File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2002/bhaskar.0204, message 32


Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 22:11:41 +0100
From: Jan Straathof <janstr-AT-chan.nl>
Subject: BHA: Chomsky from Znet


Interview With Chomsky
In Depth Discussion on Israel/Palestine

by Noam Chomsky
April 02, 2002

Znet: Is there a qualitative change in what's happening now?

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.


Z: What is the meaning of March 30th's Security Council Resolution?

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 March 30 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.


Z: What is the U.S. up to now? What U.S. interests are at stake at this
juncture?

The US 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.


Z: What's your opinion of the Arab summit?

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, 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 1971offer 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.




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