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

[C. G. Estabrook]

[A typically acute dissection of government and media falsification.  AWARE 
could do far worse than make this account generally known in our neighborhood. 
Obama's "carefully framed deceit is instructive"; his position "conforms to the 
consistent Western contempt for democracy unless it is under control." Quite a 
different Obama from the one the anti-war movement capitulated to.  --CGE]


Brussel Morton K. wrote:
> 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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