Chomsky on the Middle East
24/04/2002
- Opinión
Editor's Note: Noam Chomsky discusses the current conflict in the
Middle East, the history of U.S.-Israeli relations, and the fate of
Palestine.
MICHAEL ALBERT: Is there a qualitative change in what's happening now?
NOAM CHOMSKY: I think there is a qualitative change. The goal of the
Oslo process was accurately described in 1998 by Israeli academic
Shlomo Ben-Ami just before he joined the Barak government, going on to
become Barak's chief negotiator at Camp David in summer 2000. Ben-Ami
observed that "in practice, the Oslo agreements were founded on a neo-
colonialist basis, on a life of dependence of one on the other
forever."
With these goals, the Clinton-Rabin-Peres agreements were designed to
impose on the Palestinians "almost total dependence on Israel,"
creating "an extended colonial situation," which is expected to be the
"permanent basis" for "a situation of dependence."
The function of the Palestinian Authority (PA) was to control the
domestic population of the Israeli-run neocolonial dependency. That
is the way the process unfolded, step by step, including the Camp
David suggestions. The Clinton-Barak stand (left vague and
unambiguous) was hailed here as "remarkable" and "magnanimous," but a
look at the facts made it clear that it was -- as commonly described
in Israel -- a Bantustan proposal; that is presumably the reason why
maps were carefully avoided in the US mainstream.
It is true that Clinton-Barak advanced a few steps towards a
Bantustan-style settlement of the kind that South Africa instituted in
the darkest days of Apartheid. Just prior to Camp David, West Bank
Palestinians were confined to over 200 scattered areas, and Clinton-
Barak did propose an improvement: consolidation to three cantons,
under Israeli control, virtually separated from one another and from
the fourth canton, a small area of East Jerusalem, the center of
Palestinian life and of communications in the region. And of course
separated from Gaza, where the outcome was left unclear.
But now that plan has apparently been shelved in favor of demolition
of the PA. That means destruction of the institutions of the
potential Bantustan that was planned by Clinton and his Israeli
partners; in the last few days, even a human rights center. The
Palestinian figures who were designated to be the counterpart of the
Black leaders of the Bantustans are also under attack, though not
killed, presumably because of the international consequences.
The prominent Israeli scholar Ze'ev Sternhell writes that the
government "is no longer ashamed to speak of war when what they are
really engaged in is colonial policing, which recalls the takeover by
the white police of the poor neighborhoods of the blacks in South
Africa during the apartheid era." This new policy is a regression
below the Bantustan model of South Africa 40 years ago to which
Clinton-Rabin-Peres-Barak and their associates aspired in the Oslo
"peace process."
None of this will come as a surprise to those who have been reading
critical analyses for the past 10 years, including plenty of material
posted regularly on Znet, reviewing developments as they proceeded.
Exactly how the Israeli leadership intends to implement these programs
is unclear - to them too, I presume.
It is convenient in the US, and the West, to blame Israel and
particularly Sharon, but that is unfair and hardly honest. Many of
Sharon's worst atrocities were carried out under Labor governments.
Peres comes close to Sharon as a war criminal. Furthermore, the prime
responsibility lies in Washington, and has for 30 years. That is true
of the general diplomatic framework, and also of particular actions.
Israel can act within the limits established by the master in
Washington, rarely beyond.
ALBERT: What's the meaning of Friday's Security Council Resolution?
CHOMSKY: The primary issue was whether there would be a demand for
immediate Israeli withdrawal from Ramallah and other Palestinian areas
that the Israeli army had entered in the current offensive, or at
least a deadline for such withdrawal. The US position evidently
prevailed: there is only a vague call for "withdrawal of Israeli
troops from Palestinian cities," no time frame specified.
The Resolution therefore accords with the official US stand, largely
reiterated in the press: Israel is under attack and has the right of
self-defense, but shouldn't go too far in punishing Palestinians, at
least too visibly.
The facts -- hardly controversial -- are quite different.
Palestinians have been trying to survive under Israeli military
occupation, now in its 35th year. It has been harsh and brutal
throughout, thanks to decisive US military and economic support, and
diplomatic protection, including the barring of the long-standing
international consensus on a peaceful political settlement. There is
no symmetry in this confrontation, not the slightest, and to frame it
in terms of Israeli self-defense goes beyond even standard forms of
distortion in the interests of power. The harshest condemnations of
Palestinian terror, which are proper and have been for over 30 years,
leave these basic facts unchanged.
In scrupulously evading the central immediate issues, the Friday
Resolution is similar to the Security Council Resolution of March 12,
which elicited much surprise and favorable notice because it not only
was not vetoed by the US, in the usual pattern, but was actually
initiated by Washington. The Resolution called for a "vision" of a
Palestinian state. It therefore did not rise to the level of South
Africa 40 years ago when the Apartheid regime did not merely announce
a "vision" but actually established Black-run states that were at
least as viable and legitimate as what the US and Israel had been
planning for the occupied territories.
ALBERT: What is the U.S. up to now? What U.S. interests are at stake
at this juncture?
CHOMSKY: The U.S. is a global power. What happens in Israel-
Palestine is a sidelight. There are many factors entering into US
policies. Chief among them in this region of the world is control
over the world's major energy resources. The US-Israel alliance took
shape in that context.
By 1958, the National Security Council concluded that a "logical
corollary" of opposition to growing Arab nationalism "would be to
support Israel as the only strong pro-Western power left in the Middle
East." That is an exaggeration, but an affirmation of the general
strategic analysis, which identified indigenous nationalism as the
primary threat (as elsewhere in the Third World); typically called
"Communist," though it is commonly recognized in the internal record
that this is a term of propaganda and that Cold War issues were often
marginal, as in the crucial year of 1958.
The alliance became firm in 1967, when Israel performed an important
service for US power by destroying the main forces of secular Arab
nationalism, considered a very serious threat to US domination of the
Gulf region. So matters continued, after the collapse of the USSR as
well. By now the US-Israel-Turkey alliance is a centerpiece of US
strategy, and Israel is virtually a US military base, also closely
integrated with the militarized US high-tech economy.
Within that persistent framework, the US naturally supports Israeli
repression of the Palestinians and integration of the occupied
territories, including the neocolonial project outlined by Ben-Ami,
though specific policy choices have to be made depending on
circumstances.
Right now, Bush planners continue to block steps towards diplomatic
settlement, or even reduction of violence; that is the meaning, for
example, of their veto of the Dec. 15 2001 Security Council
Resolution calling for steps towards implementing the US Mitchell plan
and introduction of international monitors to supervise the reduction
of violence. For similar reasons, the US boycotted the Dec. 5
international meetings in Geneva (including the EU, even Britain)
which reaffirmed that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the
occupied territories, so that critically important US-Israeli actions
there are "grave breaches" of the Convention -- war crimes, in simple
terms -- as the Geneva declaration elaborated. That merely reaffirmed
the Security Council Resolution of October 2000 (US abstaining), which
held once again that the Convention applied to the occupied
territories. That had been the official US position as well, stated
formally, for example, by George Bush I when he was UN Ambassador.
The US regularly abstains or boycotts in such cases, not wanting to
take a public stand in opposition to core principles of international
law, particularly in the light of the circumstances under which the
Conventions were enacted: to criminalize formally the atrocities of
the Nazis, including their actions in the territories they occupied.
The media and intellectual culture generally cooperate by their own
"boycott" of these unwelcome facts: in particular, the fact that as a
High Contracting Party, the US government is legally obligated by
solemn treaty to punish violators of the Conventions, including its
own political leadership.
That's only a small sample. Meanwhile the flow of arms and economic
support for maintaining the occupation by force and terror and
extending settlements continues without any pause.
ALBERT: What's your opinion of the Arab summit?
CHOMSKY: The Arab summit led to general acceptance of the Saudi
Arabian plan, which reiterated the basic principles of the long-
standing international consensus: Israel should withdraw from the
occupied territories in the context of a general peace agreement that
would guarantee the right of every state in the region, including
Israel and a new Palestinian State, to peace and security within
recognized borders (the basic wording of UN 242, amplified to include
a Palestinian state).
There is nothing new about this. These are the basic terms of the
Security Council resolution of January 1976 backed by virtually the
entire world, including the leading Arab states, the PLO, Europe, the
Soviet bloc, the non-aligned countries -- in fact, everyone who
mattered. It was opposed by Israel and vetoed by the US, thereby
vetoed from history. Subsequent and similar initiatives from the Arab
states, the PLO, and Western Europe were blocked by the US, continuing
to the present. That includes the 1981 Fahd plan. That record too
has been effectively vetoed from history, for the usual reasons.
US rejectionism in fact goes back 5 years earlier, to February 1971,
when President Sadat of Egypt offered Israel a full peace treaty in
return for Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian territory, not even
bringing up Palestinian national rights or the fate of the other
occupied territories. Israel's Labor government recognized this as a
genuine peace offer, but decided to reject it, intending to extend its
settlements to northeastern Sinai; that it soon did, with extreme
brutality, was the immediate cause for the 1973 war.
The plan for the Palestinians under military occupation was described
frankly to his Cabinet colleagues by Moshe Dayan, one of the Labor
leaders more sympathetic to the Palestinian plight. Israel should
make it clear that "we have no solution, you shall continue to live
like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this
process leads." Following that recommendation, the guiding principle
of the occupation has been incessant and degrading humiliation, along
with torture, terror, destruction of property, displacement and
settlement, and takeover of basic resources, crucially water.
Sadat's 1971 offer conformed to official US policy, but Kissinger
succeeded in instituting his preference for what he called
"stalemate": no negotiations, only force. Jordanian peace offers were
also dismissed. Since that time, official US policy has kept to the
international consensus on withdrawal (until Clinton, who effectively
rescinded UN resolutions and considerations of international law); but
in practice, policy has followed the Kissinger guidelines, accepting
negotiations only when compelled to do so, as Kissinger was after the
near-debacle of the 1973 war for which he shares major responsibility,
and under the conditions that Ben-Ami articulated.
Official doctrine instructs us to focus attention on the Arab summit,
as if the Arab states and the PLO are the problem, in particular,
their intention to drive Israel into the sea. Coverage presents the
basic problem as vacillation, reservations, and qualifications in the
Arab world. There is little that one can say in favor of the Arab
states and the PLO, but these claims are simply untrue, as a look at
the record quickly reveals.
The more serious press recognized that the Saudi plan largely
reiterated the Saudi Fahd Plan of 1981, claiming that that initiative
was undermined by Arab refusal to accept the existence of Israel. The
facts are again quite different. The 1981 plan was undermined by an
Israeli reaction that even its mainstream press condemned as
"hysterical," backed by the US. That includes Shimon Peres and other
alleged doves, who warned that acceptance of the Fahd plan would
"threaten Israel's very existence."
An indication of the hysteria is the reaction of Israel's President
Haim Herzog, also considered a dove. He charged that the "real
author" of the Fahd plan was the PLO, and that it was even more
extreme than the January 1976 Security Council resolution that was
"prepared by" the PLO, at the time when he was Israel's UN Ambassador.
These claims can hardly be true, but they are an indication of the
desperate fear of a political settlement on the part of Israeli doves,
backed throughout by the US. The basic problem then, as now, traces
back to Washington, which has persistently backed Israel's rejection
of a political settlement in terms of the broad international
consensus, reiterated in essentials in the current Saudi proposals.
Until such elementary facts as these are permitted to enter into
discussion, displacing the standard misrepresentation and deceit,
discussion is mostly beside the point. And we should not be drawn
into it -- for example, by implicitly accepting the assumption that
developments at the Arab summit are a critical problem. They have
significance, of course, but it is secondary. The primary problems
are right here, and it is our responsibility to face them and deal
with them, not to displace them to others.
Chomsky on the Middle East
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12956
Michael Albert, Z Magazine
April 25, 2002
https://www.alainet.org/en/node/106139?language=es
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