[Peace-discuss] Chomsky: Obama on Israel-Palestine

[Brussel Morton K.]

Obama on Israel-Palestine
By Noam Chomsky

Barack Obama is recognized to be a person of acute intelligence, a  
legal scholar, careful with his choice of words.  He deserves to be  
taken seriously - both what he says, and what he omits.  Particularly  
significant is his first substantive statement on foreign affairs, on  
January 22, at the State Department, when introducing George Mitchell  
to serve as his special envoy for Middle East peace.

Mitchell is to focus his attention on the Israel-Palestine problem, in  
the wake of the recent US-Israeli invasion of Gaza.  During the  
murderous assault, Obama remained silent apart from a few platitudes,  
because, he said, there is only one president - a fact that did not  
silence him on many other issues.  His campaign did, however, repeat  
his statement that "if missiles were falling where my two daughters  
sleep, I would do everything in order to stop that." He was referring  
to Israeli children, not the hundreds of Palestinian children being  
butchered by US arms, about whom he could not speak, because there was  
only one president.

On January 22, however, the one president was Barack Obama, so he  
could speak freely about these matters - avoiding, however, the attack  
on Gaza, which had, conveniently, been called off just before the  
inauguration.

Obama's talk emphasized his commitment to a peaceful settlement.  He  
left its contours vague, apart from one specific proposal: "the Arab  
peace initiative," Obama said, "contains constructive elements that  
could help advance these efforts.  Now is the time for Arab states to  
act on the initiative's promise by supporting the Palestinian  
government under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, taking  
steps towards normalizing relations with Israel, and by standing up to  
extremism that threatens us all."

Obama is not directly falsifying the Arab League proposal, but the  
carefully framed deceit is instructive.

The Arab League peace proposal does indeed call for normalization of  
relations with Israel - in the context - repeat, in the context of a  
two-state settlement in terms of the longstanding international  
consensus, which the US and Israel have blocked for over 30 years, in  
international isolation, and still do.  The core of the Arab League  
proposal, as Obama and his Mideast advisers know very well, is its  
call for a peaceful political settlement in these terms, which are  
well-known, and recognized to be the only basis for the peaceful  
settlement to which Obama professes to be committed.  The omission of  
that crucial fact can hardly be accidental, and signals clearly that  
Obama envisions no departure from US rejectionism.  His call for the  
Arab states to act on a corollary to their proposal, while the US  
ignores even the existence of its central content, which is the  
precondition for the corollary, surpasses cynicism.

The most significant acts to undermine a peaceful settlement are the  
daily US-backed actions in the occupied territories, all recognized to  
be criminal: taking over valuable land and resources and constructing  
what the leading architect of the plan, Ariel Sharon, called  
"Bantustans" for Palestinians - an unfair comparison because the  
Bantustans were far more viable than the fragments left to  
Palestinians under Sharon's conception, now being realized.  But the  
US and Israel even continue to oppose a political settlement in words,  
most recently in December 2008, when the US and Israel (and a few  
Pacific islands) voted against a UN resolution supporting  "the right  
of the Palestinian people to self-determination" (passed 173 to 5, US- 
Israel opposed, with evasive pretexts).

Obama had not one word to say about the settlement and infrastructure  
developments in the West Bank, and the complex measures to control  
Palestinian existence, designed to undermine the prospects for a  
peaceful two-state settlement.   His silence is a grim refutation of  
his oratorical flourishes about how "I will sustain an active  
commitment to seek two states living side by side in peace and  
security."

Also unmentioned is Israel's use of US arms in Gaza, in violation not  
only of international but also US law.  Or Washington's shipment of  
new arms to Israel right at the peak of the US-Israeli attack, surely  
not unknown to Obama's Middle East advisers.

Obama was firm, however, that smuggling of arms to Gaza must be  
stopped.  He endorses the agreement of Condoleeza Rice and Israeli  
foreign minister Tzipi Livni that the Egyptian-Gaza border must be  
closed - a remarkable exercise of imperial arrogance, as the Financial  
Times observed: "as they stood in Washington congratulating each  
other, both officials seemed oblivious to the fact that they were  
making a deal about an illegal trade on someone else's border - Egypt  
in this case. The next day, an Egyptian official described the  
memorandum as `fictional'." Egypt's objections were ignored.

Returning to Obama's reference to the "constructive" Arab League  
proposal, as the wording indicates, Obama persists in restricting  
support to the defeated party in the January 2006 election, the only  
free election in the Arab world, to which the US and Israel reacted,  
instantly and overtly, by severely punishing Palestinians for opposing  
the will of the masters.  A minor technicality is that Abbas's term  
ran out on January 9, and that Fayyad was appointed without  
confirmation by the Palestinian parliament (many of them kidnapped and  
in Israeli prisons).  Ha'aretz describes Fayyad as "a strange bird in  
Palestinian politics. On the one hand, he is the Palestinian  
politician most esteemed by Israel and the West.  However, on the  
other hand, he has no electoral power whatsoever in Gaza or the West  
Bank." The report also notes Fayyad's "close relationship with the  
Israeli establishment," notably his friendship with Sharon's extremist  
adviser Dov Weiglass.  Though lacking popular support, he is regarded  
as competent and honest, not the norm in the US-backed political  
sectors.

Obama's insistence that only Abbas and Fayyad exist conforms to the  
consistent Western contempt for democracy unless it is under control.

Obama provided the usual reasons for ignoring the elected government  
led by Hamas. "To be a genuine party to peace," Obama declared, "the  
quartet [US, EU, Russia, UN] has made it clear that Hamas must meet  
clear conditions: recognize Israel's right to exist; renounce  
violence; and abide by past agreements." Unmentioned, also as usual,  
is the inconvenient fact that the US and Israel firmly reject all  
three conditions.  In international isolation, they bar a two-state  
settlement including a Palestinian state; they of course do not  
renounce violence; and they reject the quartet's central proposal, the  
"road map." Israel formally accepted it, but with 14 reservations that  
effectively eliminate its contents (tacitly backed by the US).  It is  
the great merit of Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, to  
have brought these facts to public attention for the first time - and  
in the mainstream, the only time.

It follows, by elementary reasoning, that neither the US nor Israel is  
a "genuine party to peace." But that cannot be.  It is not even a  
phrase in the English language.

It is perhaps unfair to criticize Obama for this further exercise of  
cynicism, because it is close to universal, unlike his scrupulous  
evisceration of the core component of the Arab League proposal, which  
is his own novel contribution.

Also near universal are the standard references to Hamas: a terrorist  
organization, dedicated to the destruction of Israel (or maybe all  
Jews).  Omitted are the inconvenient facts that the US-Israel are not  
only dedicated to the destruction of any viable Palestinian state, but  
are steadily implementing those policies.  Or that unlike the two  
rejectionist states, Hamas has called for a two-state settlement in  
terms of the international consensus: publicly, repeatedly, explicitly.

  Obama began his remarks by saying: "Let me be clear: America is  
committed to Israel's security. And we will always support Israel's  
right to defend itself against legitimate threats."

There was nothing about the right of Palestinians to defend themselves  
against far more extreme threats, such as those occurring daily, with  
US support, in the occupied territories.  But that again is the norm.

Also normal is the enunciation of the principle that Israel has the  
right to defend itself.  That is correct, but vacuous: so does  
everyone.  But in the context the cliche is worse than vacuous: it is  
more cynical deceit.

The issue is not whether Israel has the right to defend itself, like  
everyone else, but whether it has the right to do so by force.  No  
one, including Obama, believes that states enjoy a general right to  
defend themselves by force: it is first necessary to demonstrate that  
there are no peaceful alternatives that can be tried.  In this case,  
there surely are.

A narrow alternative would be for Israel to abide by a cease-fire, for  
example, the cease-fire proposed by Hamas political leader Khaled  
Mishal a few days before Israel launched its attack on December 27.   
Mishal called for restoring the 2005 agreement.  That agreement called  
for an end to violence and uninterrupted opening of the borders, along  
with an Israeli guarantee that goods and people could move freely  
between the two parts of occupied Palestine, the West Bank and the  
Gaza Strip.  The agreement was rejected by the US and Israel a few  
months later, after the free election of January 2006 turned out "the  
wrong way." There are many other highly relevant cases.

The broader and more significant alternative would be for the US and  
Israel to abandon their extreme rejectionism, and join the rest of the  
world - including the Arab states and Hamas - in supporting a two- 
state settlement in accord with the international consensus.  It  
should be noted that in the past 30 years there has been one departure  
from US-Israeli rejectionism: the negotiations at Taba in January  
2001, which appeared to be close to a peaceful resolution when Israel  
prematurely called them off.  It would not, then, be outlandish for  
Obama to agree to join the world, even within the framework of US  
policy, if he were interested in doing so.

In short, Obama's forceful reiteration of Israel's right to defend  
itself is another exercise of cynical deceit - though, it must be  
admitted, not unique to him, but virtually universal.

The deceit is particularly striking in this case because the occasion  
was the appointment of Mitchell as special envoy.  Mitchell's primary  
achievement was his leading role in the peaceful settlement in  
northern Ireland.  It called for an end to IRA terror and British  
violence.  Implicit is the recognition that while Britain had the  
right to defend itself from terror, it had no right to do so by force,  
because there was a peaceful alternative:  recognition of the  
legitimate grievances of the Irish Catholic community that were the  
roots of IRA terror.  When Britain adopted that sensible course, the  
terror ended.  The implications for Mitchell's mission with regard to  
Israel-Palestine are so obvious that they need not be spelled out.   
And omission of them is, again, a striking indication of the  
commitment of the Obama administration to traditional US rejectionism  
and opposition to peace, except on its extremist terms.

Obama also praised Jordan for its "constructive role in training  
Palestinian security forces and nurturing its relations with Israel" -  
which contrasts strikingly with US-Israeli refusal to deal with the  
freely elected government of Palestine, while savagely punishing  
Palestinians for electing it with pretexts which, as noted, do not  
withstand a moment's scrutiny.   It is true that Jordan joined the US  
in arming and training Palestinian security forces, so that they could  
violently suppress any manifestation of support for the miserable  
victims of US-Israeli assault in Gaza, also arresting supporters of  
Hamas and the prominent journalist Khaled Amayreh, while organizing  
their own demonstrations in support of Abbas and Fatah, in which most  
participants "were civil servants and school children who were  
instructed by the PA to attend the rally," according to the Jerusalem  
Post.  Our kind of democracy.

Obama made one further substantive comment: "As part of a lasting  
cease-fire, Gaza's border crossings should be open to allow the flow  
of aid and commerce, with an appropriate monitoring regime..." He did  
not, of course, mention that the US-Israel had rejected much the same  
agreement after the January 2006 election, and that Israel had never  
observed similar subsequent agreements on borders.

Also missing is any reaction to Israel's announcement that it rejected  
the cease-fire agreement, so that the prospects for it to be "lasting"  
are not auspicious.  As reported at once in the press, "Israeli  
Cabinet Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who takes part in security  
deliberations, told Army Radio on Thursday that Israel wouldn't let  
border crossings with Gaza reopen without a deal to free [Gilad]  
Schalit" (AP, Jan 22); ‘Israel to keep Gaza crossings closed...An  
official said the government planned to use the issue to bargain for  
the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by the Islamist  
group since 2006 (Financial Times, Jan. 23); "Earlier this week,  
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that progress on Corporal  
Shalit's release would be a precondition to opening up the border  
crossings that have been mostly closed since Hamas wrested control of  
Gaza from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in  
2007" (Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 23); "an Israeli official said  
there would be tough conditions for any lifting of the blockade, which  
he linked with the release of Gilad Shalit" (FT, Jan. 23); among many  
others.

Shalit's capture is a prominent issue in the West, another indication  
of Hamas's criminality.  Whatever one thinks about it, it is  
uncontroversial that capture of a soldier of an attacking army is far  
less of a crime than kidnapping of civilians, exactly what Israeli  
forces did the day before the capture of Shalit, invading Gaza city  
and kidnapping two brothers, then spiriting them across the border  
where they disappeared into Israel's prison complex.  Unlike the much  
lesser case of Shalit, that crime was virtually unreported and has  
been forgotten, along with Israel's regular practice for decades of  
kidnapping civilians in Lebanon and on the high seas and dispatching  
them to Israeli prisons, often held for many years as hostages.  But  
the capture of Shalit bars a cease-fire.

Obama's State Department talk about the Middle East continued with  
"the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan... the  
central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and  
extremism." A few hours later, US planes attacked a remote village in  
Afghanistan, intending to kill a Taliban commander. "Village elders,  
though, told provincial officials there were no Taliban in the area,  
which they described as a hamlet populated mainly by shepherds. Women  
and children were among the 22 dead, they said, according to Hamididan  
Abdul Rahmzai, the head of the provincial council" (LA Times, Jan. 24).

Afghan president Karzai's first message to Obama after he was elected  
in November was a plea to end the bombing of Afghan civilians,  
reiterated a few hours before Obama was sworn in.  This was considered  
as significant as Karzai's call for a timetable for departure of US  
and other foreign forces.  The rich and powerful have their  
"responsibilities." Among them, the New York Times reported, is to  
"provide security" in southern Afghanistan, where "the insurgency is  
homegrown and self-sustaining." All familiar.  From Pravda in the  
1980s, for example.
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