<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><h2 class="ff_g fs30 mb10">Sliding into isolation: Israel risks being ‘South Africanized’</h2><h2 class="ff_g fs30 mb10"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: medium; ">Published: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: medium; "><span class="grey">29 September, 2011, 15:19</span></span></h2>
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<div class="mainimagevideo">Pinning its hopes on the sole support of the US, Israel risks a
collapse if it is ever withdrawn - much like apartheid-era South Africa,
prominent scholar Professor Noam Chomsky warns.</div></div><div class="article_txt"><p>He recalls how South Africans felt safe to ignore a UN embargo and
corporations pulling out of their country throughout the 1980s, as long
as the Reagan administration continued to support them. As soon as the
US withdrew its support, the apartheid regime collapsed. <br><br><em>“For
35 years, the US and Israel have been rejecting a political settlement
that is supported virtually by the entire world. A couple of months ago,
there was a meeting of the oligarchs – people who pretty much run the
economy [of Israel],"</em> Chomsky says, <em>"and they warned the
government that it better accept something like this resolution, because
otherwise, Israel will be, as they put it, South Africanized: even more
isolated, with boycotts, refusal to load ships, and their economy will
collapse."</em><br><br>Chomsky sees the seeds of this in Egypt and
Turkey severing their relations with Israel. While Turkey kicked out its
Israeli ambassador after a UN report on the Gaza flotilla raid <a href="http://rt.com/news/un-report-israel-assault/">was published</a>, Egypt, among other Arab countries, overthrew its government and installed a regime <a href="http://rt.com/news/israel-usa-egypt-revolution-993/">less friendly</a> to the US and Israel. Thus, he believes the US had little reason to back the 'Arab Spring':<br><br><em>“The
US didn't support the Arab revolutions, they were opposed to them.
They supported the dictators right up to the last minute. When the army
turned against them and it was no longer possible to support [the
dictators], they said: "OK, democracy is wonderful," and then they moved
to ensure that the new regimes stayed pretty much as the old ones were.
That's a very old pattern,” </em>he says.<br><br>Meanwhile, the US may
not be able to support its allies the way it once did, being stuck in
what Chomsky calls a ‘vicious cycle’ of social issues: <br><br><em>“The
banks are bigger and richer than before with corporate profits reaching
record levels, and unemployment is about the level of the Great
Depression – I mean real unemployment.”</em><br><br>So it is time to protest, Chomsky is convinced, expressing his support for the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.<br><br><em>“These
people are saying, let's blame the culprits and the institutions behind
them – fiscal policies like taxation, rules of corporate governance,
deregulation – it does set in motion a vicious cycle that is getting
worse and worse. If you walk down the streets of New York you can see
very serious poverty and phenomenal wealth side by side, very much like a
Third World country. Meanwhile, infrastructure is collapsing, schools
are collapsing and all that keeps this cycle going.”</em><br><br>Of
course another provision to keep the cycle going is the political system
maintained through elections, the spending on which also worries
Chomsky.<br><br><em>"Each candidate spends over US $1 billion. Where
does that money come from? A lot of it comes from financial
institutions. What gave Obama the election were primarily financial
institutions' contributions. They preferred him over McCain, they
expected to be paid, and they were. "</em><br><br>The system by which
you pay a party to get a chair on a commission is at work in the US
parliament, according to Chomsky, further expanding the influence of
financial institutions, as they are the only source of that kind of
money.<br><br><em>"It has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between elected officials and concentrated capital,"</em> Chomsky concludes.</p></div></body></html>