In recent years, corporate media pundits like Tom Friedman and Nicholas Kristof have expressed deep concern over what they claim is a lack of peaceful elements within the Palestinian resistance to the 44-year Israeli occupation. Where is the “Palestinian Gandhi” who could inspire the violent Arab masses to lay down their weapons and pursue a more virtuous path to freedom (FAIR Blog, 2/17/12)?
Either the many examples of Palestinians successfully using nonviolent direct action to confront their occupiers have gone unnoticed or are being deliberately ignored in mainstream reports. Another amazing victory for peaceful resistance occurred last Tuesday, when Palestinian professional soccer player Mahmoud Sarsak was released from Israeli prison after a three-month hunger strike.
Sarsak had been imprisoned for three years without charge or trial, based on a claim by the Israeli security forces that he was a member of Islamic Jihad. He was subjected to “administrative detention”—imprisonment without trial—when Israeli authorities failed to produce enough evidence to formally prosecute him.
Sarsak’s release came several months after 33-year-old baker Khader Adnan also won his freedom after a hunger strike.
Despite the pundits’ assurances that a nonviolent Palestinian movement would attract journalists’ attention, Sarsak’s release—like Adnan’s—received little attention in U.S. corporate media. According to a search of the Nexis news database, his release was not mentioned on television. In fact the only U.S. publication that mentioned Sarsak’s release was the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (7/10/12), which gave the story a few sentences in a news brief feature in the Sports section.
And here’s how that article—based on an AP dispatch—introduced the case:
Dozens of Islamic militants fired rifles in the air today in a rousing homecoming for a member of the Palestinian national soccer team who was released by Israel after being held for three years without formal charges.
Rather than stressing the fact that Sarsak was illegally detained like so many other Palestinians, the Post-Gazette‘s wire dispatch evokes an image of violent militants welcoming home one of their released comrades.
If the corporate media have truly been waiting for examples of peaceful Palestinian resistance to embrace, than why have Sarsak’s case and the many other instances of individuals nonviolently risking their lives for national liberation been essentially ignored? From the West Bank village of Budrus to the deep recesses of Israeli jails, literally thousands of Palestinians have rejected violence as the most effective means by which to fight the apartheid structure that has divided and oppressed them for decades. But establishment media in the U.S. clearly do not find what Sarsak called the “revolution of empty stomachs” newsworthy.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette letters to the editor webform
The hypocrisy’s undeniable, but there’s this assumption that nonviolent resistance is the only morally legitimate tactic to what must be seen as something worse than apartheid in South Africa, which was met with force by those oppressed, as in so many other instances.
There needs to be a rejection of the romance of both violent and nonviolent struggle, and a principled and disciplined use of both when circumstances warrant. We should condemn acts of true terrorism, but avoid laying guilt by association on those who take up arms against their oppressors when so many of their family, friends and neighbors have been murdered, and their ability to live any kind of decent life denied them through the violence of their tormentors.
I don’t say any of this lightly. Violence is a very difficult strategy to control, and the potential for its abuse is always present.
But we should think twice before we fault those who decide that it’s necessary to protect themselves.
History supports that caution, here and abroad, from Palestine to South Africa to Nicaragua to the Polish and French resistance to Spain to Blair Mountain, West Virginia.
Let’s hope and work for the day when there will be no reason to make that fateful decision.
Israel defines itself as a Jewish state and will never accept a non apartheid democracy with a Jewish minority. Continuing illegal settlement expansion has also precluded any negotiated two state solution. Justice may now only be served by UN, NATO, etc. imposing resolution just as involuntary, disruptive and humiliating to Israel as Israel has wreaked upon occupied Palestine for generations. The Jewish State must be made to recognize an armed Palestine with externally enforced autonomy, eviction of all settlers, true contiguity encompassing Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem together, neither pinched nor parceled, and pay punitive reparations.
@Doug Latimer and John WV:
Although I disagree with the presumption that Israeli oppression is worse than race-based systems of oppression which existed all over Africa in places such as the Belgian Congo and South Africa, which cost millions of lives, I do agree that both non-violence and violence have their uses and their weaknesses, and that neither is a panacea when it comes to resolving conflicts in which both sides have much to lose if they are not “victorious.” I long ago came to disdain the (selective) fetishization of non-violence by Westerners as the only legitimete response to oppression when the oppressors are Westerners. History books are largely silent about the fact that Gandhi first tried his non-violent “solution” in South Africa before he failed and fled for India where he found a situation in a very different society in which it could (eventually) actually be effective. Israel is not a democracy. It is a neo-colonial Western settler state which has been forcefully lodged in a part of the world in which its own behavior, both internally and externally is the greatest obstacle to the peace its leadership and its people allegedly seek. As long as Westerners accept Israel’s right to exist as self-described Jewish state in which justice and human rights are parceled out based upon one’s Jewishness, they should be equally okay with for example, Chinese suppression of ethnic minorities.
The greatest crime of our time, and of course america is in the thick of it…as usual…on the wrong side!
I recently returned from the Holy Land and one of our multi-denominational Christian group was an Archbishop from the Methodist Church in South Africa. We asked him to address our group with his observations about the apartheid description of what he had seen in Palestine/ Israel. His assessment was that what he had seen was WORSE than what existed under apartheid in South Africa. For all intents and purposes Israel (with US complicity and arms) has killed any chance of a two state solution with the unrestrained settlement building and theft of Palestinian land, natural resources (water especially) and unbridled control of all potential tourist attractions that are within Palestinian borders. There are plenty of Gandhis in Palestine—our group was addressed by many of them . The US public is becoming aware of the bias of our mainstream media and we are getting our “news” elsewhere. Al Jazeera and Haaretz are for more dependable when it comes to telling the truth. Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, FAIR, the Palestine Chronicle, Churches for Middle East Peace, Codepink, US Campaign to End the Occupation, Tree of Life Conferences/web-site—all are more reliable resources for learning about Palestine/Israel. Then there are also BOOKS (what a unique idea).
Peasehead, I was referring to apartheid in its later stages. I do believe that what the population of Gaza is suffering at this moment is more horrific than what black South Africans endured in that period, but I wasn’t in any way attempting to downplay their torment.
Oppression is oppression, at any level, and obligates us to condemn and confront it.
And, like South Africa, I believe the only just solution is one state in historic Palestine, with equal rights for all.
South Africa is far from that ideal at present, I realize, and the so-called “leadership” of the ANC bears much of the responsibility for that failure.
Gandhi style non-violent opposition requires a sympathetic media and a population capable of becoming outraged by atrocities perpetrated by aggressively violent people on a peaceful people.
It didn’t work for the the Indians under the Americans, for the Jews and Poles under Hitler, and it hasn’t worked for the Palestinians under the Zionists.
The world is becoming more aware though. I just read about the man who put up maps in train stations. They show maps of Palestine since 1948, and these maps show the reduction of Palestine, and that loss of land is truly shocking. I also read that some groups are divesting from Caterpillar. A Disney relative has dumped her interest in an Israeli cosmetic firm because she did not want to support a product made from materials that came from land that was contested.
Also the article said 44 years, but it’s 64 years since 1948. I am looking at the point of origin of products that I buy too. I don’t think we need a Palestinian Ghandi, just individuals paying attention to their conscience, and thinking before buying. Governments can create sanctions and so can can individual consumers. We can all be our own Ghandi. : )
RE: “Gandhi style non-violent opposition . . . didn’t work . . . ~
Actually nonviolent resistance worked against Hitler’s forces in Berlin in the Rosenstrasse action (February-March 1943), by which Aryan wives of Jewish husbands freed their spouses, who had been arrested and imprisoned awaiting deportation to the camps, by nonviolent action — by crowding the street (Rosenstrasse) fronting the building where the men were held, refusing to depart, and demanding individual soldiers guarding the building to return their men, who were eventually released. Did this action defeat Hitler’s military or persuade him to make peace? No. But it was a small victory, achieved by Gandhian methods, against a population that one would expect to be incapable “of becoming outraged by atrocities.”
I know of no nonviolent action performed by European Jews in resistance to the Nazi program for their extermination. The widespread cooperation with this program (e.g., in the form of the Judenrat in Warsaw — the Jewish organization that coordinated for German officials the deportation of their fellow Jewish victims to the camps) cannot be called “nonviolent opposition” in the Gandhian sense, for it was not a form of opposition. The simple refusal to take up arms for self-defense is not the same as Gandhian nonviolent resistance.
I know of no effort by Native Americans to use Gandhian methods. It is common knowledge that many tribes attempted to oppose European colonization by armed force. But that is not Gandhian nonviolence.
Nor do I know of any attempt by Poles to oppose the Nazi occupation during World War II with Gandhian methods. Occupied Poland was full of various partisan groups using sabotage and various guerrilla tactics against the Nazis.
While Gandhian methods have not always been successful, warfare — for at least one side in the conflict — is ALWAYS unsuccessful.
It’s too early to tell how successful will be the nonviolent campaigns being now waged in Palestine by Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a school teacher and coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall; Daoud Nassar of Bethlehem; or Bassem Tamimi, leader of the nonviolent campaign of villagers from Nabi Saleh near Ramallah, aimed at regaining control of the village’s water supply from the nearby Israeli (illegal) settlement of Halamish — to name three Palestinian Gandhis.
Today I learned Jesus tangentially represents the Western fetizhization (sic) of nonviolence.
I’m often ashamed of myself for not having come to the aid of the Palestinians more, knowing the weight of the unfair competition by the worldwide Zionists defending Israel who are systematically committing genocide. It is unfair competition, talk about a David and Goliath scenario!! Clue: Palestinians are not the Goliath.
The fact that all people in Israel and Palestine under 70 (more or less) have never known anything but war, killing, bloodshed, difficulties unimaginable to many of us, should prompt most to settle so both sides are happy. Lets have a two country solution NOW, OR YESTERDAY!
This is the first blog I’ve read through that had no negative hate speech. Thank all of you for your serious and intelligent comments. Yes, there are and have been Palestinian Gandhi’s and our media has been unconscionable in not covering them.
There is no doubt that Israel exerts a heavy security presence in all her zones of national territory, and buffer zones that extend out from Israel proper.The reason why she does this is obvious.She has been invaded countless times by armies,and terrorist factions bent on her annihilation.Peaceful protest to that suppression( if it is happening )would be a God send.I always thought if not for Arafat and his ilk that the Palestinians would of long ago arrived at a better arrangement. Of course 80% of their historic land now in the hands of Arab neighbors will never be allocated for Palestinian land.The Arab countries will not even consider the thought of it.The seminal question is when should she(Israel) loosen the reins of controlWhat you call apartheid.Hard question.Israel has traded land and every other form of barter in the past searching for peace.Usually to be attacked immediately after- in a cause and effect vicious circle.She is wary.Tired.And has become vicious in response at times.You need to study the surprise attacks against her…the school bus bombings to understand why she would never want a voting Palestinian majority presence with national status in the driver seat.
On this sight I notice too many are still talking about the most effective way to COMBAT Israel.You seem to be looking for effective methods.Peaceful/non peaceful…hey what ever works right? Because of the history of Israel there is only one way toward peace.Live in peace.Together in Peace.It will take time.Israel wants to live in peace.I tell you that too many of her neighbors still see Israel as illegal and they want her gone.That is the long term goal.Always always.So this idea of demands upon Israel, and a grudging acceptance that attacks may be curtailed(because lets face it she hits back twice as hard)yet always with an eye to the future with Israel and Jews driven into the sea……Not a workable format toward peace.
Given Israel’s propensity for testosterone impaired judgement I take exception to referring to Israel as “she”. I believe that people of my gender who— give birth and love their children and other people’s children would not have “hit back twice as hard” as you call it. The death toll in “operation cast lead” (such a feminine sounding name for a slaughter) had a death toll of 100 to 1. Such a nice “Christmas present” for my fellow Christians. (The vast majority of Israeli casualties were military and some of the 13 or 14 were “friendly fire”). If security were the real purpose of the wall it would follow the 1967 borders and not snake through the occupied territories and Bethlehem. There is something appalling in the chutzpah of placing sniper towers strategically along the wall that snakes through the birthplace of Jesus—Bethlehem is NOT in Israel…please consult a map of the wall (See the web-site for “If Americans Knew”) to see ample evidence that the wall’s primary purpose is land and resource theft—NOT security. Those of us who have actually visited Palestine/Israel have seen the truth of the occupation and it is ugly. There are some bright spots lake the Hagar School but they are far too few.
Has there ever been an empire since Genghis Khan that did not justify its early conquests by claims of self-defense?
WILPfer
If you don’t believe every action the Israelis take is predicated on some level by security concerns Im afraid you have not read the history of the country.Israel has had the bomb for years.Israel has had military control of foreign factions from within, that are not wholly friendly to Israel for years.I dare say if the roles were reversed every man woman and child sporting a gold star would be driven into the sea or crucified along the roads.That is why there is a need for those guns in the place where Jesus once walked.
Something that always sticks in my mind…..I once asked an Arab man near the west bank to tell me about israeli treatment in that area.He told me about the hardships due to the roadblocks.He told me what is was like to see Israeli soldiers in the market place.I asked him if things were reversed and his people had the guns,what then.That quiet shop keeper became animated and truly frightening.He said “we would drive them out.Out into the desert where they can eat sand’.Mercy?Mercy for the jews?Not on your life.I look at the Arabs in Israel and see a people who live side by side with great challenges ahead.Then I look at Jews living in the countries of her Arab neighbors.Well actually there really aren’t any, are there?Not a good place to lay your head….if you wanna keep it attached!
michael e
“If you don’t believe every action the Israelis take is predicated on some level by security concerns . . . ”
Of course Israel, like every nation, has a right to security. It’s hard, however, to believe that the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel n international waters, carrying nothing that could harm Israelis but only humanitarian aid for the severely blockaded half million people of Gaza, was prompted by “security concerns.” It’s hard to see as an action motivated by “security concerns” the Israelis’ creation of fake history — their refusal to admit, for many years, that Arabs were driven from their villages, and the villages were destroyed, by Israelis (rather than leaving these properties on their own whim — the official explanation long upheld by Israel and only recently challenged by the Israeli “new historians”). It’s hard to see Israel’s imprisonment of Palestinian children (almost totally without credible charge) as prompted by “security concerns.” It’s hard to see Israel’s deporting of the Palestinian advocate and practitioner of nonviolence named Mubarak Awad or Israeli soldiers’ firing on unarmed demonstrators protesting against the so-called “security fence” as prompted by “security concerns.”
It’s possible, of course, to define “security concerns” in a way that justifies any atrocities, any unjust predations that one cares to wreak upon a foreign people. For that matter, it’s possible to interpret Hitler’s foreign policy in 1939 as motivated by “security concerns.”
Many of the shameful actions of US authorities throughout US history were claimed to have been prompted by “security concerns” — e.g., the Red Scare (ca. 1918-1921), the internment of Japanes-Americans, the justification of US action in Vietnam by the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident and more recently the invasion of Iraq, the employment of drones against civilians in Pakistan & elsewhere, and the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act were all prompted by “security concerns.” (This is not, of course, an exhaustive list.)
wajdelota
I wont go point by point- though I could.Lets pick the first one.The ship mavi.For weeks before it set sail it was trumpeting the fact in the Arab press, and in “terrorist “organization pamphlets that it would run the blockade.It left hanging what it was going to transport.It loaded up with some high profile anti israeli types.When IDF forces boarded they were immediately attacked.That was a simple enforcement of a blockade being met by an attempt to repel those trying to interdict her.You then hold up scant evidence of this house being leveled…..or that village” maybe”.You talk of this man being wrongfully accused(Awad), or Palestinian children jailed(you never say for what- or what you even mean by children).You talk of Israel killing unarmed protestors?????Where?When?I think I can trump your list there partner.More than once -forces have invade Israel with the goal of driving EVERY man woman and child into the sea.Kill all the jews being the battle cry.America you say has an exhaustive list of her own.I call it a cherry picked list,sighting any American mistake that has occurred over the last 50 years and beyond.Hitlers so called security concerns involved a war he envisioned against his great enemy….the jews!So to say those same jews dont now see everything through the prism of security -is not a correct reading of the situation.
@Addison Bross: The tribes who met invading West Europeans in the Americas and in the Carribbean non violently with gestures and acts of friendship and cooperation were rewarded with the same level of violence and injustice as those who resisted them violently. Had situation been reversed and it was the Indians who were discovering, I mean invading Europe, there would have been no discussion of a non violent response among European Whites ranging from the leadership all the way down to the most lowly peasant. Even the Vatican would have insisted that force was the only response. The only way to ‘defeat” Nazism non violently was for Germans, who knew what they stood for, not to elect the Hitler and the Nazi party in the first place, and for Austrians and other Europeans not to jump on the Nazi bandwagon when it appeared to be on a roll during the 1920’s and the 1930’s. Once it achieved the legitimacy and resources of a nation state, including rabid nationalism, it was far too ruthless, and far too well resourced, and far too well armed to ever have been defeated or displaced by non violence. Of course, all empires eventually fail, so if one is willing to accept the loss of tens of millions of lives while one waits for that to happen, non violence “always works.”
@Doug Latimer: Thanks to their use of armed force, the “violent” Vietnamese and Indonesians are in full control of their nations. French and Dutch colonials, in spite of being in their countries for hundreds of years, do not control the land, the water, the natural resources, or the wealth of modern Vietnam or Indonesia. That’s called freedom. This is totally unlike modern South Africa in which the same Whites who oppressed the Black majority are unpunished, and still control all of those things. South Africa is not a land of equality or freedom, it is an example of how non violence can lead to the undermining and the defeat of a liberation struggle when it becomes more important to curry favor from those who are more sympathetic to one’s oppressors that to achieve genuine (not symbolic) freedom for the oppressed. Until Westerners stop insisting that non violence is something that is good for everyone who lives with life threatening situations but themselves, I will continue to see the selective practice of non violence by Westerners as just another tool of Western oppression. A cynical means of making oppression safer for the oppressor.
michael e
“I once asked an Arab man . . . if things were reversed and his people had the guns,what then. . . . [W]e would drive them out . . . . ”
One angry, rabid Palestinian does not prove that all Palestinians want to drive Jews “into the desert where they can eat sand.”
I refuse to infer from the heinous crimes of Meir Kahane and Baruch Goldstein that all Israeli Jews want to massacre Palestinians.
The acts of Kahane and Goldstein were not mere threats or intentions, as were the comments of the Palestinian man you interviewed. Kahane’s and Goldstein’s behaviors were actual acts of mass murder, not simply angry thoughts. Are you at all aware of them?
Doesn’t this raise the elementary point that one must not generalize from a single example?
“I look at Jews living in the countries of her Arab neighbors. Well, actually there really aren’t any . . . .”
Really? In Iran: 20,000 to 25,000 Jews. In Turkey: 26,000 Jews. You can check statistics for other Arab countries for yourself, but these two are enough to show the absurdity of claiming that “there really aren’t any” Jews in the Arab nations near Israel.
@ PEASEHEAD
“The tribes who met invading West Europeans in the Americas and in the Carribbean non violently with gestures and acts of friendship and cooperation were rewarded with the same level of violence and injustice as those who resisted them violently.”
Quite true, and quite horrifying — an ineradicable blot on the history of our species, and especially on so-called “civilized” Europe.
(I’m not sure how this horror disproves — or bears upon — what I’ve reported about the Rosenstrasse event, which you are free to check out for yourself in order to see whether I’ve made it all up. But I pass over that.)
But meeting the European invaders with “gestures and acts of friendship” bore no resemblance whatsoever to nonviolence as practiced, for example, by Gandhi. The tactics of nonviolent resistance developed relatively recently, from Tolstoy, Gandhi, King, James Lawson, Michael Nagler, et al. Their nonviolent resistance against injustice was not a matter of acting kindly toward those who threatened them. Each of these leaders won a strong measure of success — not by “gestures of friendship.”
The essay “Nonviolence: An Introduction” is a pretty good overview of what nonviolent resistance (nonviolent direct action) actually is. It can be found at http://www.nonviolenceinternational.net/seasia/whatis/book.php.
Another way (aside from the one you mention: voting against the Nazi party) to defeat Nazism was to organize a peace movement in Germany in the 1920s or 1930s.
Thanks for your response.
michael e
“I wont go point by point.”
Why not? Going point by point is usually a good way to show that you’re carefully responding to each point someone else has made, that you wish to refute.
“You talk of Israel killing unarmed protestors?????Where?When?”
I’ll mention one victim and give you the website where you can read about the incident, if you wish to do so:
The victim: Bassem Ibrahim Abu-Rahma, resident of the village of Bil’in. When: April 2009. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bil%27in
“You talk of this man being wrongfully accused(Awad) . . . .”
No. I wrote that he was deported by Israeli officials, despite his commitment to nonviolent protest. Google his name if you’d like to refute my point. Give the website where it is denied that Mubarak Awad was a nonviolent protester and that he was deported from Israel.
Some works by Jewish historians based in Israel that bear out much of what I’ve written here are lan Pappe’s A History of Modern Palestine or any work by the Jewish historian Benny Morris. Another good source is the American Jewish scholar Richard Silverstein at his blog Tikun Olam (http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/).
You’re obviously interested in current events in Israel. These sources would probably be helpful to you.
Best regards.
michael e
Forgot to mention this equally excellent source for information about the current state of the conflict between Palestinians, the IDF, Jewish settlers in their illegal settlements, etc. ~
B’Tselem — an organization of (mainly Jewish) legal experts who have taken on the task of observing and reporting on violent actions by the IDF and other Jewish elements against Palestinians — AND violent actions committed by Palestinians against Jewish Israelis (or anyone else).
The full name of the organization is – B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. Its website is at http://www.btselem.org/.
To mention one instance that attests to B’Tselem’s unbiased approach to this conflict: The current website reports on an execution by Hamas of three Palestinians in Gaza.
I hope you find these sources helpful.
Tonto
Jews in Iran (very few)are under immediate surveillance.Ties to “zionist(Israel) or imperialists(America)”is punishable by death.Jews in Persia stretch back into the annals of time.They live in certain areas (you would call them open air camps)They are under a shadow of constant fear.They are not growing.Probably not good to compare their lives in Iran to a Palestinians life in Israel.
Thankjs Waj for that sight.I dont think anyone is saying Israel is acting friendly toward the minorities within ,and just outside her boarders all the time.Far from it.Some things like the settlement you call illegal.Yet was it more so when the armies and terrorists came from those areas to bring murder upon the Israeli innocents?The idea that after enough was enough that Israel would establish buffer zones,and implement restrictions upon “the enemy within”…..does this not strike you as a completely sane argument for survival.I sometimes think people want Jews to go back to acting in all ways to the letter of the law while they are led to their deaths,quiet and complacent.Those times are past.J ews have learned to fight for their survival.You can not talk them into doing things contrary to their own national or personal survival.
It has happened so many times in the past.Land is returned,and rockets rain forth.Terrorists come by night to kill.Take that land back and say Never again….and YOU are the one at fault.
The Israeli Prime Minister reveals in an unguarded moment just what motivates Israel’s policy toward Palestinians. It turns out not to be the need for security for his citizens.
CHECKPOINT WASHINGTON ~ Reporting on diplomacy, intelligence and military affairs
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkpoint-washington/2010/07/netanyahu_america_is_a_thing_y.html
Netanyahu: ‘America is a thing you can move very easily’
. . . [A] newly released video o[shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu speaking in an unvarnished manner in 2001 about relations with the United States and the peace process . . . .
“I know what America is,” Netanyahu told a group of terror victims, apparently not knowing his words were being recorded. “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in their way.”
Netanyahu also bragged how he undercut the peace process when he was prime minister during the Clinton administration. “They asked me before the election if I’d honor [the Oslo accords],” he said. “I said I would, but … I’m going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the ’67 borders. How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I’m concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue.”
Gideon Levy, a left-leaning columnist for Haaretz newspaper, declared: “This video should have been banned for broadcast to minors. This video should have been shown in every home in Israel, then sent to Washington and Ramallah. Banned for viewing by children so as not to corrupt them, and distributed around the country and the world so that everyone will know who leads the government of Israel.”
Of course, the video is from nearly ten years ago. Opinions change, based on circumstances and experience. But who knows what leaders are really saying when they think the cameras aren’t filming?
By Glenn Kessler | July 16, 2010; 2:06 PM ET