complains that Amazon does not include information customers need
in order to evaluate Goldberg's attack on the book – such as the fact
that he volunteered to serve in the Israeli military and served as a
military policeman guarding Palestinian detainees in a prison camp
notorious for its harsh conditions.
-------------------------------------------------
Other assessments of Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid:
Ali Abunimah, "A Palestinian view of Jimmy Carter's book," Wall Street Journal, Dec. 26, 2006
George Bisharat, "Truth at last, while breaking a U.S. taboo of criticizing Israel," Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 2, 2007
Chris Hedges, "Get Carter," The Nation, Jan. 8, 2007
Saree Makdisi, "Carter's apartheid charge rings true," San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 20, 2006
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Posted by: scott | January 25, 2007 at 01:47 PM