Transcript
Sam Husseini: Senator Lott, how do you react to President Carter’s recent statements that Israel is imposing an apartheid system on the Palestinians, and there’s been a defacto silence, a complicity, by both parties in the Congress. How do you react to that statement?
Senator Trent Lott: I really have been concerned by a lot of what former President Carter had to say, and I don’t think a lot of it has been helpful in any way. The situation with Israel and how they deal with the Palestinian issue and others is very very serious, very critical, and I think while we should try to be helpful, we should also be very careful in what we propose and what we say.
Husseini: Senator, have you been to the West Bank, have you been to any Palestinian towns?
Lott: Yeah, uh, I have not recently, but I have been there in the past, yes.
Husseini: In Israeli settlements, or on the other side of the line?
Lott: On the Israeli side of the line.
Husseini: So you haven’t been to the Palestinian towns and villages.
Lott: No, no I have not been to the Palestinian side of the equation. Look, it is not a perfect situation, I don’t deny that
Husseini: Doesn’t that prove Carter’s point?
Lott: Now part of what you do in finding a solution is not start, you know, using names and casting dispersions on either side. You try to find how you solve the problem. You try to move to a positive solution without trying to characterize or condemn one side or the other. Look, there’s no perfection in how that part of the world and the Middle East is being done. But we need to try to find a way to come to some solutions and I think good men and women of good will are going to have to do that.
Husseini: But how can you do that if you only go to one side of the line? You said you’ve only been to one side
Lott: Look, I haven’t condemned the other side
Husseini: No, no, but you haven’t been there, you don’t see their point of view. How do you know it’s not apartheid if you haven’t been on their side of the fence?
Lott: I’ve never been to North Korea either, do I have an opinion on that situation, yeah. I haven’t been to Iran
Husseini: So it might be apartheid for all you know.
Lott: I would not describe it that way.
[originally published on Washington Stakeout on Dec. 10, 2006; posted on posthaven Nov. 11, 2015]