[Peace-discuss] Chomsky on Israeli attacks

[C. G. Estabrook]

[This is the conclusion of the epilogue to Perilous Power: The Middle 
East and U.S. Foreign Policy, by Noam Chomsky & Gilbert Achcar, edited 
with a Preface by Stephen R. Shalom, to be published by Paradigm 
Publishers September 15, 2006. --CGE]

      ...A broader analysis is suggested by retired colonel Pat
Lang, former head of the Middle East and terrorism desk at the
Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency: "This is basically
tribal warfare. If you have someone who's hostile to you and
you're unwilling to accept a temporary truce, as Hamas
offered, then you have to destroy them. The Israeli response
is so disproportionate to the abduction of the three men it
appears it's a rather clever excuse designed to appeal both to
their public and to the U.S."

         Speculation about motives and conflicting factors
should not blind us to the tragedy that is unfolding. Lebanon
is being destroyed, Israel's Gaza prison is suffering still
more savage blows, and on the West Bank, mostly out of sight,
the United States and Israel are consummating their project of
the murder of a nation, a grim and rare event in history.

         These actions, and the Western response, illustrate
all too clearly the amalgam of savage cruelty,
self-righteousness, and injured innocence that is so deeply
rooted in the imperial mentality as to be beyond awareness.
One can easily understand why Gandhi, when asked what he
thought of Western civilization, is alleged to have said that
he thought it might be a good idea.

-- July 20, 2006


The rest at <http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.
cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10663>.