Amazon spams its customers, touts anti-Israeli views,

[sheila19621]

On July 4, Amazon spammed its customers with advertisement of Norman Finkelstein's virulently anti-Semitic book, Image and Reality of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict. On May 30, Amazon similarly advertised Beyond Chutzpah: on the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. I have never received any other ad from Amazon.

On April 4, in an unprecedented move, Amazon deleted all reviews of Obadiah Shoher's Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict. A few days later, Amazon forced its subsidiary Booksurge to terminate publishing contract with Shoher whose book is now available for download from www.samsonblinded.info . Google earlier banned advertising of the Samson Blinded for "unacceptable content." Shoher, indeed, is pro-Israeli, yet realistic and critical of Israeli policies.

Obadiah Shoher, an anonymous politician, abandons myths and moralizing in favor of realpolitik. He argues for raw efficiency of antiterrorist operations and shedding liberal idealism. Shoher asks inconvenient questions and gives honest answers. Amazon does not like that. Anti-Semitic lampoons by Norman Finkelstein are more to Amazon's taste.

[wwwSENSERELYcom]

I'm not for censorship, but I think supporting israel is foolish, like supporting the usa for what they've done to irak: hard to do it without looking like a fool

[mondine]

To begin with, your poll makes certain assumptions, and is rather biased.
Amazon.com "censored" reviews on its site. A site where the book remains for sale.
It's not all that surprising, considering the tone of debate to be expected from such volatile material
on such a polarized topic.
The issues of the Middle East will not be solved in the pages of either Amazon.com, or Google Community
or any of the other hundreds of sites that seem to have been peppered with similar posts.

It is quite likely that this thread will need to be locked, and perhaps discarded altogether
if it proves to be a source of disruption to this forum.

But for the moment, we'll move this to the appropriate forum (General Discussion, not General Computer),
and see if there is some rational debate on the issue.
(And since the object of this 'campaign' is a free download.)

But my view? Obviously, its that anybody that's paying the bills gets to decide what goes on their webspace,
and whom they choose to do business with.
That is their own freedom of speech and association.

And many of the participants of this debate seem more interested in free advertising.