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The elephant in the room

Probably not surprisingly, Robert Fisk, veteran Middle East journalist and author, raises a critical issue ignored in the Us election campaign. The Independent reports:

"A feisty debate between Robert Fisk and the author Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman brought The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival to a close on a high note last night.

The absence of a debate on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the US presidential elections was "shocking", Fisk told a packed hall at Blenheim Palace, the grand 18th-century home in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, which hosted the festival.

"America must pull its military forces out of Iraq and the Middle East, leaving the peoples of the region to decide their own future," said Fisk, an author and Middle East correspondent for The Independent. He said the US and its allies had "built a new Iron Curtain from the ice cap to the equator", and added that the result of the elections on 4 November "would not make the slightest bit of difference in the Middle East".

"America's uncritical support for Israel is going to continue," he said."

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