[Mb-civic] Chomsky on US Israel Palestine latest

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Noam Chomsky : US-Israel Strategic Relations 
"ZMag" - - 02/20/05 

There are real US-Israel conflicts, but they are not being reported in 
the US (they are in Israel). An important one right now is the conflict 
over Israel’s efforts to sell advanced military technology to China 
(Harpy drones), to which the US is strongly objecting, as it has in the 
past, when Clinton compelled Israel in 2000 to cancel its transfer of 
Phalcon technology to China, after Israeli authorities had sworn that 
they would never back down because of its enormous significance 
to Israel’s highly militarized high-tech economy. This goes way back. 

On the end of the Arafat era offering new hopes, that’s true in only 
one respect: US-Israel are hoping that a new leadership may be 
more willing to accept unchanged US-Israeli demands. I can only 
refer you to my posting on the commentary on Arafat’s death. 
We need not waste time [on] our Dear Leader’s [Bush’s] “efforts to 
spread democracy,” etc. It’s normal, not only here, for the more 
obsequious commentators to worship at the shrine of the political 
leadership, who are always proclaiming noble visions. That’s why no 
serious analyst ever pays the slightest attention to declarations of 
virtuous intent by political leaders, which carry precisely zero 
information because they are completely predictable, including 
Hitler, Stalin, Japanese fascists, and virtually anyone else you can 
think of. 

...The question [regarding a change in strategic relations with Israel] 
always is: Where’s the evidence? 
One bit of evidence is indeed put forth, with enormous enthusiasm 
in fact: the Sharon-Abbas cease-fire. The gushing is 
understandable. The cease-fire is an enormous victory for the US-
Israeli rejectionism which, since Kissinger, has blocked political 
settlement. The cease-fire is to be welcomed: better no killing than 
killing. But take a careful look at the terms. The framework is 
entirely that of US-Israeli rejectionism: Palestinian resistance, even 
against the occupying army, must cease. Nothing could delight US-
Israeli hawks more than complete peace, which would enable them 
to pursue, unhindered, the policies of US-Israeli takeover of the 
valuable land and resources of the West Bank, and huge 
infrastructure projects to break up the remaining Palestinian 
territories into unviable cantons. That has been the core issue of the 
conflict for years, and there is not a single word about it in the 
cease-fire agreement. Last year, US-backed Israeli settlement 
programs increased the illegal settler population by 6%, to 
450,000—counting “East Jerusalem,” illegally annexed in violation 
of Security Council orders, but with a wink from the US, since 
expanded enormously, and now recognized by the US as part of 
Israel—tacitly by the press, which even goes so far as to say that 
the illegal wall—also not mentioned—separates the West Bank from 
Israel. Bush virtually put the stamp of official approval on it. It would 
be hard to imagine a clearer and more complete victory for US-
Israeli rejectionism. The Abbas government accepted it, much as 
the Arafat-led “Tunis” PLO accepted Clinton’s doctrine that all UN 
resolutions are “obsolete and anachronistic”—opening the way, as 
predicted, to the continuation of the US-backed Israeli settlement 
programs that continued without a break through the Oslo years, 
reaching their highest level (pre-Sharon-Bush) in 2000, the last year 
for Clinton and Barak. One might argue that it’s the best they can do 
as long as the US keeps to its unilateral rejectionism, and the 
population here let’s it happen. But that’s a separate question. 
There’s no indication that I can see that anything has changed. 

There’s a somewhat more general issue that is settled by the 
cease-fire agreement. The strongest UN condemnation of terrorism, 
passed at Reaganite initiative in 1987, had unanimous support 
(Honduras alone abstaining), apart from the US and Israel, which 
voted against it. As they explained, the offending passage was one 
that endorsed the right of resistance in accord with the UN Charter 
against racist and colonialist regimes (meaning their close ally 
Apartheid South Africa) and foreign military occupation (meaning 
Israel). Unreported, as usual, when the facts shed an improper light 
on the character of US elites. Now the US and Israel have won that 
battle. Military occupation is declared legitimate, and no resistance 
to it is tolerable. Another great victory for the rule of force, and 
demonstration of the importance of a subservient intellectual 
community. 

I’d like to be optimistic, and will leap at any straw in the wind. But so 
far I see nothing real. 
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
   ---   George Orwell


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