[Peace-discuss] Chomsky on the US and Israel

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Chomsky is amazing.  He's 78 this year, and he still has no match for 
insight and clarity on the political situation.  This interview appeared 
on Ynetnews.com, the website of the Israeli paper Yedioth Ahronoth.  (It 
is notable that although this interview appeared there, its equivalent 
would almost certainly not appear in the US press.)  It begins with 
reference to the open letter I recently posted to peace-discuss.  --CGE]


Q: Prof. Chomsky, you claimed that the provocation and 
counter-provocation all serve as a distraction from the real issue. What 
does it mean?


I assume you are referring to John Berger’s letter (which I signed, 
among others). The “real issue” that is being ignored is the systematic 
destruction of any prospects for a viable Palestinian existence as 
Israel annexes valuable land and major resources, leaving the shrinking 
territories assigned to Palestinians as unviable cantons, largely 
separated from one another and from whatever little bit of Jerusalem is 
to be left to Palestinians, and completely imprisoned as Israel takes 
over the Jordan valley.


This program of realignment cynically disguised as “withdrawal,” is of 
course completely illegal, in violation of Security Council resolutions 
and the unanimous decision of the World Court (including the dissenting 
statement of US Justice Buergenthal). If it is implemented as planned, 
it spells the end of the very broad international consensus on a 
two-state settlement that the US and Israel have unilaterally blocked 
for 30 years – matters that are so well documented that I do not have to 
review them here.


To turn to your specific question, even a casual look at the Western 
press reveals that the crucial developments in the occupied territories 
are marginalized even more by the war in Lebanon. The ongoing 
destruction in Gaza – which was rarely seriously reported in the first 
place - has largely faded into the background, and the systematic 
takeover of the West Bank has virtually disappeared.


However, I would not go as far as the implication in your question that 
this was a purpose of the war, though it clearly is the effect. We 
should recall that Gaza and the West Bank are recognized to be a unit, 
so that if resistance to Israel’s destructive and illegal programs is 
legitimate within the West Bank (and it would be interesting to see a 
rational argument to the contrary), then it is legitimate in Gaza as well."


Q: You claim that the world media refuses to link between what's going 
on in the occupied territories and in Lebanon?


Yes, but that is the least of the charges that should be leveled against 
the world media, and the intellectual communities generally. One of many 
far more severe charges is brought up in the opening paragraph of the 
Berger letter.


Recall the facts. On June 25, Cpl. Gilad Shalit was captured, eliciting 
huge cries of outrage worldwide, continuing daily at a high pitch, and a 
sharp escalation in Israeli attacks in Gaza, supported on the grounds 
that capture of a soldier is a grave crime for which the population must 
be punished.



One day before, on June 24, Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza civilians, 
Osama and Mustafa Muamar, by any standards a far more severe crime than 
capture of a soldier. The Muamar kidnappings were certainly known to the 
major world media. They were reported at once in the English-language 
Israeli press, basically IDF handouts. And there were a few brief, 
scattered and dismissive reports in several newspapers around the US.



"Very revealingly, there was no comment, no follow-up, and no call for 
military or terrorist attacks against Israel. A Google search will 
quickly reveal the relative significance in the West of the kidnapping 
of civilians by the IDF and the capture of an Israeli soldier a day later.


The paired events, a day apart, demonstrate with harsh clarity that the 
show of outrage over the Shalit kidnapping was cynical fraud. They 
reveal that by Western moral standards, kidnapping of civilians is just 
fine if it is done by “our side,” but capture of a soldier on “our side” 
a day later is a despicable crime that requires severe punishment of the 
population.


As Gideon Levy accurately wrote in Ha’aretz, the IDF kidnapping of 
civilians the day before the capture of Cpl. Shalit strips away any 
“legitimate basis for the IDF's operation,” and, we may add, any 
legitimate basis for support for these operations.


The same elementary moral principles carry over to the July 12 
kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers near the Lebanon border, heightened, 
in this case, by the regular Israeli practice for many years of 
abducting Lebanese and holding many as hostages for long periods.


Over the many years in which Israel carried out these practices 
regularly, even kidnapping on the high seas, no one ever argued that 
these crimes justified bombing and shelling of Israel, invasion and 
destruction of much of the country, or terrorist actions within it. The 
conclusions are stark, clear, and entirely unambiguous – hence suppressed.


All of this is, obviously, of extraordinary importance in the present 
case, particularly given the dramatic timing. That is, I suppose, why 
the major media chose to avoid the crucial facts, apart from a very few 
scattered and dismissive phrases, revealing that they consider 
kidnapping a matter of no significance when carried by US-supported 
Israeli forces.


Apologists for state crimes claim that the kidnapping of the Gaza 
civilians is justified by IDF claims that they are 'Hamas militants' or 
were planning crimes. By their logic, they should therefore be lauding 
the capture of Gilad Shalit, a soldier in an army that was shelling and 
bombing Gaza. These performances are truly disgraceful."


Q: You are talking first and foremost about acknowledging the 
Palestinian nation, but will it solve the "Iranian threat"? Will it push 
Hizbullah from the Israeli border?


Virtually all informed observers agree that a fair and equitable 
resolution of the plight of the Palestinians would considerably weaken 
the anger and hatred of Israel and the US in the Arab and Muslim worlds 
– and far beyond, as international polls reveal. Such an agreement is 
surely within reach, if the US and Israel depart from their 
long-standing rejectionism.


On Iran and Hizbullah, there is, of course, much more to say, and I can 
only mention a few central points here.


Let us begin with Iran. In 2003, Iran offered to negotiate all 
outstanding issues with the US, including nuclear issues and a two-state 
solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The offer was made by the 
moderate Khatami government, with the support of the hard-line “supreme 
leader” Ayatollah Khamenei. The Bush administration response was to 
censure the Swiss diplomat who brought the offer.


In June 2006, Ayatollah Khamenei issued an official declaration stating 
that Iran agrees with the Arab countries on the issue of Palestine, 
meaning that it accepts the 2002 Arab League call for full normalization 
of relations with Israel in a two-state settlement in accord with the 
international consensus. The timing suggests that this might have been a 
reprimand to his subordinate Ahmadenijad, whose inflammatory statements 
are given wide publicity in the West, unlike the far more important 
declaration by his superior Khamenei.


Of course, the PLO has officially backed a two-state solution for many 
years, and backed the 2002 Arab League proposal. Hamas has also 
indicated its willingness to negotiate a two-state settlement, as is 
surely well-known in Israel. Kharazzi is reported to be the author of 
the 2003 proposal of Khatami and Khamanei.


The US and Israel do not want to hear any of this. They also do not want 
to hear that Iran appears to be the only country to have accepted the 
proposal by IAEA director Mohammed ElBaradei that all weapons-usable 
fissile materials be placed under international control, a step towards 
a verifiable Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty.


ElBaradei’s proposal, if implemented, would not only end the Iranian 
nuclear crisis but would also deal with a vastly more serious crisis: 
The growing threat of nuclear war, which leads prominent strategic 
analysts to warn of 'apocalypse soon' (Robert McNamara) if policies 
continue on their current course.


The US strongly opposes a verifiable FMCT, but over US objections, the 
treaty came to a vote at the United Nations, where it passed 147-1, with 
two abstentions: Israel, which cannot oppose its patron, and more 
interestingly, Blair’s Britain, which retains a degree of sovereignty. 
The British ambassador stated that Britain supports the treaty, but it 
“divides the international community”. These again are matters that are 
virtually suppressed outside of specialist circles, and are matters of 
literal survival of the species, extending far beyond Iran.


It is commonly said that the 'international community' has called on 
Iran to abandon its legal right to enrich uranium. That is true, if we 
define the “international community” as Washington and whoever happens 
to go along with it. It is surely not true of the world. The non-aligned 
countries have forcefully endorsed Iran’s “inalienable right” to enrich 
uranium. And, rather remarkably, in Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, 
a majority of the population favor accepting a nuclear-armed Iran over 
any American military action, international polls reveal.


The non-aligned countries also called for a nuclear-free Middle East, a 
longstanding demand of the authentic international community, again 
blocked by the US and Israel. It should be recognized that the threat of 
Israeli nuclear weapons is taken very seriously in the world.


As explained by the former Commander-in-Chief of the US Strategic 
Command, General Lee Butler, “it is dangerous in the extreme that in the 
cauldron of animosities that we call the Middle East, one nation has 
armed itself, ostensibly, with stockpiles of nuclear weapons, perhaps 
numbering in the hundreds, and that inspires other nations to do so.” 
Israel is doing itself no favors if it ignores these concerns.


It is also of some interest that when Iran was ruled by the tyrant 
installed by a US-UK military coup, the United States – including 
Rumsfeld, Cheney, Kissinger, Wolfowitz and others - strongly supported 
the Iranian nuclear programs they now condemn and helped provide Iran 
with the means to pursue them. These facts are surely not lost on the 
Iranians, just as they have not forgotten the very strong support of the 
US and its allies for Saddam Hussein during his murderous aggression, 
including help in developing the chemical weapons that killed hundreds 
of thousands of Iranians.


There is a great deal more to say, but it appears that the “Iranian 
threat” to which you refer can be approached by peaceful means, if the 
US and Israel would agree. We cannot know whether the Iranian proposals 
are serious, unless they are explored. The US-Israel refusal to explore 
them, and the silence of the US (and, to my knowledge, European) media, 
suggests that the governments fear that they may be serious.


I should add that to the outside world, it sounds a bit odd, to put it 
mildly, for the US and Israel to be warning of the “Iranian threat” when 
they and they alone are issuing threats to launch an attack, threats 
that are immediate and credible, and in serious violation of 
international law, and are preparing very openly for such an attack. 
Whatever one thinks of Iran, no such charge can be made in their case. 
It is also apparent to the world, if not to the US and Israel, that Iran 
has not invaded any other countries, something that the US and Israel do 
regularly.


"On Hizbullah too, there are hard and serious questions. As well-known, 
Hizbullah was formed in reaction to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 
1982 and its harsh and brutal occupation in violation of Security 
Council orders. It won considerable prestige by playing the leading role 
in driving out the aggressors.


The 1982 invasion was carried out after a year in which Israel regularly 
bombed Lebanon, trying desperately to elicit some PLO violation of the 
1981 truce, and when it failed, attacked anyway, on the ludicrous 
pretext that Ambassador Argov had been wounded (by Abu Nidal, who was at 
war with the PLO). The invasion was clearly intended, as virtually 
conceded, to end the embarrassing PLO initiatives for negotiation, a 
“veritable catastrophe” for Israel as Yehoshua Porat pointed out.


It was, as described at the time, a “war for the West Bank.” The later 
invasions also had shameful pretexts. In 1993, Hizbullah had violated 
“the rules of the game,” Yitzhak Rabin announced: these Israeli rules 
permitted Israel to carry out terrorist attacks north of its 
illegally-held “security zone,” but did not permit retaliation within 
Israel. Peres’s 1996 invasion had similar pretexts. It is convenient to 
forget all of this, or to concoct tales about shelling of the Galilee in 
1981, but it is not an attractive practice, nor a wise one.


The problem of Hezbollah’s arms is quite serious, no doubt. Resolution 
1559 calls for disarming of all Lebanese militias, but Lebanon has not 
enacted that provision. Sunni Prime Minister Fuad Siniora describes 
Hizbullah’s military wing as “resistance rather than as a militia, and 
thus exempt from” Resolution 1559.


A National Dialogue in June 2006 failed to resolve the problem. Its main 
purpose was to formulate a “national defense strategy” (vis-à-vis 
Israel), but it remained deadlocked over Hizbullah’s call for “a defense 
strategy that allowed the Islamic Resistance to keep its weapons as a 
deterrent to possible Israeli aggression,” in the absence of any 
credible alternative. The US could, if it chose, provide a credible 
guarantee against an invasion by its client state, but that would 
require a sharp change in long-standing policy.


In the background are crucial facts emphasized by several veteran Middle 
East correspondents. Rami Khouri, now an editor of Lebanon’s Daily Star, 
writes that “the Lebanese and Palestinians have responded to Israel’s 
persistent and increasingly savage attacks against entire civilian 
populations by creating parallel or alternative leaderships that can 
protect them and deliver essential services.”


Q: You are not referring in your letter to the Israeli casualties. Is 
there differentiation in your opinion between Israeli civic casualties 
of war and Lebanese or Palestinian casualties?


That is not accurate. John Berger’s letter is very explicit about making 
no distinction between Israeli and other casualties. As his letter 
states: “Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly - who but 
field commanders can forget this for a moment.”


Q: You claimed that the world is cooperating with the Israeli invasion 
to Lebanon and is not interfering in the events Gaza and Jenin. What 
purpose does this silence serve?


The great majority of the world can do nothing but protest, though it is 
fully expected that the intense anger and resentment caused by 
US-Israeli violence will – as in the past – prove to be a gift for the 
most extremist and violent elements, mobilizing new recruits to their cause.


The US-backed Arab tyrannies did condemn Hizbullah, but are being forced 
to back down out of fear of their own populations. Even King Abdullah of 
Saudi Arabia, Washington’s most loyal (and most important) ally, was 
compelled to say that "If the peace option is rejected due to the 
Israeli arrogance, then only the war option remains, and no one knows 
the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that 
will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting 
them to play with fire."


As for Europe, it is unwilling to take a stand against the US 
administration, which has made it clear that it supports the destruction 
of Palestine and Israeli violence. With regard to Palestine, while 
Bush’s stand is extreme, it has its roots in earlier policies. The week 
in Taba in January 2001 is the only real break in US rejectionism in 30 
years.


The US also strongly supported earlier Israeli invasions of Lebanon, 
though in 1982 and 1996, it compelled Israel to terminate its aggression 
when atrocities were reaching a point that harmed US interests.


Unfortunately, one can generalize a comment of Uri Avnery’s about Dan 
Halutz, who “views the world below through a bombsight.” Much the same 
is true of Rumsfeld-Cheney-Rice, and other top Bush administration 
planners, despite occasional soothing rhetoric. As history reveals, that 
view of the world is not uncommon among those who hold a virtual 
monopoly of the means of violence, with consequences that we need not 
review."


Q: What is the next chapter in this middle-eastern conflict as you see it?


I do not know of anyone foolhardy enough to predict. The US and Israel 
are stirring up popular forces that are very ominous, and which will 
only gain in power and become more extremist if the US and Israel 
persist in demolishing any hope of realization of Palestinian national 
rights, and destroying Lebanon. It should also be recognized that 
Washington’s primary concern, as in the past, is not Israel and Lebanon, 
but the vast energy resources of the Middle East, recognized 60 years 
ago to be a “stupendous source of strategic power” and “one of the 
greatest material prizes in world history.”


We can expect with confidence that the US will continue to do what it 
can to control this unparalleled source of strategic power. That may not 
be easy. The remarkable incompetence of Bush planners has created a 
catastrophe in Iraq, for their own interests as well. They are even 
facing the possibility of the ultimate nightmare: a loose Shi’a alliance 
controlling the world’s major energy supplies, and independent of 
Washington – or even worse, establishing closer links with the 
China-based Asian Energy Security Grid and Shanghai Cooperation Council.


The results could be truly apocalyptic. And even in tiny Lebanon, the 
leading Lebanese academic scholar of Hizbullah, and a harsh critic of 
the organization, describes the current conflict in “apocalyptic terms,” 
warning that possibly “All hell would be let loose” if the outcome of 
the US-Israel campaign leaves a situation in which “the Shiite community 
is seething with resentment at Israel, the United States and the 
government that it perceives as its betrayer.


It is no secret that in past years, Israel has helped to destroy secular 
Arab nationalism and to create Hizbullah and Hamas, just as US violence 
has expedited the rise of extremist Islamic fundamentalism and jihad 
terror. The reasons are understood. There are constant warnings about it 
by Western intelligence agencies, and by the leading specialists on 
these topics.


One can bury one’s head in the sand and take comfort in a “wall-to-wall 
consensus” that what we do is “just and moral” (Maoz), ignoring the 
lessons of recent history, or simple rationality. Or one can face the 
facts, and approach dilemmas which are very serious by peaceful means. 
They are available. Their success can never be guaranteed. But we can be 
reasonably confident that viewing the world through a bombsight will 
bring further misery and suffering, perhaps even 'apocalypse soon.'


(08.04.06, 13:22)

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