Chomsky and Palestine
An article calling Noam Chomsky too soft on Israel and even an enabler of Israeli government crimes .... Not necessarily my view of Professor C, and not meant as one of the usual BS right-wing attacks on him for having 12 houses and dancing on Cambodian graves, but interesting....
Although I had previously criticized Chomsky for downplaying the influence of the pro-Israel lobby on Washington’s Middle East policies, [4]. I had hesitated to write a critique of his overall approach for the reasons noted. Nevertheless, I was convinced that while, ironically, having provided perhaps the most extensive documentation of Israeli crimes, he had, at the same time immobilized, if not sabotaged, the development of any serious effort to halt those crimes and to build an effective movement in behalf of the Palestinian cause.
An exaggeration? Hardly. A number of statements made by Chomsky have demonstrated his determination to keep Israel and Israelis from being punished or inconvenienced for the very monumental transgressions of decent human behavior that he himself has passionately documented over the years. This is one of the glaring contradictions in Chomsky’s work. He would have us believe that Israel’s occupation and harsh actions against the Palestinians, its invasions and undeclared 40 years war on Lebanon, and its arming of murderous regimes in Central America and Africa during the Cold War, has been done as a client state in the service of US interests. In Chomsky’s world view, that absolves Israel of responsibility and has become standard Chomsky doctrine.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article143519.html
It should be mentioned that this very well-researched and thoughtful article is over 2 years old.
BTW what is this thread doing in Humanities and Science? Is this not about International Politics?
"Exterminate all the Brutes": Gaza 2009
Perhaps the article above, where he does engage to a great extent in naming names and pointing fingers, is partially a response to the article in the OP. Although he didn't mention AIPAC.
Note that Chomsky consistently refers to the "US-Israeli attack" on Gaza. He makes it sound as if it were some joint military operation.
it was a joint military operation. there were plenty of American defense contractors on the ground in Egypt, taking notes about how their war toys perform in real time. for example
http://www.l-3com.com/seo/products/mx12.htm
one of the cameras used on UAV drones.
that, plus America's $2 billion a year in military aid to Israel makes it quite a joint effort.
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Maybe not "joint" in the sense that the D-Day landings were a joint British-American (Juno Beach is an odd footnote in most non-Canadian histories) operation, but most of the ordnance used against Arabs by the Israelis over the last 35 years was made in America. If you factor in the political support the US gives to the Zionist entity, it's obvious that this was a joint operation.
Well then you might as well throw in Germany, France, Canada, and a bunch of other countries that supply weaponry, explosives, and parts to the IDF.
The point is that Chomsky is still doing exactly what the article in the OP accused him of doing: trying to paint Israel as a puppet of the United States, and not an independent actor in its own right.
I think that one of the reasons US support for South Africa was allowed to dissolve was because the cold war had ended about three years before apartheid was sent packing by 1994.
But this is the colder war, and Israel is still an important frontline state for them in the Middle East. We can be sure that whatever sanctions are lowered on Israel, the US would undermine them by increasing the multi billion dollar a year aid sent to that country ever year.
Better to sanction the imperial master nation responsible for propping up more brutal dictatorships and repressive regimes than just Israel. To sanction just Israel would be suggesting that Israel is the sum total of the vicious empire's evil doings, or that Israel is able to carry on the way it does as a standalone fascist state. And that's just not true.
So much horseshit I hardly know where to begin.
They are certainly in the league of countries that have sovereign governments that are capable of making war on their own initiative. So is Israel.
Widely, by you and Fidel and a handful of others who don't know what a colony is and have no understanding that Canada is an imperialist nation in its own right, as well as a junior partner with the imperialism of the USA. So is Israel.
So Germany is selling parts for weapons and vehicles to Israel because they feel guilty about the holocaust? Yeah, that must be it.
Who will the Germans sell to, if and when they start feeling guilt for the destruction of the Palestinians in Gaza?
Yeah, right.
"Joint" doesn't imply either equality or a senior/junior relationship. It merely implies a common participation. Ever heard of the expression "Joint Canada-U.S." or "Joint Canada-Afghan"? Does that mean we're equal partners?
The important implication of "joint US-Israel [military] operation" is that US and Israeli troops are participating in the operation, and that both have some sort of input into controlling decisions. There is no evidence of that at all. A military campaign is not "joint" just because somebody else supplied some of the hardware. Was the Falkland Islands war a "joint Anglo-French operation" because the British used French-made Exocet missiles?
By using that "joint US-Israeli" phrase Chomsky is clearly pursuing an agenda. He wants to paint Israel as the helpless tool of US imperialism, and thereby deflect responsibility for its crimes. He wants us to believe that the destruction of Gaza was an idea cooked up in Washington, not Jerusalem. I'm not buying any of it.
No. That is not what he is saying.
What he is saying is that they are part of the same entity of expressed power relations. So much as to say, the various power brokers in the US elite, also engage in joint actions, and have mutually beneficial alliances, even though their "interests" do not always coincide. The fact that there is nominal independence, and even competitions, between the elites of the US ruling aparatus, does not prevent us from considering their joint actions, as a single entity under the mantle of the US government.
Israel is very much a product of these elites and the people who represent and manage the Israel project, are very much a part of the US ruling aparatus, and business elite, both in the US and in Israel. Many of the individuals even hold joint citizenship in both countries. There is no reason they should not be considered as an extension of those same relations when expressed as "joint operations".
Preventing the appearance of stable Arab national entities with loyalty to local interests and not the US, is one such "joint operation" and has been for some time. Constant war with the Palestinians, has proven to be an effective means of destablizing the entire Arab world, though numerous means. For example, the appearance of masses of Palestinian refugees severly destabalized Jordan. The war in Lebanon prevented the emergence of a centralized national government, based on a consensus between the multi-ethnic communities. The very same forces that are represented in the Palestinian liberation movement, such as the Muslim Bortherhood, are the most direct threat to the Regieme of Hosni Mubarak, and so on and so on.
All of this instability makes Middle Eastern governments very pliable.
Furthermore, the appearance of the independence of Israel from the US repeatedly appears as part of the PR campaign used to cover the perpetuation of this instability through violent means.
There is plenty of evidence of this happening. There is a code in US/Israeli relations, where the so callied independent decisions of the Israeli government are clearly approved of by the US, but only unofficially. They do what the US would like to do, but can not be seen to be doing.
For example, the bombing of the Oziraq nuclear reactor facility in Iraq was something condemned officially by the US government, but condoned in private.
Was it the Israelis' idea to ship arms to Georgia in recent years?
How did Israel, Pakistan, and apartheid South Africa get their mitts on nuclear weapons technology?
Which country has sold weapons or training to nearly 90% of countries it has listed as harboring terrorists?
Which country sells more armaments and military training to undemocratic regimes and gross human rights violators than any other?
Which country's military-industrial complex are the most prolific arms merchants in the world?
I tend to agree with Chomsky when he says it is cowardly to bully the bully's colonials. Apartheid South Africa is no more, but no thanks to pressuring countries like Israel to stop trading with South Africa. These vicious colonials seem to surface everywhere in the world like leaks in an old rubber garden hose. There comes a time when a farmer realizes that patching leaks in the rotten hose is a waste of time and effort.
What I dont understand is Chomsky's suggestion that pursuing a real investigation of 9-11 events is futile. There were several babblers who, I think, agreed with Chomsky on that one. Since GW I to 9-11, all three Bush administrations and friends in armaments industries pushed hard to lift restrictions on weapons sales to the Middle East and arming both Israel and its most vaunted enemies to the eye teeth.
Latest from Chomsky on ZNet:
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. (...)
It's cynicism at the colliery!
Blankforts piece is utter shit. Distortion, and grave misconception and simplistic dogma, parading as analysis.
As I described in my previous post on this topic, Chomsky's essential thesis is:
By pliable, I mean exploitable. Chomsky has been quite clear on these points, where has Blankfort been? Hanging out with Jewish, sorry, I mean "Zionist" conspiracy theorists? Blankfort's clear mission is to insert the whole concept of the US being contolled from without by foreign (Jewish) interests.
So, Blankfort, muses. One asks: If AIPAC is not "little more than a preassure group", then what is it? A secret cabal running the US government perhaps? Perhaps Blankfort should make himself clear on precisely this point as to what he thinks AIPAC really is, if not a lobby group?
But lets not dwell on that, lets look further at Blankforts almost pristine idiocy.
Somehow, Chomsky failure to use the word, "Apartheid" because he thinks it is "inflamatory" is converted into Chomsky whitewashing Israel's criminal behaviour, when in fact, in response to this question, he is point blank agreeing with the statement that Israel is similar to Apartheid, but is just just not using the word" "I think it’s sufficient to just describe the situation," Chomsky says.
But out comes the list of people who make the case that Israel is an Apartheid state. But where has Chomsky every contradicted those people, or the observations they made? Nowhere. But Blankfort seem to think that lack of affirmative support for these descriptions is, in essence, denial of them. Lets not get to lost here. What did Chomsky say? He said: "I don’t use it myself, to tell you the truth. Just like I don’t [often] use the term "empire".
Not a hint of objection at all, merely a statement of personal preference of style. But Blankfort makes Chomsky's failure to conform to the approved terminology de facto objection to it. Or to put it another way, that Chomsky is "objectively" a supporter of Israeli Apartheid because of his failure to denounce it in the manner that Blankfort would prefer.
Again and again Blankfort challenges Chomsky for not saying what Blankfort wants to hear in bold print, suggesting that Chomsky's failure to explicitly call for people to contact their "Congressional representatives or senators regarding their support for aid to Israel", is some kind of indicator of complicity, as if Americans are too stupid to understand what someone is saying when they say, as Chomsky has just finished saying: "What we ought to do is push for changes in US policy. Now it makes good sense to press for not sending attack helicopters to Israel, for example. In fact it makes very good sense to try to get some newspaper in the United States to report the fact that it’s happening."
What more does Blankfort want from Chomsky? Him to hand out the phone number and addresses of the Senate and House representives? Do teach-ins on how to organize a demonstration? What precisely?
Blankforts piece is an absurd piece of political smearing based on prevarication about Chomsky's indirect personal manner. He makrs a mountain out Chomsky's failure to spell things out explicitly enough for Blankfort.
Why is this a problem for Blankfort? Well, Blankfort is just too stupid to read between the lines.
And really? Why bother with this attack? What purpose does it serve in the grand scheme? So what if Chomsky occassional gets sentimental about Israel or his Zionist origins? Are we spending any time trashing Yuri Avnery because he doesn't precisely spell out the exactly correct political line according to some people?
What do I think? I think Blankfort is pissed off because because Chomsky's thesis undermines Blankforts unstated desire to forward his theory about the US government being run by AIPAC, and other simplistic nonsense that Blankfort can piece together out of his dim imagination.
And America is just a tool of Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Haiti, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Georgia, Poland, Ukraine, and all.
And thanks to CUSFTA and NAFTA, Canadian imperialists have practically taken over corporate America and dictating America's national energy policy.
Perhaps it's because Chomsky realizes that Israel recieves more foreign aid from the US than is donated to any other country. In addition, a US veto would likely shield Israel from UN sanctions. Not many colonial outpost nations have permanent UNSC membership.
Okay let me get this straight.
1. The cold war was a figment of mine and Chomsky's imagination - and Israel is no longer a frontline state but its own expansionist imperial superpower in the Middle East.
2. The US is a willing tool for any tiny nation to use.
and,
3. Being the weak colonial outposts that they are, the US and Britain would eventually knuckle under at some point and support UN sanctions against Israel, because Anglo-American elites would fear importing revolution from Russia, or perhaps imperialist bully nation Canada, or some such
I think it will take some convincing
If you are responding to me, nothing you have just said is at all relevant to what I said.
Ya whatever. You basically took Chomsky's side and piled on Blankford. So what? Trade sanctions are comparable to puny men with puny minds and resorting to using sledgehammers in Chinaware shop to swat flies. Eventually some flies expire long before they are mashed by the hammer.
Genocidal trade sanctions amount to political interference in the targeted country's democracy.
Genocidal trade sanctions did work to cause starvation and unnecessary suffering in Iraq.
And evidence for economic sanctions working toward regime change in apartheid South Africa is mostly anecdotal. Their's was a fascist regime, and it only came to an end when a non-white South African was freed from prison and allowed to run for election. Trade sanctions are a failure of governments to use diplomacy to arriive at democratic solutions.
The UN, UNSC, WTO and IMF all operate by either the rules of a handful few member nations or not at all due to lopsided veto power of permament and long time member countries dictating their agendas. These UN and Bretton Woods institutions need democratizing.
The case for genocidal trade sanctions is a weak one.
Trade sanctions are an act of aggression and war and should be outlawed with the exception of war or by a country's refusal to accept UN peacekeepers when necessary.
Jack Layton and the NDP were correct about the recent slaughter of innocent people in Gaza. What Palestinians and Israelis needed were UN troops to enforce a ceasefire and maintain the peace with authority to shoot back if necessary. What the Israelis pulled in December-January was an act of war. Crimes were committed, and UN intervention was needed at that point not sanctions taking years more to play out while the most vulnerable are punished and most privileged on both sides of the conflict live in the lap of luxury to the bitter end, but not silence from Ottawa as a show of solidarity with that country which is infamous for laying medieval siege to whole nations of people because their leaders dare to defy the vicious empire, or for merely double crossing Crazy George's father and Maggie ten years prior.
And Chomsky blew Blankford away with his answers. Nuff said.
Sorry there are no major parties in Canada that represent any part of Chomsky's position, on anything.
Guess who is fifth on this list
yeah, I thought the article was a lousy hatchet-job; what in the name of fuck is going to be accomplished by bringing down a Chomsky? Pettyminded tool, the author...
I cant see any sanction regime having any significant economic impact particularly with strong American state support...but I DO see mobilizing around a boycott as a key instrument in building on the international consciousness-raising Israel has just effected. It would serve to develop and unite efforts to pressure that state; such sanctions might start incrementally but bootstrap themselves into a more than symbolic role.
Do I think that is going to be enough? Well, no. But we heard for instance how Greece refused to dock the American war materiel ship, and there must have been many such incidents which mysteriously failed to appear in our sterling media...and such acts are a reflection of a general level of understanding of the situation. If we could get such an understanding on the ground in the very belly of the beast - or just Canada - how would this not have an effect?
I've read some blogs where young Jewish people comment. A few of them expressed the concern that went something like, the Arabs have too much land and Jews not enough. And I looked at their linked-to map of the Middle East, and I have to agree with them. Arabs do own a lot more land spanning several countries than Israelis do in Israel. What does anyone make of that? Is this fair? And do surrounding Muslim and Arab nations offer to take in Palestinian refugees with open arms immigration policies?
How about the Arabs offer to take in the Israeli squatters, and leave the Palestinians in peace?
That is completely stupid and racist. How about White people have too much land all in all. I mean, really we have all of North America, large chunks of South America and everything in Europe up to the Urals basically.
Oh wait, we are Russians, Czechs, English, Americans etc. etc. Only a complete dullard like you would fail to see that there are distinctions betwen Arabs, such as some are Syrian Arabs, others are Gulf Arabs, Egyptians and so on.
Why should Egyptians be forced to take care of Palestinians. This is like saying that the Scots have some inate responsibility to take in Irish people because they are also white.
Idiot.
Okay, and thanks for pointing out my dullardness and idiocy. I confess. But I still see a point in what those young people were getting at from a broader perspective. Most of the best arable land and choice real estate around the world is owned exclusively by some one, corporation, or by some government as natural park preserves. And real estate in some countries, like Japan for example, is ridiculously expensive. What if there was a general re-ordering of things whereby common lands are created for use by people who own no land, and-or for people to use and manage and enjoy for themselves inclusively? What if there really was a global free market in labour and no restrictions on where people can live and work? ie. erase all political boundaries on the map world-wide