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Israel is a terrorist state by definition: Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky, 80, is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive
scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute
Professor emeritus and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific
community as the father of modern linguistics. Since the 1960s, he has become
known more widely as a political dissident, and a libertarian socialist
intellectual.
Following is an excerpt of Professor Chomsky's interview with Christiana
Voniati, who is head of International News Department POLITIS Newspaper,
Nicosia, Cyprus.
Voniati: The international public opinion and especially the Muslim world seem
to have great expectations from the historic election of Obama. Can we, in your
opinion, expect any real change regarding the U.S. approach to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Chomsky: Not much. Quite the contrary: it may be harsher than before. In the
case of Gaza, Obama maintained silence, he didn't say a word. He said well
there's only one president so I can't talk about it. Of course he was talking
about a lot of other things but he chose not to talk about this. His campaign
did repeat a statement that he had made while visiting Israel six months
earlier -- he had visited Sderot where the rockets hit- and he said "if this
where happening to my daughters, I wouldn't think of any reaction as
legitimate", but he couldn't say anything about Palestinian children. Now, the
attack on Gaza was at time so that it ended right before the inauguration,
which is what I expected. I presume that the point was so that they could make
sure that Obama didn't have to say something, so he didn't. And then he gave
his first foreign policy declaration, it was a couple of days later when he
appointed George Mitchell as his emissary, and he said nothing about Gaza
except that "our paramount interest is preserving the security of Israel".
Palestine apparently doesn't have any requirement of security. And then in his
declaration he said of course we are not going to deal with Hamas -- the
elected government the U.S. immediately, as soon as the government was elected
in a free election the U.S. and Israel with the help of European Union
immediately started severely punishing the Palestinian population for voting in
the "wrong way" in a free election and that's what we mean by democracy. The
only substantive comment he made in the declaration was to say that the Arab
peace plan had constructive elements, because it called for a normalization of
relations with Israel and he urged the Arab states to proceed with the
normalization of relations. Now, he is an intelligent person, he knows that
that was not what the Arab peace plan said. The Arab peace plan called for a
two state settlement on the international border that is in accord with the
long standing international consensus that the U.S. has blocked for over 30
years and in that context of the two state settlement we should even proceed
further and move towards a normalization of relations with Israel. Well, Obama
carefully excluded the main content about the two state settlement and just
talked about the corollary, for which a two state settlement is a precondition.
Now that's not an oversight, it can't be. That's a careful wording, sending the
message that we are not going to change their (Israel's) rejectionist policy.
We'll continue to be opposed to the international consensus on this issue, and
everything else he said accords with it. We will continue in other words to
support Israel's settlement policies -- those policies are undermining any
possible opportunity or hope for a viable Palestinian entity of some kind. And
it's a continued reliance on force in both parts of occupied Palestine. That's
the only conclusion you could draw.
Voniati: Let U.S. talk about the timing of the assault on the Gaza Strip. Was
it accidental or did it purposefully happen in a vacuum of power? To explain
myself, the global financial crisis has challenged the almost absolute U.S.
global hegemony. Furthermore, the attack on Gaza was launched during the
presidential change of guard. So, did this vacuum of power benefit the Israeli
assault on Gaza?
Chomsky: Well, the timing was certainly convenient since attention was focused
elsewhere. There was no strong pressure on the president or other high
officials of the U.S. to say anything about it. I mean Bush was on his way out,
and Obama could hide behind the pretext that he's not yet in. And pretty much
the same was in Europe, so that they could just say, well we can't talk about
it now, it's too difficult a time. The assault was well chosen in that respect.
It was well chosen in other respects too: the bombing began shortly after Hamas
had offered a return to the 2005 agreement, which in fact was supported by the
U.S. They said, ok, let's go back to the 2005 agreement that was before Hamas
was elected. That means no violence and open the borders. Closing the borders
is a siege, it's an act of war... not very harmful but it's an act of war.
Israel of all countries insists on that. I mean Israel went to war twice in
1956 and 1967 on the grounds, it claimed, that its access to the outside world
was being hampered. It wasn't a siege, its access through the Gulf of Aqaba was
being hampered. Well if that is an act of war then certainly a siege is, and so
it's understood.
So Khaled Mashaal asked for an end of the state of the war, which would include
opening the borders. Well, a couple of days later, when Israel didn't react to
that, Israel attacked. The attack was timed for Saturday morning -- the Sabbath
day in Israel -- at about 11:30, which happens to be the moment when children
are leaving school and crowds are milling in the streets of this very heavily
crowded city. The explicit target was police cadets. Now, there are civilians,
in fact we now know that for several months the legal department of the Israeli
army had been arguing against this plan because it said it was a direct attack
against civilians. And of course, plenty civilians will be killed if you bomb a
crowded city, especially at a time like that. But finally the legal department
was sort of bludgeoned into silence by the military so they said alright. So
that's when they opened --on a Sabbath morning. Now two weeks later, Israel --
on Saturday as well -- blocked the humanitarian aid because they didn't want to
disgrace Sabbath. Well, that's interesting too. But the main point about the
timing was that there was an effort to undercut the efforts for a peaceful
settlement and it was terminated just in time to prevent pressure on Obama to
say something about it. It's hard to believe that this isn't conscious. We know
that it was very meticulously planned for many months beforehand.
Voniati: In a recent interview with LBC, you said that the policies of Hamas
are more conducive to peace than the United States' or Israel's.
Chomsky: Oh yes, that's clear.
Voniati: Also, that the policies of Hamas are closer to international consensus
on a political peaceful settlement than those of Israel and the U.S. Can you
explain your stance?
Chomsky: Well for several years Hamas has been very clear and explicit,
repeatedly, that they favor a two state settlement on the international border.
They said they would not recognize Israel but they would accept a two state
settlement and a prolonged truce, maybe decades, maybe 50 years. Now, that's
not exactly the international consensus but it's pretty close to it. On the
other hand, the United States and Israel flatly reject it. They reject it in
deeds, that's why they are building all the construction development activities
in the West Bank, not only in violation of international laws, U.S. and Israel
know that the illegal constructions are designed explicitly to convert the West
Bank into what the architect of the policy, Arial Sharon, called bantustan.
Israel takes over what it wants, break up Palestine into unviable fragments.
That's undermining a political settlement. So in deeds, yes of course they are
undermining it, but also in words: that goes back to 1976 when the U.S. vetoed
the Security Council resolution put forward by the Arab states which called for
a two state settlement and it goes around until today. In December, last
December, at the meetings of the UN's General Assembly there were many
resolutions passed. One of them was a resolution calling for recognition of the
right of self-determination of the Palestinian people. It didn't call for a
state, just the right of self-determination. It passed with 173 to 5. The 5
were the U.S, Israel and a few small pacific islands. Of course that can't be
reported in the U.S. So they are rejecting it even in words, as well as -- more
significantly- in acts. On the other hand, Hamas comes pretty close to
accepting it. Now, the demand which Obama repeated on Hamas is that they must
meet three conditions: they must recognize Israel's right to exist, they must
renounce violence and they must accept past agreements, and in particular the
Road Map. Well, what about the U.S. and Israel? I mean, obviously they don't
renounce violence, they reject the Road Map -- technically they accepted it but
Israel immediately entered 14 reservations (which weren't reported here) which
completely eliminated its content, and the U.S. went along. So the U.S. and
Israel completely violate those two conditions, and of course they violate the
first, they don't recognize Palestine. So sure, there's a lot to criticize
about Hamas, but on these matters they seem to be much closer to -- not only
international opinion -- but even to a just settlement than the U.S. and Israel
are.
Voniati: On the other hand, Hamas has been accused of using human shields to
hide and protect itself. Israel insists that the war was a matter of defense.
Is Hamas a terrorist organization, as it is accused to be? Is Israel a
terrorist state?
Chomsky: Well, Hamas is accused of using human shields, rightly or wrongly. But
we know that Israel does it all the time. Is Israel a terrorist state? Well yes
according to official definitions. I mean, one of the main things holding up
ceasefire right now is that Israel insists that it will not allow a ceasefire
until Hamas returns a captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit -- he's very famous
in the West everybody knows he was captured. Well, one day before Gilad Shalit
was captured, Israeli forces went into Gaza City and kidnapped two Palestinian
civilians (the Muamar Brothers) and brought them across the border to Israel in
violation of international law and hid them somewhere in the huge Israeli
prisons. Nobody knows what happened to them since. I mean, kidnapping civilians
is a much worse crime than capturing a soldier of an attacking army. And
furthermore this has been regular Israeli practice for decades. They've been
kidnapping civilians in Lebanon or on the high seas.They take them to Israel,
put them into prisons, sometimes keeping them as hostages for long periods. So
you know, if the capturing of Gilad Shalit is a terrorist act, well, then
Israel's regular practice supported by the U.S. is incomparably worse. And
that's quite apart from repeated aggression and other crimes.
Voniati: Though of Jewish decent, you have been repeatedly accused of
anti-Semitism. How do you respond?
Chomsky: The most important comment about that was made by the distinguished
statesman Abba Eban, maybe 35 years ago, in an address to the American people.
He said that there are two kinds of criticism of Zionism (by Zionism I mean the
policies of the state of Israel). One is criticism by anti-Semites and the
other is criticism by neurotic self-hating Jews. That eliminates 100% of
possible criticism. The neurotic self-hating Jews, he actually mentioned two, I
was one and I.F. Stone, a well-known writer was another). I mean that's the
kind of thing that would come out of a communist party in its worst days. But
you see, I can't really be called anti-Semite because I'm Jewish so I must be a
neurotic self-hating Jew, by definition. The assumption is that the policies of
the state of Israel are perfect, so therefore any kind of criticism must be
illegitimate. And that's from Abba Eban, one of the most distinguished figures
in Israel, the most westernized . praised, considered a dove.
(Source: Countercurrents.org)-
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